Latest news with #ChicagoStreetCourse
Forbes
23-07-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
Nascar's San Diego Announcement Is The Next Step In A Nationwide Takeover
Drivers compete during the Grant Park 165 race of NASCAR Cup Series at the Chicago Street Course in ... More Chicago, Illinois, United States on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images) Nascar is making a major move by traveling to San Diego in 2025. Not only will the Nascar Cup Series be competing in America's Finest City, but so will the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series from June 19-21, 2026. While the race will be held at the Naval Base Coronado, the city is enthusiastic to host a Nascar weekend. Unlike Chicago, which had a negative perception of Nascar from the initial announcement, San Diego appears to be welcoming of stock car racing. Sports Business Journal reported that the contract is between Nascar and the U.S. Navy, and Sports San Diego will help run operations and promote the event. 'As part of our nation's 250th anniversary, we are honored for Nascar to join the celebration as we host our first street race at a military base, Naval Base Coronado,' Nascar's Ben Kennedy, EVP, Chief Venue & Racing Innovation Officer, said in a statement. 'Nascar San Diego Weekend will honor the Navy's history and the men and women who serve as we take the best motorsports in the world to the streets of Naval Base Coronado.' The Cup race will be streamed on Amazon Prime as part of its summer stretch of races. This is a major step for Nascar, which is expanding its presence on the West Coast after leaving the L.A. Coliseum (an exhibition race) and Fontana's Auto Club Speedway. Not only does this announcement keep Nascar viable in a major market, but it also shows the sanctioning body's creativity is endless right now. While Nascar nearly settled on racing in Downtown San Diego, they opted for the Naval base to create a patriotic twist to the spectacle. Kennedy told SBJ that racing in San Diego on a base is 'naturally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to celebrate this special anniversary of the Navy and our country.' Another great element to the event is that iRacing, which will launch the first mainstream Nascar video game in several years, helped create the track. The announcement is expected to generate not only waves of interest from drivers and sports executives, but also potential sponsors. Nascar has welcomed in a plethora of new partners in 2025, and an announcement like this will certainly generate additional key sponsor interest. Nascar will not return to Chicago in 2026, but it will likely return to Chicagoland Speedway in nearby Joliet. The Mexico race's status has yet to be determined. But an announcement like this makes it clear: Kennedy and his team are leading Nascar to push the limits and get creative.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman put Chicago in rearview entering Sonoma
SONOMA, Calif. — Last weekend, Bubba Wallace was sliding backwards down DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Chicago after contact from Alex Bowman off Turn 2. By the time they made their ways west to California on Thursday night, Wallace was buying Bowman dinner as both put their incidental run-in behind them. Advertisement 'I was wondering if he was gonna mention that,' Wallace said. 'See, I'm a nice guy! MORE: Cup standings | Wallace after Chicago: 'No love lost' A miscommunication led Wallace, driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, to cut across Bowman's nose after a fierce battle for position that involved plenty of contact on the Chicago Street Course. Before Saturday's NASCAR Cup Series practice at Sonoma Raceway, Wallace detailed what led to the error. 'For some reason, my perfectly working digital mirror wasn't looked at,' Wallace said. 'I didn't look there and assumed that he was to my right. He was to my left. I was just getting back up to give him room for the bottom, and he was actually on the top. So I looked like an idiot.' Advertisement Fighting each other as In-Season Challenge opponents last week, the two spoke shortly after the race ended to clear the air, with Wallace assuring Bowman there were no hard feelings after the dustup. 'I think the media definitely wanted that to go in a direction that it didn't go,' Bowman said. 'Yeah, we talked after the race and I saw him the other night at dinner. I think we're all good. Like, I certainly hate that he got wrecked. I don't think that much contact was necessary in that situation. But I also understand that he's trying to race for the bracket challenge and finish the best he can. Kind of is what it is. And he bought me dinner the other night, so we're good. I'll move on from it.' On-track rivals in NASCAR frequently tend to find each other after recent incidents. That proved true again Thursday when the two wound up at the same restaurant for a meal. 