One driver in this weekend’s NASCAR street race in Chicago has raced on the streets of a big city in NASCAR before because NASCAR once raced on the streets of L.A.
NASCAR will race on the streets of Chicago this weekend. What started inside a computer just a few short years ago, will become a reality as NASCAR racecars will roar down some of the most iconic streets in America with a backdrop of the Chicago skyline framing it all. It’s something few inside, or outside, the industry could have imagined would happen. It’s an improbable race in an improbable location.
For the last two years NASCAR staged another improbable race in an improbable location. The first race of the past two seasons has been held inside the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. That race, a non-points exhibition race, was by all accounts wildly successful. And there is little doubt that the Chicago Street Race will be just as successful because NASCAR doesn’t do things without a great deal of thought, preparation, and study.
But while some are calling this weekend the “first ever” NASCAR street race, that is perhaps a bit of a stretch.
From 1998 to 2000, NASCAR also raced at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, not inside of it, but on the streets surrounding it.
The race was part of the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour, a series that began in 1985 and ran until NASCAR discontinued the Elite Division in 2006.
For three years that series raced on a 1.100-mile purpose-built course named the Los Angeles Street Circuit in Exhibition Park surrounding the Coliseum. According to legend, road course ace Boris Said helped design the course by using his personal BMW to test out the speeds and offer advice such as to where to put a chicane.
The first two years the race was held on Labor Day, the third on a Sunday. For the first two races several NASCAR drivers flew in from Darlington, South Carolina where the Southern 500 was held the day before, to race.
