The City of Chicago confirms there still isn’t any official agreement to host the 2024 edition of the event
Chicago hosted the first ever NASCAR street course race this season.
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2023 Chicago Street Race (Via IMAGO)
NASCAR announced the 2024 Cup Series schedule, confirming the second-ever Chicago Street race. But now the latest reports suggest that there is still no 100% guarantee that the event will be hosted by the city in 2024 as the final agreement over the unique events is not yet finalized.
As reported by Crain’s Chicago Business, the negotiations around the race are still going on, and nothing has been finalized. City and Mayor Brandon Johnson is looking for a better deal to speed-track the process of building the temporary track for the second-ever street race in the sport’s history and removing it.
NASCAR had no choice but to announce its new schedule after a long delay. According to senior VP Ben Kennedy, the calendar that was realized had gone through over 20 different versions before landing on the most suitable one. But a city official confirmed they would’ve liked it to happen once the deal was signed.
A Chicago City senior official added, according to the reports, “We would have been happy to not have an announcement and to continue working on an agreement there. That announcement was solely based on needing to put something out there in the context of their overall schedule for 2024.”
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Chicago politician speaks out against the street race
Despite the 2023 event being a big success for the city and NASCAR, there is still severe criticism from the community and the political leaders. One of the major critics is the 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly. He has urged the city to review the deals multiple times for their benefit.
He said, “If the administration has not yet signed the contract … they need to take some more time and go through those numbers in more detail to determine whether or not this is going to be a winner or a loser for the city.”
The 2023 version of the event was, without a doubt, a commercial success; the sport was able to market to demographics unaware of the sport, and the city had financial benefits from the travel fans as well. NASCAR also got a new superstar in Shane van Gisbergen, the three-time supercars champion who won the race on his NASCAR debut.
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Justin P Joy
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