'We get to the hotel for dinner two nights ago now, and he's waiting to get seated right in front of us,' Wallace recalled. 'I just come up, give a big bear hug and told him again, 'Hey, we're good. Nothing's wrong.' And so the hotel we're at, a lot of (NASCAR) industry people are there. My dinner was bought by somebody else, so I paid for Bowman's dinner. It just kind of felt right.' Advertisement What was a battle for seventh place ultimately plummeted Wallace to 28th, five laps down. Wallace, who apologized to his team this week, is two points above the provisional elimination line in the 16-driver Cup Series Playoffs grid entering Sunday's race at Sonoma (3:30 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). 'I was thinking about that, I was thinking about the In-Season [Challenge],' Wallace said. 'Like, instead, at the end of the day, I gave up 20- something points, and look where I'm at: plus-two. So yeah, it's just going through it. Like I felt like that was my debut race. Rookie mentality. And it was like, what the [expletive] are you doing?' Wallace admitted it took a few days to forgive himself for the error at Chicago. In years past, those few days may have lingered into the weekend or longer. That wasn't the case this time around. 'To start, it was the same,' Wallace said. 'Like Monday, Tuesday, I was pretty down — and mad at myself, right? And then like, oops — I made a mistake doing something else around the house. And it's like the magnitude is different, but still, a mistake's a mistake, so you just move on. It's been fine the last couple days. But yeah, I would say it'd be totally different last year.'
USA Today
09-07-2025
- Automotive
- USA Today
NASCAR odds for Xfinity Series race at Sonoma Raceway in July 2025
The NASCAR Xfinity Series is ready to compete in the Pit Boss / FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway during the 22nd race weekend of the 2025 season. It is NASCAR's second straight race on a road course/street course after spending last weekend in Illinois for the Chicago Street Course. Shane van Gisbergen entered victory lane in last year's race at Sonoma, with Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer rounding out the top three spots. Van Gisbergen's win marked his second of three victories during the 2024 season. However, who are the favorites to win this weekend? Below, you can check out the NASCAR odds via BetMGM for the 2025 Pit Boss / FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma as of Wednesday, July 9! NASCAR odds for the Xfinity Series race at Sonoma (July 2025) More: NASCAR odds for Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway in July 2025
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Shane van Gisbergen has raised the bar in NASCAR road racing
CHICAGO — There's a line about the pinball wizard in The Who's rock opera 'Tommy' that goes 'What makes him so good?' After Sunday's Grant Park 165 on the Chicago Street Course, race fans, pundits and competitors alike were asking the same thing about Shane van Gisbergen. Advertisement The statistics speak for themselves. On road courses in the NASCAR Cup Series, van Gisbergen has posted a win, two top fives and five top 10s. Most recently, he won the Mexico City race by an amazing 16.567 seconds over runner-up Christopher Bell. On the Chicago Street Course (not included in road-course stats), he has two victories in three attempts. His numbers in the NASCAR Xfinity Series are even more daunting. In five road-course starts, he boasts two victories and four top fives. RELATED: Chicago race results | Cup Series standings SVG has won the two Xfinity races he has run on the Chicago Street Course, both from the pole. On Sunday, he completed a weekend sweep of the Xfinity and Cup races, having won the pole for each event. Advertisement Kyle Busch, who finished fifth in Chicago, is the only other driver to have swept an Xfinity/Cup weekend after winning the pole for both races, a feat he accomplished at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July 2016. Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks, who fielded the No. 88 Chevrolet van Gisbergen drove to victory on Sunday, had his own ideas about the New Zealander's superiority. 'For me, in my experience driving race cars for 20 years, it's his racing IQ,' said Marks, an accomplished road racer himself. 'It's how strategic he can think while he's on the limit of the race car. 'A lot of drivers, it takes all of your mental bandwidth to drive the car fast, and Shane is one of these guys that can drive the car at the limit but be thinking bigger picture stuff. He knows where he is in the race, and he knows how to… he's great at managing his tires, his equipment, all that kind of stuff.' Advertisement Clearly, SVG's talents are ideally suited to the streets of Chicago. 