Arts & Entertainment
Riding the Chicago Street Race Track With NASCAR Driver Brad Keselowski
Brad Keselowski previews the Chicago NASCAR track on June 27, 2024. (Credit: NASCAR)
When Brad Keselowski is driving in a NASCAR race, he usually can’t see much inside his No. 6 stock car.
”For the most part, we almost live in a box with a ton of blinders, so usually we see nothing besides what’s in front of us, which is a shame,” the 40-year-old NASCAR Cup Series driver and team co-owner said. ”But Chicago is one of the few tracks you can see the skyline in the car.”
NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race is returning to Grant Park July 6-7 with the main 165-lap Cup Series race happening on Sunday, July 7. As Keselowski, a 20-year NASCAR veteran, tells it, it’s particularly scenic at Turn 5: the corner of East Roosevelt Road and South Columbus Drive.
“This is the coolest view on the track,” Keselowski said. “The Prudential [Tower], the AON Center and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower are the buildings you see the best from the car. Because you’re driving on a super long straightaway, that opens up your viewing box.”
Keselowski was in Chicago Thursday, taking WTTW News on a ride-along of the 2.2-mile, 12-turn street course downtown. And no, we’re not in one of NASCAR’s Next Generation stock cars, which can average around 89 miles per hour on the narrow, winding course.
(Courtesy of NASCAR)
Instead, we’re in a Ford Expedition driven by a professional car service driver going the speed limit in Chicago traffic. During the ride-along, Keselowski previewed the race, talked about his history with the city and offered ideas for how NASCAR can grow the sport in this market.
The Michigan-born, North Carolina-based Keselowski started his NASCAR career in 2004, rising through the ranks of the developmental leagues the Trucks Series and Xfinity Series, then called the Busch Series. Three years into his career in the top league of NASCAR, the Cup Series, he won the championship in 2009.
This year, he won a race at Darlington Speedway and is locked into the playoffs. He’s racing the No. 6 car for Roush-Fenway-Keselowski, the team he has co-owned since 2022. It’s better known as RFK Racing.
“Before my first race at Chicagoland Speedway in 2007, I used to come here and ’ooh’ and ’ah’ as a tourist,” Keselowski said. “When NASCAR started running their initial playoff race in Joliet in 2011, we would do media day here and embrace the city. I’ve ended up spending quite a bit of time here. It’s a great city. It has really cool vibes, especially in the summer.”
Though NASCAR stopped racing in Joliet after the 2019 season, it returned to the Chicago area in 2023 for the inaugural Chicago Street Race. It was the first time in the sport’s 75-year history that the Cup Series raced on a street course. (Chicago hosted a Cup race in 1956 — but that was on an oval in Soldier Field).
Though torrential storms canceled the Xfinity Race and a weather delay shortened the main Cup Series race, the event was mostly successful. It was exciting racing. First-time NASCAR driver and New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen won thrillingly, and the unpredictability of a new, rain-soaked track led to chaos on the course. Keselowski placed 24th.
“I think it was about as good a chaos as we could have hoped for,” Keselowski said. “It was a reasonable chaos, and most of that was related to rain and had nothing to do with the course itself. You throw racing in the rain on top of a new venue, you just double the room for error.”
While NASCAR fell short of its 100,000-person weekend attendance goal (the event hit 79,299 across both days with more than 47,450 unique visitors), it was NBC’s most-watched race in six years with a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.795 million. In October, the Chicago Tourism Board released a study that said the Chicago Street Race added $109 million to Chicago’s economy. (By comparison, estimates claim the four-day Lollapalooza generates $422 million).
Keselowski, who is both a NASCAR team owner and runs the 3D-printing company Keselowski Advanced Manufacturing, is hoping the economic benefits help win new fans.
“What the Chicago race stands for, to me, is NASCAR getting out of their comfort zone,” he said. “They’re trying something new, and this might be great and it might flop. The bleeding edge of innovation and risk-taking is where all success comes from in life.”
While the racing was fun, Chicago residents are split on the event. According to a recent Harris Poll, 39% of Chicagoans think the city hosting events like the NASCAR Street Race is good for the city. On the other hand, 32% expect to be inconvenienced by road closures, parking restrictions and noise from the NASCAR Street Race. 21% of city residents are interested in attending the race.
“You want the community to want you to be there: That’s not just for Chicago, that’s for any racetrack,” Keselowski said in a 2023 interview about the Chicago Street Race. “You want people to come to the racetrack and say it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m looking for an engaged community that wants us there, and that we can deliver a great race for them.”
For the 2024 race, NASCAR will pay the city a $550,000 permit fee, up from $500,000 last year, according to the contract. NASCAR will continue to pay the Chicago Park District a $2 fee per admission ticket, and a 15% commission on food, beverage and merchandise sales at the event. NASCAR officials agreed to reduce tear-down and set-up time, as well as pay the city costs associated with staging the event.
“We got a better deal for the people of Chicago,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in October.
As a driver, Keselowski said the on-track maneuvering in Chicago with its narrow roads and sharp turns was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do in a car. “This corner right by Buckingham Fountain is so narrow and you’re driving through it so fast,” he said.
If the weather stays sunny for the July 7 event, Keselowski promises a more traditional racing experience. “When it’s dry, there’s a lot less calamity (on the track),” he said. “When it’s raining, you’re fighting to survive.”
Before the big race, you can find Keselowski at the Elk Grove Village July 4 concert and fireworks celebration. The village has sponsored Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford Mustang for its Elk Grove “Makers Wanted” campaign.
“Outside of the weather, I think (last year’s race) was a fantastic experience where the community was engaged,” Keselowski said. “There was a lot of uncertainty and unknowns that you could feel with the locals, but as it came together, you could see a lot of eyes opening, and you could feel the enthusiasm. And, I dare to say, there was somewhat of an embrace, too.”
The Grant Park 165 is happening Sunday, July 7 at Grant Park.
