NASCAR racing coming to Chicago! (Getty Image)

NASCAR racing coming to Chicago! (Getty Image)

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announces today that the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) will hold three years of summer car racing events in Chicago beginning next year. NASCAR has been openly targeting an ambitious plan to race through Chicago since March 2021, at one point going as far as to call their shot by building out a proposed street circuit in iRacing.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced three years of NASCAR races through the streets of downtown Chicago, with the first set for July 2, 2023 — if she wins a second term.

At the official announcement at Cityfront Plaza today, July 19, Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s senior vice-president of racing and development strategy, called it the “the most monumental day in the history of our sport, NASCAR. In 75 years, our sport has never had a street course.”

The race would be run on a 2.2-mile course north of Roosevelt Road, along Columbus Drive, South DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, as far north as Jackson Boulevard.b

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