'I think for his talent profile specifically, street races are just… they come very, very naturally to him,' Marks said. 'He's got a lot of experience doing it in the V8 Supercars series, but I think in races like this, where everybody is working so hard just to get the apexes and get out of the corner in the right way and all of that, he does that just naturally while he's thinking about bigger picture stuff, so he can really put the whole race together in a super impressive way.' Stephen Doran is the crew chief who sets up the Cup cars to van Gisbergen's liking. 'You watch him, and he's like a machine out there,' Doran said. 'He makes no mistakes, and he just waits until somebody misses an apex in front of him and he pounces on them. He just drives through the field. You saw it (Saturday) and (Sunday). His laps are so consistent, and that's part of why he saves his tires so well.' Advertisement MORE: SVG sweeps Chicago weekend There's more to it than that. SVG is a three-time champion in Australian Supercars, a gritty series where no quarter is given. That same series also honed the skills of Marcos Ambrose, who enjoyed significant success on road courses after coming to NASCAR racing in 2006. Fellow competitors saw how van Gisbergen was willing to run JR Motorsports teammate Connor Zilisch wide in Turn 1 after the decisive restart in Saturday's Xfinity Series race. Cup driver Tyler Reddick took note. 'Obviously, I saw what Shane was willing to do to win the race on Saturday, and for us needing a win to lock ourselves into the playoffs, I would have raced really hard, because I think he would have done the same,' said Reddick, who finished third after chasing van Gisbergen and runner-up Ty Gibbs over the closing laps on Sunday. 'It didn't happen, but we can all dream and speculate what it could have been.' Advertisement Remarkably, SVG has adapted almost instantly to the road-course versions of both the Gen 7 Cup car and the Xfinity car — two vastly different platforms. To rise to van Gisbergen's level of excellence on road and street courses, competitors in both series not only have to sharpen their road racing skills but also must adopt a take-no-prisoners mentality to match his level of determination. Otherwise, 'What makes him so good?' will continue to be an often-asked question.
CBS News
06-07-2025
- Automotive
- CBS News
Shane Van Gisbergen completes NASCAR weekend sweep in Chicago
Shane van Gisbergen completed a sweep on the Chicago Street Course on Sunday, winning the NASCAR Cup Series race on the tricky downtown circuit. It was van Gisbergen's second victory of the season and his third career Cup win. The Trackhouse Racing driver also won in Chicago in 2023, becoming the first driver to take his Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963. Ty Gibbs was second, and Tyler Reddick finished third. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five. It was a dominant weekend for van Gisbergen, a three-time champion in Australia's Supercars. The 36-year-old New Zealand native won the Xfinity Series race from the pole Saturday. He also was the top qualifier for the Cup race. Michael McDowell joined van Gisbergen on the front row and quickly moved in front. He won Stage 1 and led for 31 laps before he was derailed by a throttle cable issue. Van Gisbergen regained the lead when he passed Chase Briscoe with 16 laps left. As fog moved into downtown Chicago with thunderstorms in the forecast, van Gisbergen controlled the action the rest of the way. AJ Allmendinger was sixth, and Ryan Preece finished seventh. Ryan Blaney, who won the second stage, was 12th. William Byron's day was cut short by a clutch problem. The Hendrick Motorsports driver began the day on top of the series standings. After McDowell seized the lead early in the race, Carson Hocevar caused a multicar crash when he hit the wall and spun out between Turns 10 and 11. Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suárez and Will Brown were among the drivers collected in the wreck. "I didn't see it until the last second," Keselowski said. "I slowed down and I actually felt I was gonna get stopped and then I just kind of got ran over from behind. It's just a narrow street course and sometimes there's nowhere to go." Ty Dillon and Reddick moved into the third round of NASCAR's inaugural in-season tournament when Keselowski and Hocevar were unable to finish the race. Dillon, the No. 32 seed, eliminated Keselowski after he upset top-seeded Denny Hamlin last weekend at Atlanta. Gibbs, Preece, Alex Bowman, John H. Nemechek, Zane Smith and Erik Jones also advanced. The winner of the five-race, bracket-style tournament takes home a $1 million prize. Bowman, the 2024 champion on the downtown street course, won his head-to-head matchup with Bubba Wallace. Bowman and Wallace made contact as they battled for position late in the race after they also tangled in Chicago last year.
