Adam Stern from Sports Business Journal had an article that was posted yesterday about NASCAR talking to other cities across the country about hosting a street race in the future.
Last year, NASCAR went to the streets of Chicago for the first time where Shane van Gisbergen won the inaugural race in his first Cup Series race, a feat that hadn’t happened in 60 years. This year, Alex Bowman won the second Chicago street race, however, both races have been impacted and shortened by inclement weather.
According to SBJ, NASCAR has been looking at other cities around the country to host a possible street race. San Diego, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and “some from the Pacific Northwest” are cities that NASCAR is said to have spoken to. Stern reports that the Portland International Raceway has questions about whether the facility meets Cup Series standards. PIR currently hosts one race in the Xfinity Series which is the series below the Cup Series.
Stern mentions that NASCAR has one more year left on their contract to race in Chicago, but after that, there are a lot of options in the deal. NASCAR could move after 2025, especially since they haven’t made a profit on the Chicago street race both years they’ve hosted the event.
Stern also points out that Amazon “is based in Seattle”, and that is key with Amazon Prime streaming five races from 2025-2031, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. being one of the on-air talents. Stern mentions that, “it was unclear where the city stacks up versus possible efforts in Denver or Portland.” That little nugget sheds some light on other cities NASCAR has been either in communication with or at least what they’re thinking for other western locations.
The final three races in Amazon’s seven-year deal will be races that determine seeding for the bracket-style in-season tournament NASCAR is introducing. After Amazon’s five races, TNT has the next five races, where 32 drivers will be seeded due to their performance in the final three races on Amazon and will compete head-to-head in a single elimination bracket, with the higher finishing driver moving on to the next round and the winner of the tournament gets $1 million.
It was previously announced that for 2025, the first race Amazon will show is the Coke 600, which takes place every Sunday on Memorial Day weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
There wasn’t any mention of any track layouts, possible track layouts, or any locations within the cities/areas in the SBJ article.
If NASCAR chooses to head to Seattle, it would be a great opportunity for NASCAR to grow the sport into a market that doesn’t see much attention. In Washington, there’s only one NASCAR-sanctioned track, and that’s Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, where NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson once claimed the 0.625-mile oval, the “Superspeedway of the West”.
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