There are some sports that do well in inclement weather. Football, for example. Watching players morph into hippos rolling in mud is great fun. You wouldn’t want to watch it regularly, but every now and then it's enjoyable to live vicariously through people with no concerns about impending laundry issues.
I wouldn’t have put NASCAR in the rain-is-good category. I thought rain would shut down a race the way it does a baseball game and or a golf tournament. But then came last year’s Chicago Street Race, which looked like an Olympic kayak course by the time Mother Nature was done crying. Strike that. She didn’t cry, she sobbed. And I laughed because it was so humorously entertaining. It was like watching clips of Southerners trying to drive in freak snowstorms.
This wasn’t a typical auto race in which crashes happen. This was drivers regularly losing control of their cars because traction, thanks to the wet course, was nonexistent. It was every pratfall by every vaudeville comedian ever. It was great. Noah Gragson hit the tire barriers in Turn 6 three different times because of the slick surface. New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen won the race, which was marred by rain delays and, eventually, the threat of darkness.
Alas, the chances of lightning striking twice are slim. It’s early, but the forecast for next weekend looks good. I want to see if a dry street race with 75 laps can be as entertaining as a wet street race that no squeegee in the world could fix. I have my doubts.
Assuming that torrential rain storms were a one-year thing, the question now is whether the racing itself will have enough entertainment value for those of us who enjoy chaos.
For Chicago, the hope is that Year 2 of the race will do what Year 1 couldn’t: showcase a sunny city with a stunning skyline that rests along a big blue lake. The 2.2-mile, 12-turn course will run past Grant Park, the Field Museum and Buckingham Fountain. Saturday’s Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s Cup Series race figure to be a travel brochure for the city.
But there has to be substance. Civic boosterism can’t be the fuel. Chicagoans who are tired of downtown being shut down for events every weekend want to see some bang for their inconvenience. That means a great race worthy of a great town and a financial payoff that makes the hassle worth it. Last year’s race made the city $500,000. Year 2 of the three-year contract between Chicago and NASCAR gives the city $550,000 and an additional $2 million for potential expenses such as police overtime.
Race organizers talk about a multiplier effect that benefits hotels, restaurants and other businesses. It’s what sports executives always talk about. NFL owners love nothing more than describing the economic advantages that come with building stadiums. Actually, they love nothing more than the billions of dollars that fill their pockets from publicly funded stadiums. But there isn’t a ton of proof that cities benefit financially from stadiums and sporting events.
The best course of action for you realists out there is to ask yourselves a question: “Is this worth it to me, the sports consumer?’’ If you get a big emotional payday from the NASCAR race, then the answer is yes. If you think the street closures are a pain or if you think you can see this kind of crazy driving any day of the week on the Dan Ryan, then it’s probably no.
An exciting race might help pull in some of you who are on the fence. An exciting race means lots of lead changes and lots of paint being swapped, as NASCAR aficionados like to say. Some tempers flaring between drivers might help, too. Will a street course with 12 turns a lap have enough speed to convert the agnostics out there?
Formula One fans criticize NASCAR for what they see as the lack of skill it takes to drive around oval tracks. But at least you get some sense of the ridiculous speed of the cars on a course with long straightaways and only four turns per lap. Sometimes that sense gets lost in a street course.
One thing is certain: NASCAR fans will watch NBC’s broadcasts of the races, whether the course is round or looks like spider web, whether the day is rainy or dry. They’re devoted. Many of us aren't sure yet. Some of us are foul-weather friends.
