NASCAR’s Chicago weekend presents various unprecedented events, and a debut winner

CHICAGO — When NASCAR organized the inaugural Chicago Street Course race to take place on Independence Day Weekend, it knew there would be some unprecedented events to occur.

And almost everything that transpired was unprecedented — or at least hadn’t happened in a very long time.

The most astounding aspect of the weekend was undoubtedly the victory by the three-time champion of the Australian Supercars series Shane van Gisbergen. The Auckland, New Zealand native raced the Project 91 entry for Trackhouse Racing, qualified third, and became the first driver to win in his NASCAR Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford did so in a Daytona qualifying and points-paying race in 1963.

Saturday was an intriguing day for the industry. It was the first time Xfinity Series and Cup cars hit the track. Both series practiced and qualified, and the Xfinity race logged 25 of 55 laps before postponing the race to Sunday morning due to lightning in the area.

However, the second-tier series never got to continue the race. Typically, NASCAR will make a race official after completing either two stages or passing the halfway point. The Xfinity race did neither but called it when the unrelenting rain pinned NASCAR into a corner with logistics and scheduling.

NASCAR would have to pay additional fees to the city of Chicago to keep the track in place until Monday. The sanctioning body felt it would be best to keep the Cup race as close to on schedule as possible, and despite a record amount of rain on Sunday that Chicago hadn’t seen since 1982, the Grant Park 220 took place.

The weekend was full of unusual events. All but one of the concerts were canceled. Cole Custer was declared the winner before halfway. The invocation and national anthem ceremonies took place in the press deadline room. The race began with a single-file formation and single-file restarts. And for the first time in the modern era, a driver making his debut mopped the floor with the field (wet ground pun intended).

About 75 percent of the spectators were visiting their first NASCAR race. Plenty of people didn’t know the drivers or teams. Drivers stayed at hotels close to the track and were able to walk to it without even getting noticed.

“You can walk down the streets and not get recognized,” Bubba Wallace said. “I would hear a lot of conversations, so I would get very close to people just to hear what they had to say. A lot of people were on the fence about it, but there was a lot of excitement too.”

“I met some folks at my hotel on the elevator that knew nothing about NASCAR, and they asked, ‘Are you here with NASCAR?'” Ryan Blaney said. “Then they figured out who I was and were super excited. That, to me, is really cool to meet a first-time fan. That makes me feel good and feel like we are doing our job pretty well.”

Neither race completed the scheduled distance, but the weekend was well-received by fans. There was curiosity from locals as people stood outside the fencing of the track, trying to get a glimpse of the race. And residents in the tall buildings across the street on Michigan Avenue were watching from their windows. The Cup race completed 78 of the scheduled 100 laps because there would not have been enough time to run the entire distance before sunset, but the fans weren’t cheated out of any excitement or action.

Sunday had a bleak outlook most of the day. The rain was so heavy, and the track was so flooded that tires began floating on pit road. The prospect of postponing the Cup race to Monday seemed very likely, but NASCAR worked nonstop to get all the standing water off the track and make conditions possible for racing to take place.

The most significant triumph of the weekend is how it will be remembered. Most of Sunday looked to be a great disappointment, and it wasn’t the fault of NASCAR for that. The weather made it seem like the industry couldn’t find any luck with the circumstances out of their control.

But instead, the lasting impression of the weekend is the feel-good story that is van Gisbergen’s win in his first-ever stock car race — and a compelling one on the streets of a major U.S. market at that.

Van Gisbergen has years of experience on road and street courses in Australia. During the NBC Sports broadcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. alluded to former driver Marcos Ambrose, who had a successful career in Supercars and then came to the U.S. and figured out how to win NASCAR races on the road circuits.

“Anything is possible,” van Gisbergen said. “The fans in Australia and New Zealand, the response this week and the coverage has been — I can’t explain it. Like the response and the support I’ve got from everyone and even over here how welcoming everyone is, I can’t believe it. Dream come true.”

Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott wondered if his win made the entire NASCAR field look bad, but that’s a humble opinion from two of NASCAR’s most talented drivers. Van Gisbergen’s win was astounding — in this era of competition in the Cup Series, a performance like that has never been seen, and it might never be seen again.

Elliott joked during his post-race interview on TV: “He’s gonna go home and tell all his friends how bad we were.”

Despite the wet weather that affected many scheduled events at the tack, the weekend was a success. But for a Cup race that was expected to begin in the late afternoon, 100 laps was perhaps excessive. With lap times averaging around 90 or so seconds, a race that stays green from start to finish would likely take a little more than two and a half hours. And with the lack of experience on street courses the entire field has, there was an incredibly slim chance that’d happen.

A scheduled distance of 85 laps might be the sweet spot for this race. It would take just over two hours if the race were to stay green — and even with several cautions, it could still probably fit in a three-hour window for TV. It’d also be about 187 miles or 300 km, and the race could have been called the Grant Park 300 instead of 220.

Nevertheless, the industry was pleased with the historic event. And it is certain it can take NASCAR not only to any city domestically but internationally as well. Between this street experiment and the successful Garage 56 NASCAR project at the 24 Hours of Le Mans several weeks ago, global interest in stock car racing is rising.

Many drivers have praised NASCAR for trying new things with the schedule. Today’s NASCAR is not your father’s NASCAR. When the industry peaked in popularity about two decades ago, its expansion throughout the country meant going to markets outside the Southeast and visiting tracks in rural areas of big cities. That’s where the Chicagoland Speedways, Texas Motor Speedways, and Kansas Speedways of the world came in.

Now, NASCAR is bringing its product directly into the cities. Between the Downtown Los Angeles Clash in the Memorial Coliseum and the Chicago street race, it appears no feat is too big for NASCAR to handle.

Denny Hamlin was exuding excitement on Saturday. While he was happy he won the pole for Sunday’s race, he was delighted with the overall atmosphere he felt at the track.

“It was just a great day,” he said. “Probably my single best day at the race track in all my career, for sure.”

That is a monumental statement for someone who has raced his whole life and been a full-time Cup driver since 2006.

So how soon might the NASCAR Cup Series have a race hosted by a different country?

“I’m not going to put a timetable on it, but I think we’re all confident at NASCAR that we could take the Cup Series anywhere we want,” NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell said. “I know the race we put on today would sell and would be embraced globally for sure.”