CHICAGO – Dale Jarrett and his family have grown up around NASCAR. He was practically born into it, coming into the world three years after father Ned Jarrett began his racing career.
And yet despite being affiliated with NASCAR for 70 of its 75 years, the Jarrett family never envisioned a NASCAR Cup Series race would take place in the downtown streets of Chicago – which will happen in the Grant Park 220 around a 2.2-mile course that rips through the roads neighboring the Windy City skyline on Sunday evening (5 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
“Never in my wildest dreams, the times that I spent in the city, did I ever think that we would be talking about having an actual NASCAR race here,” Jarrett told NASCAR.com.
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A literal NASCAR Hall-of-Fame father-son duo, the Jarretts’ legacy dates back to Ned’s debut in 1953. Flash forward some seven decades, and NASCAR is ready to storm down Lakeshore Drive.
“I was actually just talking to my dad yesterday before I left North Carolina and telling him that I was coming here to look at this and explain to him once again about what’s happening,” said Jarrett, now an analyst for NBC Sports. “And he was like, ‘Who would have ever thought?’ And I’m like, no, none of us would have. But you see it now and (track president) Julie (Giese) has done a tremendous job, I know, with a lot of help from a lot of others, putting all this together, and I’m really excited about this.”
NBC Sports will have the honor of broadcasting the Cup Series’ inaugural street race, a rare true first as the sport celebrates its 75th anniversary. Jarrett and Kyle Petty will be on hand to offer analysis from the network’s Peacock Pit Box, which will sit near Buckingham Fountain. Play-by-play announcer Rick Allen will anchor the call of the action alongside former crew chief Steve Letarte as NBC utilizes a “radio-style” broadcast with analysts including Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., MRN turn announcer Mike Bagley and 48-time NASCAR national series winner Jeff Burton stationed around the track.
As the late-spring sun beamed on the fountain this particular afternoon, Burton, a native Virginian whose inaugural Xfinity Series starts came in 1988, sat on a nearby park bench, astonished at what the sport was and is preparing to accomplish.
“I was thinking about the courage it took to do this and how, like, I don’t think we would have made this decision 20 years ago,” Burton said. “The courage to do this is massive, and the open-mindedness of, ‘Hey, let’s try some different things,’ which is what took us to the (Los Angeles Memorial) Coliseum and Bristol Dirt, back to North Wilkesboro. Like, what can we do that’s better, cooler and try some things? And that courage to do things is exciting. It brings a whole ‘nother level of energy.”
NASCAR is no stranger to the greater Chicago area. From 2001-2019, Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois, hosted Cup, Xfinity and ARCA Menards Series events, with the Craftsman Truck Series making its way to the 1.5-mile tri-oval in 2009. But the speedway sits some 50 miles southwest of the fountain, roughly an hour away.
“For years, we came here saying we were going to race at Chicago,” Jarrett said. “And actually, we might have come into Chicago, but we were a ways removed from actually being here, even though a lot of us stayed in Chicago to race at Chicagoland. But now you say we’re going to race in Chicago, we’re going to race it; you’re literally in the middle of Chicago.”
In addition to his NBC duties, Earnhardt Jr. serves as the executive director of iRacing, which worked hand-in-hand with NASCAR to create the inaugural scan of the city layout, a process that began in the fall of 2020, per the simulation’s website. While he became familiar with the course, seeing it in person offered a new perspective for NASCAR’s 15-time Most Popular Driver.
“I ran on the iRacing simulator a lot over the last couple of years at this track, and it felt, in a lot of places, really narrow,” Earnhardt said. “But when you’re actually here, in person, it’s got plenty of room, and it’s gonna be just fine. There’s a lot of imperfections, different types of asphalt, different ages of asphalt throughout the course, bumps, potholes, or manholes or whatever. There’s all kinds of character. That’ll be good.”
Burton’s reference to NASCAR’s ambitious scheduling in recent years emphasizes the fact Sunday’s inaugural race is indeed a points-paying event – meaning a full-time driver could lock himself into the NASCAR Playoffs with a Chicago triumph if he hasn’t yet won this season.
“Matter of fact, I think it’s what we have to expect,” Jarrett said, “that when we show up here in July, that someone that maybe isn’t in the playoff picture at that point in time, maybe sitting outside the points, that when we leave here on July 2 that there is another name that’s added to that (playoff list). I mean, when you think about AJ Allmendinger, I mean this has to fit right into his hand and his driving skills and abilities. You think of Daniel Suárez, who’s been outstanding at the road courses, and you come to a new place, adapts really quickly.
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“So I think there’s a lot of people that we can throw into that. I really believe that we’re going to add another name to the championship mix as far as when we talk about the 16 drivers are going to be a part of that with this race. And that’s exciting to think that not only are we doing this a street race for the first time in NASCAR, but that we can have a new winner.”
There is perhaps no more diverse schedule than NASCAR’s, which features six road or street courses in addition to six superspeedway-style events and other ovals that vary from the 0.25-mile LA Coliseum exhibition up to the 2.5-mile triangle of Pocono Raceway. The biggest key to a driver’s Chicago success, Burton believes, is embracing what lies ahead.
“It’s an opportunity. And anytime you do something new, it creates an opportunity,” he said. “And the fun part about it is seeing who can who can seize it and who’s not going to embrace it. And that’s the thing you have to do as a competitor. Like, you have to embrace it. You have to recognize that this is a very unique opportunity and embrace it and come here with a clear mind. Come here with, ‘Man, this is an opportunity.’ Get all your preconceived notions out of your head and come here like a sponge and be just willing to learn and appreciate the complexities of it.
“It’s a street course. It’s not a permanent structured road course. It is a street course, and you’re going to have corners that if you were drawing it with a clean sheet of paper, you wouldn’t draw it that way. It’s a street course. That’s what it is. … You wouldn’t build Darlington today. So you’ve got to embrace that. You’ve got to embrace the uniqueness of it – or come in here with the wrong attitude and run bad.”
Ultimately, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion will have to conquer numerous obstacles from February through the season finale at Phoenix Raceway in November. That the journey rumbles through the Chicago streets, Earnhardt said, only makes sense.
“I think that NASCAR racing should be hard. NASCAR racing should be challenging,” Earnhardt said. “Our champion should be somebody who had to overcome a lot of challenges and difficult scenarios and face new challenges, and this is part of it. You know, throw them right in there and see who can sink or swim. When I was a driver, these type of things would shake you up a little bit. They’re unnerving. But some drivers, man, will look at this and be like, ‘Heck yeah, bring it on,’ right? Those are the guys that are gonna probably do well. Our sport should always be pushing the drivers, emotionally and mentally and as well as physically, and I think doing things like this certainly does that.”
