![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot_2025-07-14_at_10.30.57AM_t670.png\")
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NASCAR on Chicago city streets<\/p>\n
Downtown San Diego might soon swap out its bike lanes for burnout marks and drift trails; the hum of rush hour could be drowned out by the thunder of V8-powered stock cars. According to a June 24 report from The Athletic, NASCAR is deep in communication with the city of San Diego to bring a full-blown street race to the heart of the city by 2026. And this wouldn’t be some cookie-cutter oval way out in the desert \u2014 this Cup Series race would carve its way through actual San Diego streets, flanked by palm trees, trolley tracks, beachfront views, and the city skyline.<\/p>\n
Local business is stoked about the obvious perks \u2014 packed hotels, slammed bars and restaurants, and a mass tourism windfall \u2014 but others are seeing other, more unexpected wins in the mix.<\/p>\n
First up: the potholes. The idea of NASCAR zipping through our cratered concrete has become its own joke online \u2014 and just maybe, the catalyst for change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf NASCAR will help to get our roads filled and repaved,\u201d local racer Jerry Vee said, \u201cthen lets go!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Rigg added, \u201cMaybe this will force the city of SD to actually fix our roads.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two\u2019s sentiments are echoed by many people online.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the cultural crossover. Just south of the border, motorsport fans in Tijuana all the way to Ensenada are already revved up \u2014 many of them loyal to events like the Baja 1000, like-road racing, and hill-climb races. With a San Diego street race on the calendar, border traffic could spike not just for shopping and nightlife, but for a full-blown racing weekend. Think: tailgates, tire smoke, cerveza, and beach vibes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake it official, route the course through SeaWorld and have it actually \u2018jump the shark\u2019 tank,\u201d quipped Jim Langer of the Racing Beat company.<\/p>\n
On a deeper level, the event could breathe new life into San Diego\u2019s fading car culture. This city used to be a haven for hot rods, lowriders, import builds, and burnout meetups by the beach. But that energy has dwindled thanks to a combination of street takeover backlash, and California’s infamous smog restrictions. Legal places to race? Basically just Barona\u2019s 1\/8-mile strip. A NASCAR event in the heart of America\u2019s Finest City could reignite that fire.<\/p>\n
Not everyone is sold, though. Some hardcore NASCAR fans online are grumbling about the format. A street course, unlike a classic oval, doesn\u2019t let fans watch the full race play out in front of them. You see the cars flash by, then wait. No panoramic view. No full lap drama.<\/p>\n
But we have our phones and giant jumbotrons to watch the action; although it\u2019s not the same.<\/p>\n
Jeff Wilson offered a workaround: \u201cIf they want a decent course, just use the Del Mar Fairgrounds that they used for IMSA back in the late 80s. Plenty of parking, good access, good viewing areas … Avoid downtown.\u201d That old-school layout was about 1.6 miles long \u2014 not an oval, but a winding, irregular course stitched into the fairgrounds’ existing paths and buildings with some seating areas having a great vantage point of most of the race.<\/p>\n
As for the ripple effects? Expect some creative chaos \u2014 more temp jobs, racing-themed art pop-ups, NASCAR-inspired menus, and a sea of folks swapping board shorts and flip-flops for pit crew jackets and Richard Petty esque cowboy hats.<\/p>\n
But in the end, it may just come down to dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASCAR already spends around 7 million a year to run the Chicago street course,\u201d said Barry Burritt, a diehard race fan. \u201cI would imagine that San Diego would be no less than 10 million per year just because it’s California and California is a very expensive state that has higher wages.\u201d That dollar figure could be a lot more, which would help boost our economy and fix the potholes \u2014 a checkered flag win-win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR on Chicago city streets Downtown San Diego might soon swap out its bike lanes for burnout marks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-9754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}