By Arthur Justin

NASCAR Xfinity Series

Next Race: The Loop 110

The Place: Chicago Street Course

Track Length: 2.2 Mile Street Course

The Date: Saturday, July 5

The Time: 4:30 p.m. ET

The Purse: $1,651,939

TV: CW, 3:30 p.m. ET

Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR (Channel 90)

Distance: 110 miles (50 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 15),

Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 30), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 50)

NASCAR Xfinity Series

Chicago Storylines and Insights:

·       This weekend marks the third running of a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Chicago Street Course (2023-25).

·       Chicago Street Course will be the third of seven road course races in 2025.

·       Nick Sanchez earned his first-career Xfinity Series win at Atlanta.

·       Nick Sanchez’s win in race #17 is the latest into a season the Xfinity Series had a first-time winner since 2003.

·       Nick Sanchez entered Atlanta 26 points below Playoff cutline.

·       Big Machine Racing’s Atlanta win was its first since Texas in May 2022, 103 starts between.

·       There are nine races left in the regular season and five Playoff spots remain open.

·       Sheldon Creed and Ryan Sieg are tied at the Playoff cutline; Creed holds the tiebreaker with a runner-up finish at Martinsville.

·       The drivers from 12th-14th in the Playoff standings are separated by just 1 point and the drivers from 10th-14th in the Playoff standings are separated by 29 points.

·       Taylor Gray gained 60 points to Playoff cut line in last 3 races, and Sheldon Creed lost 42 points to Playoff cut line in last 2 races.

·       Sam Mayer leads active drivers with four road course wins and is tied for fourth on the all-time Xfinity road course wins list.

·       Shane van Gisbergen will drive JR Motorsports #9 this weekend, it won the last race it competed in with Daniel Suarez in Mexico. Shane van Gisbergen won half of all races run at Chicago Street Course – 1 Cup, 1 Xfinity.

·       Shane van Gisbergen’s five career NASCAR national series wins all came on road courses.

·       Three Australian Supercars veterans will race this weekend at Chicago Street Course: Shane van Gisbergen – Cup & Xfinity, Will Brown – Cup, and Jack Perkins – Xfinity.

·       Jack Perkins will drive the Joe Gibbs Racing #19, he made over 150 Supercar starts including a Goad Coast 600 win in 2015.

·       Connor Zilisch finished top-five in all three career road course starts, including two wins. Connor Zilisch’s 67% winning percentage on road courses is highest all-time.

·       Connor Zilisch won the pole for all three of his NXS road course starts.

·       Connor Zilisch’s average finish of 2.3 on road courses is second all-time to Terry Labonte.

·       Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch combined to win five of the last seven road course races.

·       Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch combined to win last six poles on road courses.

·       Three drivers finished in top 10 in both Chicago Street Course races: Justin Allgaier, Austin Hill & Parker Kligerman.

·       Both Chicago Street winners started on pole and won Stage 1: Cole Custer 2023, Shane van Gisbergen 2024.

·       Eleven drivers on entry list are making first start on Chicago Street Course.

·       JR Motorsports won last four road course races with three different drivers, the longest win streak by a team on road courses in NXS.

·       Chevrolet won the last ten road course races with five different drivers.

·       Five active drivers won on road courses: Sam Mayer 4, Justin Allgaier 3, Shane van Gisbergen 3, Connor Zilisch 2 & Jeremy Clements 1.

·       JR Motorsports won eight races this season with five different drivers, tied for most different drivers in a season all-time: Justin Allgaier 3, Connor Zilisch 2, Sammy Smith 1, Kyle Larson 1 & Daniel Suarez 1.

·       JR Motorsports is four wins away from 100, only three other teams won at least 100 NXS races (Joe Gibbs Racing-217, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing-138, Richard Childress Racing-100).

·       Five crew chiefs got their first NXS win in 2025: Chad Haney at Atlanta, Sam McAulay at Darlington, Adam Wall at Bristol, Cory Shea at Mexico City & Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Pocono.

·        JR Motorsports #88 won three races with three different driver/crew chief combos this season.

·       Justin Allgaier’s 28 career wins are ninth on the all-time wins list and one away from tying Matt Kenseth.

·       Justin Allgaier leads all drivers with 10 top-five finishes and 648 laps led in 2025.

·       Justin Allgaier’s 10 top-five finishes in 2025 are his most ever after 17 races in a season.

·       Five races this year ended with a last lap pass.

·       Five of the last seven races this season had a pass for the win in the final six laps.

·       Chevrolet won 15 of 17 races, the most all time by a manufacturer through 17 races in series history.

NASCAR & Chicago, Etc.

