The Chicago Street Race will return for its third year during July Fourth weekend 2025, NASCAR announced Thursday.
The nationally televised Cup Series race and Xfinity Series preliminary will hit the streets July 5-6, fulfilling the city’s three-year deal with NASCAR to turn Grant Park into a pop-up race course.
“The Chicago Street Race Weekend has quickly become one of the highlights of the Chicago summer calendar, so we are proud to bring NASCAR back to this great city for a third year in a row,” Julie Giese, Chicago Street Race president, said in a news release. “We look forward to continuing to build on the tremendous success of 2023 and 2024 to deliver one of the most unique sporting events in the country and continuing to help drive tourism to Chicago.”
The return of the Chicago Street Race headlined NASCAR’s 2025 schedule release Thursday, and comes less than two months after completing the 2024 version. Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism arm, confirmed Thursday the decision to bring back NASCAR for year three.
NASCAR touted the 2024 street race as driving tourism from 24 countries and generating millions in taxes, fees and payments for Chicago, but an expected full economic impact study has yet to be published.
The rain-soaked inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023 drew 79,299 attendees from 15 countries and all 50 states, generating $108.9 million in total economic impact and $23.6 million in media exposure, according to a study conducted by Temple University’s Sport Industry Research Center for Choose Chicago.
While attendance and revenue numbers have yet to be published, last month’s street race event, which ran July 6-7, certainly saw lower rainfall totals than the first year, where torrential downpours disrupted the entire weekend.
The Chicago Street Race features a 12-turn, 2.2-mile pop-up course through Grant Park, down DuSable Lake Shore Drive and up Michigan Avenue, which are closed off and lined with temporary fences, grandstands and hospitality suites. The Grant Park 165 was downsized this summer from 100 to 75 laps, the de facto length of last year’s rain-shortened Cup Series race.
But once again, it didn’t quite make it to the designated finish line, when rain delays forced officials to call the 2024 Cup Series race after 58 laps as sunset fell on the unlit street course.
Under the terms of a three-year deal struck during former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, NASCAR agreed to pay the Chicago Park District a $500,000 permit fee in 2023, $550,000 this year and $605,000 in 2025, with an option to renew for two years. In addition, NASCAR agreed to pay a $2 fee per admission ticket, and an escalating commission for food, beverage and merchandise sold at the event.
Both NASCAR and the Park District have the right to terminate the agreement by providing written notice at least 180 days before the next event.
Last October, Mayor Brandon Johnson committed to the second Chicago Street Race weekend, with NASCAR shaving six days off the setup and breakdown schedule, reducing it from 25 to 19 days.
NASCAR also agreed to pay the city an additional $2 million to cover police overtime and other expenses associated with the event.
But the city did not commit to the 2024 race until the economic impact study had been published for the first race. On Thursday, the city took a leap of faith, greenlighting the 2025 return ahead of the economic impact study from last month’s race.
One metric that the city had in hand was national TV viewership for the 2024 event. The extended broadcast of the Grant Park 165 on NBC, broken up by nearly two hours of programming filler as the street course shut down during a steady summer rain, averaged 3.87 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.
In 2023, the inaugural July Fourth weekend event navigated record rainfall that curtailed races, canceled concerts and left remaining fans soaked. But the TV broadcast averaged nearly 4.8 million viewers, the most watched Cup Series race on NBC since 2017.
In addition to the return of the Chicago Street Race, the 2025 NASCAR schedule features 37 other races, including a new international Cup Series event in Mexico City on June 15.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
