This weekend’s races at Chicago were a roaring success, even with the Cup Series race on Sunday being shortened due to daylight. Enthusiasm was sky high throughout the weekend as NASCAR took to the streets of Chicago.
Kevin Harvick, who was initially a skeptic of racing at Chicago, came away raving about the weekend’s events and what they could mean for the future of the sport in some other major metropolitan areas.
“I think it opens up our options from a NASCAR standpoint as to the places we could go,” Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “Obviously it takes some planning. But Chicago has been awesome.”
Harvick provided two potential cities he could see NASCAR expanding to in the near future.
“You look at markets like we haven’t gone to before, you look at a place like Denver,” he said. “It’s a great place that you could kind of get a little bit further into the northwest and you could got to a city that really hasn’t seen NASCAR.
“And it even could be a fix for LA. We ran the LA street race there a long time ago with the Southwest Tour cars right outside of the Coliseum. And everybody looks for that Southern California, what are we going to do? We don’t have a racetrack type situation, and I think that could be an option there.”
Kevin Harvick praises NASCAR’s Chicago setup
Harvick initially was not a fan of NASCAR making the decision to race on the streets of Chicago. But once he saw the setup in person he was converted.
“Well I went last year and I was like, ‘This is going to be the dumbest thing that we’ve done in my entire life,’” Harvick explained. “And I walked into the street course for the first time last year and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is really neat.’ With all the banners and the bridges and the signs and just where the track was positioned in Chicago. And everywhere we went last year, everyone knew we were there. Everyone was engaged to the event in the city, and that’s not been the typical response. When you went to LA, it wasn’t the typical feel. But in Chicago that is not the case.”
Harvick, done with his broadcasting duties with FOX for the season, has had the luxury of watching the races in the second half of the season in a more relaxed fashion.
It gave him a chance to really tune into the ambiance of the Chicago race this weekend.
“So this year watching it on TV and seeing the enthusiasm from the drivers and the competitors and looking at things on social media, it obviously had that same feel to it,” he said. “And I just, I love the fact that NASCAR has done such a good job with the promotion inside the city, and the city has embraced it. Xfinity race was good, the Cup race was good. To be able to get all the concerts and everything in this year, it gave it that complete festival feel. I know the race was shortened because rain and nobody really expected it, but we got it in and that was the completion of the event.”
