NASCAR Chicago Cup Series race didn’t go down well with residents as majority voted against a repeat race

The NASCAR Chicago City Street Race's future in the sport and in 'The Windy City' depends on the city's alderman of the 42nd ward. Ald. Brendan Reilly has made it public news of his wish to conduct surveys of residents of the downtown area of the city where the race was held, as well as an economic impact study coming up shortly.

The results of the resident poll do not seem to favor stock car racing's return to the city as 58% of the respondents said they were negatively impacted by the event. Closures of main city streets such as Lake Shore Drive and disruption of traffic might have been the root causes for the same.

Picture Courtesy: Reilly Reports/blockclubchicago.org

37.4% of respondents felt the event did not affect them in any way, with the remainder choosing to stay indifferent. Along with the above-mentioned numbers, 54.5% of poll takers were against the idea of the event returning at a future date. A third of the group was in favor of NASCAR returning to Chicago, while the remaining 37.2% remained indifferent.

While Ald. Brendan Reilly did not comment on the matter, Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd agreed to the survey's results as to what he had been hearing from the participants. However, Hopkins still chooses to keep an open mind if the economic impact study shows clear signs of growth for the city during the weekend.

The study is set to be conducted by Choose Chicago, the city's tourism arm and NASCAR's future in the form of the Grant Park 220 seems to be dependent on the results as of now.

Chicago's Mayor's take on whether NASCAR would return to the city or not

Mayor of the city of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, was also one of the political figures from Windy City to comment on NASCAR's return to the streets. The unique event in stock car racing, while making history in the sport, also caused disruption of day-to-day activities for the natives of the venue.

Johnson spoke about the race's future in the city and told blockclubchicago.org:

"As far as the disruption that took place and how the city of Chicago benefited from it is something that we have to really dig a little bit deeper and explore, then make sure that there is a real community-led process with the local alderpeople to help drive that discussion and then a decision will be made based upon those conversations"

Results of the economic impact survey will be eagerly awaited by NASCAR as well as promoters of the event.