NASCAR can’t catch a break in Chicago. Rains once again impeded this year’s race, albeit not at the biblical levels that overwhelmed the inaugural event last year.
To suffer yet another rain-marred street race was unfortunate and not just because of the negative effect on television ratings and the in-person audience. The summer rains also make it difficult for the city to assess whether NASCAR’s Chicago event is worth making it a summer staple, in the way, for example, that Lollapalooza now is.
On the minus side, there’s no disputing that NASCAR is a significant headache for Chicagoans. Getting from the South Side to the North Side, and vice versa, was miserable, with DuSable Lake Shore Drive closed through Grant Park for the weekend. Anyone trying to travel from south of downtown to any points north was doing something truly ambitious — and arguably foolhardy. On Monday, a workday, the closings remained massively disruptive.
Likewise, Mayor Brandon Johnson and police Superintendent Larry Snelling on Monday had to defend the deployment of officers for NASCAR while other parts of the city were enduring another distressingly violent summer weekend. With three mass shootings over the weekend, the question posed to them about whether neighborhood policing suffered as a result of NASCAR was a good one. Snelling said the department committed far fewer officers to NASCAR than last year and police response to problems in other parts of the city didn’t suffer.
Still, the mayor to his credit made clear that, in the future, he thinks the Fourth of July weekend may not be the right time to host NASCAR given the violent crime surge that typically accompanies the holiday. He said he is open to considering other times during the summer.
We agree the timing ought to be reconsidered. And we would go one step further and assert that the jury remains out on whether NASCAR ought to become a fixture of downtown Chicago summers going forward.
The city ought to give NASCAR one more run next year with no guarantees for what comes after. Let’s hope the weather gods give us a break, so NASCAR can get a fair, and fair-weather, chance to demonstrate that the benefits it provides the city outweigh the hassles. After next year’s race, though, Johnson and the City Council should perform a hard-headed analysis before deciding NASCAR’s future here. The public, too, should be part of that decision in the form of hearings and quality polling.
Before the rains came down on Sunday, there were disturbing signs that race weekend wasn’t catching on the way it should. Crowds for the musical acts before the race were embarrassingly sparse, and that wasn’t for lack of star power. The Black Keys, for example, have filled stadiums in the past, and though they aren’t the draw they were in their prime years, NASCAR was their only U.S. show this year.
Last year’s event didn’t meet expectations for economic impact, either, although those numbers came with a big fat asterisk thanks to the deluge. The interest will be high for this year’s figures, which will be far more revealing, since the rain didn’t dominate the overall proceedings quite the way it did in 2023.
There are virtues to NASCAR that go beyond tax revenues, hotel stays and cash registers ringing at restaurants and bars. The gorgeous views of downtown Chicago are no small part of what makes the race so distinctive. Viewers from around the country are treated to an hourslong advertisement for a city that these days can use all the good PR it can get, especially in the red states where our city often plays the role of punching bag.
All of the above should be part of the calculus in city officials’ deliberations. Like a lot of Chicagoans, we suspect, we’re not sold on NASCAR here, but we’re not closed-minded either. It’s not an easy call.
But if 2025 is the final year Chicagoans hear the roar of stock cars’ engines on DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, we can say this with confidence: The NASCAR experiment will have been one worth trying.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.