NASCAR Street Course History

• The Daytona Beach and Road Course hosted NASCAR Cup Series races from 1949-1958. The front stretch of the course ran on highway A1A before the field turned into Daytona Beach itself for a 2-mile dash on the sand before returning to the highway for the frontstretch.
• The NASCAR Cup Series raced on temporary tracks on airports at Linden Airport, NJ in 1954, Kitsap Airport, WA in 1957, and Montgomery Air Base, NY in 1960. In addition, the NASCAR Pinty’s Series raced at Edmonton City Centre Airport along with IndyCar up until 2012.
• There are many recorded instances of the NASCAR Cup Series, and especially NASCAR’s defunct Convertible division, racing at converted football and baseball stadiums. These include – Philadelphia Municipal Stadium (Convertibles 1957), Soldier Field in Chicago (Convertible 56-57, Cup 56), Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City (Convertibles 1956), McCormick Field in Asheville (Cup 58, Convertibles 56-57), Civic Stadium in Buffalo (Cup 58, Convertible 56), Canadian Exposition Stadium in Toronto (Cup 58, Convertible 56), Oakland Stadium in Oakland, CA (Cup 51,54; K&N West 54), and the L.A. Coliseum, the latest host of the Busch Clash.
• The NASCAR Pinty’s Series, NASCAR’s Canadian series, has two street courses on their calendar – in July, they will share the streets of Toronto with IndyCar for the Grand Prix of Toronto for the 8th time, while in August, they headline the legendary Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières (GP3R), the longest running street race in North America, having taken place since 1967. The Pinty Series has been the headliner event at GP3R since 2007.
• The NASCAR K&N Series raced at Caesars Palace as a support event for the 1983 IndyCar race. Originally built for Formula 1, the Caesars Palace circuit was built in the parking lot of the famous resort; unfortunately, the course is remembered for being one of the worst race tracks of all time.
• While not exactly a street course, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, which the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Pinty’s Series visited on numerous occasions, is often considered a street course as the race track is used as a public road for the majority of the year.

Landmarks on the Chicago Street Course Route:

Grant Park:

• City park, 310+ acre centerpiece of Downtown housing some of the city’s busiest attractions
• Bordered by Lake Michigan and Monroe Harbor
• Named for President Ulysses S. Grant , originally known as Lake Park
• Referred to “Chicago’s Front Yard”
• Location of President Barack Obama’s election day victory speech in 2008
• Includes Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute and Museum Campus
• S/F line of the Chicago Marathon
• Over 4 miles for walking paths
• 16 softball/baseball fields and 12 tennis courts

Major Events in Grant Park:

• Regular schedule of concerts
• Lollapalooza
• Chicago Blues Festival
• Taste of Chicago

Buckingham Fountain:

• One of the world’s largest fountains using as much as 15,000 gallons of water per minute
• Was a gift to the city from Kate Sturges Buckingham (American art collector and philanthropist) in memory of her brother Clarence in 1927 at a cost of $750,000.
• Operates from April to October with water displays every 20 minutes and a light and water display

Turn 4: Field Museum,

• State-of-the-art museum of science & invention, with the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Hutchinson Field –

• Softball fields – Between Columbus and Lake Shore Dr.

Off Turn 11: The Art Institute of Chicago – 111 S Michigan Ave

• Renowned art museum holding nearly 300,000 works of art from all over the world, spanning many centuries with pieces from Van Gogh and Picasso

Turn 12 off to left: Butler Field – S Lake Shore Dr & E Monroe St

• Park and Music Venue
• Final Straight before S/F off to the right on Columbus Dr. is Abraham Lincoln, Head of State -Landmark on 337 E Randolph St just off Columbus Dr.
• It is a Bronze of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US president, designed by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens & set in a leafy park.

Chicago Sports History

• Chicago is one of three cities with two MLB teams: The Chicago Cubs, founded in 1876 and located in the North Side, and the White Sox, founded in 1900 and located on the South Side. Both teams hold three World Series titles each and have hosted numerous hall-of-famers
• The Chicago Bears, founded in 1919, have nine NFC titles, won the 1985 Super Bowl championship, have more Hall-of-Fame members than any other team, and the second most victories of any franchise
• The Chicago Blackhawks are one of the original six NHL teams.  The Blackhawks won six Stanley Cups, including three between in 2009 and 2015 under the ownership of Rocky Wirtz.
• The Chicago Bulls won six NBA championships in the 90s, helmed by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and coach Phil Jackson. During the 1995-96 season, the team became the first in NBA history to win over 70 games in a season (72), a record that would take 20 years to be surpassed (Golden State won 73 in 2016)
• The MLS team, Chicago Fire FC, was founded in 1997 and has won four U.S. Open Cups, including a fairy tale first season, where against all odds the team pulled off “The Double” – the U.S. Open Cup and the MLS Cup.
• The Chicago Marathon, one of the six World Marathon Majors, is the fourth-largest Marathon in the world, and Grant Park serves as the center of the action as runners start and finish the race on Columbus Drive, right where the street course is located. The marathon starts from S Columbus and E Monroe near Butler Field, looping through 26.2 miles of Chicago before returning to S Columbus Dr. for the finish, in between NASCAR’s turns 5 and 6.

