The Chicago Street Race has a unique 12 turn course through downtown Chicago, making it different from any other NASCAR race. ChronicleNASCAR analyst Benjamin Sherman walks through the three-stages of the race and highlights key drivers to watch, including drivers Shane Van Gisbergen and Will Brown, who have recently been strong performers in recent circuits. This year’s Chicago event in the South Loop on July 5 and July 6 marks the final race under the city’s original three-year contract with NASCAR.
TRANSCRIPT:
0:09: Hi, everyone.
0:10: Welcome to Chron TV.
0:11: I’m Benjamin Sherman, a NASCAR analyst for the Columbia Chronicle.
0:14: Today we’re talking about more NASCAR.
0:17: There are many key elements of NASCAR that I’m going to break down for you to try to understand and make it easy for everyone at home to go watch, OK?
0:26: so the key things are as of like 2010-ish, they have three different stages of the race, that breaks into thirds and basically, Every time that a third of the race is over, they will back up, back up, lap cars will unlap themselves, and they will start again as if it’s a race restart and it’s very entertaining for these stages and also a key element is not much happens on the first stage.
0:52: So yeah, stage 2 and
0:54: especially stage 3, where you get those huge, huge pileups.
0:58: There are 30 oval races, 5 road courses and there’s one street circuit, and that is, yes, the Chicago street circuit.
1:08: every oval course, the drivers only turn left, they drive an oval and
1:13: all these other courses, the other 6, which are not very many, the drivers will turn right and left, this basically means the cars and the teams have to bring a different car and really, the drivers have to bring a different mentality in order to do well in these races and you’ll
1:29: oftentimes see drivers that perform poorly in
1:31: the oval races doing very, very well at these three courses like Shane Van Gisbergen and Will Brown.
1:39: Will Brown making his second NASCAR race at Chicago in 2025.
1:43: Very excited to see his performance there.
1:45: OK, I’m also gonna break down the track a little bit.
1:47: I have a little map with me.
1:49: OK, so I’m gonna walk you through our lap.
1:52: This is the start here in Columbus, right here, then they can immediately turn on
1:58: Balbo and then they turn on Lake Shore Drive, pretty slow elements in the front except for turn one here, lots of crashes, especially the 2023.
2:07: There were two pileups right there and turn 3, now they corner, turn 4 very tight, turn 5 back at Columbus.
2:15: They have this very tight corner here, next to turn 1 and turn 6.
2:19: They’re right next to each other.
2:20: These are very tight 90 degree turns down Balbo, turn 7, on to Michigan, and then one of my favorite elements of the track, probably my favorite, they have a half circle, OK.
2:31: This is very hard.
2:32: It’s basically flat out these cars because they’re coming very slow at the last corner.
2:35: They’re completely flat out all the way through this corner, OK?
2:40: And then on to turn 11, one of the other hardest corners, many pile ups there, especially in 2024 with the rain.
2:46: The current forecast is 50% chance of rain on Sunday and a 30% chance of rain on Saturday.
2:52: And I’m hoping for a little bit of rain.
2:54: We’ll see.
2:56: But NASCAR is very timid when it comes to the rain.
3:00: We saw in 2023, there was like a three-hour delay.
3:03: They made the fans get out of the stands.
3:05: They made them basically go home and come back later if they wanted to watch and yeah, 2024, a little bit more organized.
3:12: There was still a rain delay.
3:14: Both years, the race was shortened due to the delays, and so we have never had a full race in Chicago.
3:21: I’m hoping for one this year, although the first year was supposed to be 220 laps.
3:25: This year they’ve changed it to 165.
3:28: We’re gonna run a full race, hopefully we will soon.
3:30: Some key drivers to look out for Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, who won last week in Atlanta, Georgia.
3:36: He was one of only 4 drivers to not be in a collision the whole race, and with that, he won, and like I said, Will Brown.
3:43: Very, very promising.
3:45: It’s only a 2nd NASCAR’s Cup series race ever, but I expect him to be in the top 5 very, very fast.
3:52: Shane Van Gisbergen, who won, 2023, definitely a driver to look out for and Yeah, both of these drivers are incredibly good at these courses because they’re more used to courses that are tight and have both right and left turns, something NASCAR doesn’t have very many of, and they had pretty poor performance in the mobile circuit so far, but like I said, Shane Van Gisbergen won in 2023.
4:18: It’s one of the only NASCAR wins.
4:21: So these drivers really, really looking to perform, outperform really their their teams and their respective competitors because these are much closer to their home races with very tight tracks, and this is a tight track.
4:35: It is probably the tightest NASCAR track ever.
4:40: Worth mentioning is Chicago had its first NASCAR race in 1956 in Soldier Field.
4:45: They used to do
4:47: NASCAR, right here in Chicago in the 50s and 60s, NASCAR were racing around Chicago still, and the first one to come back was in 2023 at the Chicago street race.
4:57: So remember, when you’re watching at home, keep a close eye on Shane Van Gisbergen, Will Brown gonna be performing very well there, I’m hoping.
5:05: And also stage 2, stage 3, usually when the action happens.
5:10: It’s just important to get those catch those restarts.
5:12: You don’t want to miss them.
5:13: They pack the whole group back together and they start again.
5:16: It’s like the race restarts, my favorite parts of the race.
5:19: Make sure to follow us and stay tuned for more NASCAR updates this weekend.
Copy edited by Manuel Nocera
