AJ Allmendinger admits that it’ll be difficult to take in the moment on Sunday evening — to look from the seat of his car and see the skyscrapers and fountains and parks that’ll make the Chicago Street Race unique.
He’ll be the one putting on the show, after all.
“I’m sure under yellow, I’ll probably take a glance at the city skyline and look around,” Allmendinger told reporters with a smile on Wednesday. “But you know, for me, although it almost seems like a life ago, this is what I used to do a lot. Getting between all these buildings. Street racing. It was really cool.
“But the walls, they get so tall. And you’re just going to have to be 100 percent focused at all times.”
One of the coolest predicted results of the race coming up on Sunday — the one where NASCAR Cup cars will cut through the heart of downtown Chicago for the first time in the sport’s 75-year history — will be the imagery that result from the race. Bulky stock cars in a big city. Neon paint schemes flashing down South Columbus Drive. Engines roaring as they file down pit lane in front of Buckingham Fountain.
Drivers might not get to experience that, said Allmendinger — one of the best road-course racers in the circuit and one of a handful of Cup drivers with substantive street racing experience.
But fans will.
And bringing the race “to the people” — even if there are a bunch of unknowns for what the actual racing will be like — is the primary purpose behind this event.
“The parties, the concerts — that’s kind of what street racing is about in a way,” Allmendinger said. “Setting up events for people who have never been to a race, and you’re really bringing NASCAR to the people and having them come check it out.”
Chicago Street Race president Julie Giese told The Charlotte Observer in May that the industry expects about 50,000 people to descend on downtown Chicago on Saturday (for the Xfinity Series race) and Sunday (for the Cup race).
Of those 50,000 people, approximately 70% are people who have never purchased tickets to a NASCAR race before.
That’s great, drivers said.
But the racing will certainly be challenging.
The 2.2-mile, 12-turn, first-tested-over-iRacing racetrack will make you sweat just looking at it. There are seven 90-degree turns and straightaways that could feature speeds of up to 160 miles per hour, drivers estimate.
It’s new, and it’s particularly new for this Next Gen car, which still has shown areas of improvement for road-course racing. That’s made it difficult — even in the simulator — for Cup drivers to know what to expect before they lay down laps in practice/qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
“We’re kind of guessing on a target lap time,” Corey LaJoie said Wednesday. “Nobody has any clue what it’s going to be. And I’m sure the track is going to change a lot from the start of the weekend to the end of the weekend as it takes rubber, and also as guys start to figure it out.”
Michael McDowell agrees.
“I’ve been able to do a fair amount of sim work, and I have some more this week as well,” said McDowell, driver of the 34 car for Front Row Motorsports. “As far as how realistic it’ll be, I’ll let you know on Friday and Saturday after we see it and walk it. There’s been some repaving, some transitions moved out, and some surface areas that have been added and redone. So I think (the sim) is probably exaggerating a little bit of the worst, but we’ll see.”
Drivers being cautiously optimistic — or downright skeptical about the product that’ll be put on display on Sunday — isn’t new.
Kyle Busch, for instance, spoke of the course’s narrow turns all the way back in April. He did so right before the race at Richmond Raceway, a week after the race at Circuit of the Americas that led to a bunch of overtimes because drivers kept wrecking each other on restarts.
“And the Chicago road course, who knows what the hell is gonna happen there,” Busch said at the time. “If somebody gets turned sideways in one corner, it’s gonna be a track block. And so that’s going to be interesting.
“So I mean single-file (overtime restarts) for Chicago, I think there’s no question that you can’t go without it.”
A bunch of drivers have espoused mixed feelings like this — of excitement for the event but caution for the actual racing product. Denny Hamlin has. Ryan Blaney has. Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s de facto spokesperson for the event, hosted a block party in the city’s downtown on Wednesday that drew about as much media attention as the race itself might, a spectacle before the spectacle.
But if the point is to introduce people to NASCAR — then the point is getting across.
And that’s enough for the principal participators.
“I kind of laugh: Nashville Superspeedway is cool, but we aren’t in Nashville,” Allmendinger said. “A lot of the industry stayed in Nashville, but the race isn’t in Nashville. It’s in Lebanon. Just like Homestead-Miami (Speedway). Well, it’s not in Miami, it’s in Homestead. It’s 45 minutes to an hour away from the big city. With this, we’re really bringing the race to the city, to the people, for them to check it out.”
Allmendinger added: “I don’t know how the race is going to be. The race could be great. The race could be boring. I don’t know. But what’s going to be going on with all the concerts, all the festivities, it’s big for the sport to try this. And I think we just all gotta have an open mind.”
