Excited fans brave downpours to witness NASCAR Chicago Street Race: ‘I’ve got to see it; might not be back next year’

Downtown Chicago turned into a slick, speed-drenched racetrack Sunday after the NASCAR street race started late following rain delays.

The cars flew through tight turns around Grant Park on roads like DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, kicking up mist from the wet course’s puddles. Above the zooming cars, the city’s picturesque skyscrapers pierced fog clouds still lingering from the afternoon’s storms.

The stands slowly filled up after the delays. Drivers deftly passed one another in front of the hundreds of fans who braved the showers to watch the spectacle.

NASCAR officials decided to shorten the race from 100 laps to 75 to finish the race before daylight faded, another unprecedented twist for the first NASCAR street race. Shane van Gisbergen of New Zealand, in his first Cup Series start, won the race.

As fan Kevin Malec walked past Buckingham Fountain to watch his favorite driver, Aric Almirola, tear through the course, he said Chicago made a “wise decision” bringing the sport’s historic first street race to town.

“I don’t think NASCAR will ever be the same,” he said.

The rain had threatened to stop the race from ever starting earlier in the afternoon. The day had been set to start with the rest of the Xfinity Series Loop 121 race that had been postponed Saturday because of lightning, but NASCAR officials decided to call off the secondary race Sunday morning.

Flash flood warnings were in effect throughout Sunday.

The rain picked up just ahead of the main event Cup Series race’s scheduled 4 p.m. start time. Water puddled up at the race’s finish line, where Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson walked under an umbrella into the main drag’s stands.

Drivers got wet as they walked across the stage for introductions. The few people braving the bad weather in the mostly empty stands then managed scattered applause as NASCAR’s biggest stars appeared.

Several racers shared concerns before the race delay was announced and again when it was announced that the race would indeed start Sunday.

“We can’t see in this, so it’s impossible. I think there’s a lot of big puddles on the track too, and we’ll just fly off the road into the barriers,” driver Martin Truex Jr. said as he walked to his car.

Pole sitter Denny Hamlin told the Tribune it would be “truly unsafe” to race as he headed toward his stock car after the introductions.

“We should not,” he said. “Hopefully this is all a formality.”

But the rain faded. The crowd stirred as racers headed back toward their cars. Bears quarterback Justin Fields, grand marshal for the Cup Series, gave drivers the signal to fire up their Next Gen stock cars shortly after 5 p.m.

“Drivers, start your engines!” the star quarterback shouted.

After Hamlin led the drivers through the green flag to start, crashes and caution flags dotted the exciting competition. In the first lap, three drivers crashed. Hamlin slid into a pile of tires early.

Truex Jr. skimmed a wall midway into the race, causing his Bass Pro Shops-marked car to fall back a few spots.

In lap 3, Busch’s Chevrolet Camaro impaled a tire barrier. The two-time Cup Series championship winner’s car was windshield-deep into the barrier before he pulled out and continued racing.

The expert racers faced a gantlet of right turns on the tricky course. The 12-turn, 2.2-mile track was the first street race in NASCAR history.

The drivers picked up speed as the track appeared to dry further into the competition. Pit crews swapped the cars’ rain tires for faster racing “slicks” designed with smoother treads.

A NASCAR official told the Tribune the organization had worked closely with the city to decide to start the race. Before the race began, the event organizers used Air Titans to blow water from the course’s sodden pavement.

The race’s intense action was a welcomed spectacle for many of the fans in attendance, some of whom had complained about a perceived lack of communication and accommodation during the delays.

Many fans, like Lincoln Park resident Michael Deutschmann, returned to the course after heading home amid the rain. Others huddled in nearby coffee shops or tents pitched around the track.

“I was watching the weather delay, watching the White Sox, saw it came back and hopped on the Brown Line,” said Deutschmann, who wore a Polo shirt covered in Chicago-style hotdogs. “I’ve got to see it; might not be back next year based on all the feedback I’ve heard from the city.”

In a postrace press conference, NASCAR organizers praised Mayor Brandon Johnson for collaborating on the race. The three-year contract between the Chicago Park District and NASCAR was shepherded by Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot.

Johnson has expressed some skepticism about fulfilling the contract, which allows both parties to opt out 180 days or more before the next race at no penalty.

”NASCAR and the industry put a lot of effort in, but the city certainly put a lot of effort into this event and it showed,” said Ben Kennedy, the senior vice president of racing development and strategy for NASCAR.

While Van Ginsbergen showed off smoky burnouts in front of throngs of fans at the victory lane finish line, driver Joey Logano stood by his banged up No. 22 car and echoed criticism he made before the race.

”It was still pretty sketchy to start the race,” said Logano, who finished eighth. “The track’s not the safest track, to start off with. So when you put us in the rain, obviously, we’re all skeptical of doing it in the dry, and you put us in the rain, it’s kind of like, ‘You sure?’ ”

Fernando Moran of Oak Park said the chaos of the street course is ideal.

”The street ovals are OK, but you need a challenge like this to tell you who the real top drivers are,” Moran said.

Randy Christopherson carried an autograph from driver Noah Gragson as he left the Grant Park race course. But the 12-year-old’s favorite driver — the one on his white T-shirt, Tyler Reddick — fell back in the pack after slamming into a tire wall.

The young NASCAR fan visiting from Madison, Wisconsin, didn’t think the race would start amid the downpour.

”I think it went pretty well for it to be pouring for half the day,” he said.

Still, Christopherson had his complaints. There could have been more seating to see better and more TVs so fans could tell what was going on out of view, he said.

He was excited to come back next year, he added.

His mom, Kathryn Christopherson, was less sure about coming back next year as she held two soaked rain jackets in a plastic bag and remembered pruny fingers.

She’s “50-50″ on returning for another Chicago street race, she said.

She and her son had been standing in the rain since 9 a.m. They saw one race canceled and another cut short. When the next race comes around, the Christophersons might just watch from home, she said.