NASCAR engines will be roaring through the streets of Chicago in less than a month. NBC Sports commentator and NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently got a chance to actually take a ride around the streets that will become the highly-anticipated pop-up racecourse.
Earnhardt caught a ride with members of a local Chicago news affiliate as they drove around the street course, which is much like how street course layouts work in the IndyCar Series. NASCAR has been planning this event for a while — and to think the idea for it all started in iRacing.
Earnhardt said the course is like something he has never seen before, describing it as a whole new test. With that, he believes many drivers in the race will have a hard time on the course.
"We want to put drivers through some of the toughest challenges we can, and I think this track will do that," Earnhardt said. "There'll be some guys that really like it. There will be some guys that find it really challenging and miserable."
When you think of street course tracks, they always seem to be very tight-cornered, such as at Monaco in F1 or at Long Beach in IndyCar. But Chicago's track isn't, according to Earnhardt, who was shocked by how much wider it is than he initially thought.
"My first reaction was that the track is a lot wider than I anticipated," Earnhardt said. "But it also funnels down in some narrow spaces that will create some challenges as they contest positions getting into those areas, like who goes first. They're going to argue over that."
Earnhardt isn't a stranger to racing in the Chicago area. NASCAR used to race at the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, which included a victory in 2005 for him. So he has plenty of fond memories of the Chicago area, but he never thought a return to racing in the Chicago market would be like this.
"You got to come into the city the week before, do a ton of media, go to all these restaurants you would hear about," Earnhardt said. "I always felt like we would come back, but I didn't think it would be like this. This is even cooler."
The Chicago Street Course will be something to see.
