Steve Phelps says more cities want a NASCAR steet race

Chicago is set to host the first NASCAR street race in the 2023 season

On July 2, 2023, NASCAR is creating something new for the stock car racing sanction. A race track has been drawn out of the city streets of Downtown Chicago, Illinois.

NASCAR set to race in the streets of Chicago

Street racing has been done before. The NTT Indycar Series opens their schedule on the Streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. But, it’s a new venture for NASCAR.

The streets were scanned by iRacing, an online racing simulator. NASCAR officials then tried various formats in a digital world to come up with the final layout of the street circuit.

Before the green flag drops on the event, more cities want in…

Steve Phelps says there’s interest for more NASCAR street races

“I don’t know what our ‘24 schedule is going to look like, but it’s going to have more changes in it, for sure,” NASCAR President Steve Phelps told Racer.com.

“Until such time as the fan base says ‘enough’, we’re going to continue to drive change throughout our industry. It’s change that really either delivers a better product or brings it to a market where there’s significant demand for our racing.”

“Since we announced the Chicago street course, the number of cities that have reached out to NASCAR is significant, saying, ‘Hey, we would love to have a street course with NASCAR.’ Now, we’re going to certainly wait to see how this first street course goes before we would make any commitments anywhere else.”

Phelps added, “It’s going to continue to evolve in terms of what the schedule looks like, but in general, I think what you’ve seen as a result of schedule variation, what we do from diversity, equity, inclusion standpoint, or any number of the other changes that are happening within the sport, they’re bringing a relevance gain in the overall kind of population of this country and around the world.”

Chicago Art Museum concerned about NASCAR street race

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NASCAR Chicago | NASCAR

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