Chicago Motorsports History

• Chicago hosted the nation’s first ever auto race on Thanksgiving Day, 1895, the Chicago Times-Herald Race. Only 6 cars out of an expected 80 entrants ended up starting the race, which consisted of a 54-mile course between Chicago and Evanston, with the start-finish near where the Museum of Science and Industry now lies. J. Frank Duryea was the eventual winner and one of only two entrants to finish the race, clocking an average speed of 7 miles per hour. Both the Chicago Street Course and the original course for the Chicago Time-Herald Race share the same portion of Michigan Ave between Balbo and Jackson.
• Several tracks started to pop up around the city in the early days of motor racing – A two-mile oval opened in Maywood, hosting open wheel roadsters from 1915-1918; Chicago Raceway Park opened in 1938 and became a major stock car destination during the 50s; Midgets were a popular event at the indoor International Amphitheater during the 40s. Santa Fe Speedway, a quarter mile clay oval, opened in 1952 and immediately hosted a wide range of oval racing activities; even Soldier Field hosted major stock car races during the 40s and 50s, including a NASCAR Cup Series race in 1956 won by Fireball Roberts. Waukegan Speedway and Rockford Speedway also drew impressive crowds during this time, and many Indy 500 legends would hone their skills around Illinois, including Pat Flatherly and Jim Rathmann
• In 1998, construction was completed on the dirt oval Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL. Later, approval was given for a full-scale NASCAR Cup Series track to be built next to Route 66, leading to the opening of Chicagoland Speedway in 2001. Chicagoland would be a part of the Cup Series calendar until 2019.

NASCAR History at Chicago:

• Santa Fe Speedway- Cup Series 1954
• Soldier Field – Cup Series 1956, Convertible Division 1956-57
• Chicago Motor Speedway (Cicero) – Truck Series 2000-01
• Chicagoland Speedway – Cup Series 2001-2019, Xfinity Series 2001-2019, Truck Series 2009-2019
• Chicago Street Course – Cup Series 2023-2025, Xfinity Series 2023-2025

Joey Logano Nominated For the 2025 ESPY’s Best Driver Award:

• Team Penske driver and three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano, from Middletown, Connecticut, has been nominated for the 2024 Best Driver Award at the ESPYs. Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen from Formula One and IndyCar’s Alex Palou were also nominated for the award
• The 35-year-old Cup Series champion, Logano, could join the likes of Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson as NASCAR drivers who have taken home the hardware during the annual ESPY Award show. Visit ESPN.com to vote. 

Recent Chicago Street Course Storylines:

• Together with ABB, Chevrolet, and Ford, NASCAR will bring a first-of-its-kind electric vehicle showcase to the streets of Chicago during the 2025 NASCAR Chicago Street Race weekend. Featuring exhibition track laps, ABB, Chevy, and Ford will showcase their electric vehicle prototypes to the public, with live track laps driven by current and former NASCAR drivers on Sunday, July 6.
• Electric Vehicles Schedule: 10:15 – 10:25 a.m. CT – Staging and Practice and 10:25 – 10:45 a.m. CT – Track Laps
• The vehicles will also be on static display throughout the race weekend, giving attendees an up-close look at the concept cars. ABB – the official electrification partner of NASCAR – debuted The ABB-NASCAR EV Prototype on the streets of Chicago in 2024, piloted by former NASCAR Cup Series driver David Ragan. Ragan will return to Chicago, this time to drive the Ford Mustang Mach-E NASCAR EV Prototype, with rising stars of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Brent Crews (part-time driver of the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage) driving the ABB-NASCAR EV Prototype and Rajah Caruth (driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports) piloting the Chevy Blazer EV.R NASCAR Prototype.
• NASCAR and Xumo formally announced today that Xumo will take to the streets of Chicago this Independence Day Weekend as a Founding Partner of the Chicago Street Race Weekend, taking place July 5-6 in Chicago’s iconic Grant Park. This news brings together two dynamic brands committed to delivering premium experiences to fans through innovation, access, and technology.
• NASCAR announced the National Anthem lineup for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race weekend, July 5-6 in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park. Aaron Nelson, cast member from Disney’s The Lion King, which returns to Broadway In Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre October 3-19—will sing the National Anthem before Saturday’s Xfinity Series race on July 5. The internationally acclaimed Soul Children of Chicago will open the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday, July 6.
• NASCAR Chicago Street Race announced that Cuervo^® Tequila – the world’s first and number one tequila brand – is increasing its commitment to NASCAR’s only street race, with an expanded footprint throughout Grant Park during the July 5-6 race weekend. As a cornerstone of their growing partnership, Cuervo will return as the naming rights partner of the Cuervo Fountain Club and serve as the presenting sponsor for the all-new Devil’s Turn viewing area, offering fans a fun and engaging race experience.
• NASCAR will return to the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center on Thurs., July 3 from 5-8 p.m. to host the first-ever “Speed and Sound Fest,” a unique community celebration that brings together Chicago food, music, and culture in the leadup to the 2025 NASCAR Chicago Street Race Weekend. The event, which is free with registration, will also feature a one-of-a-kind conversation between Chicago Historian and social media influencer Shermann “Dilla” Thomas (who also serves as Brand Ambassador and Chief of Social Media at The DuSable Museum) and NASCAR drivers including Rajah Caruth (driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports) and rising stars Cassidy Keitt and Lavar Scott of Rev Racing.

COURTESY NASCAR COMMUNICATIONS