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I’m a Chicagoan, former negative critic and now a 100% supporter. More events in downtown Chicago are really needed to keep the city going. It’s in an area outside the center and does not block major through street so doesn’t disrupt downtown too much. Downtown Chicago is huge, several miles long and a couple miles wide in case people don’t know.
I am a 3rd generation chicagoan. I totally disagree with you. Combustion engine racing does not belong in downtown Chicago. Or any downtown. We are trying to get cars out of congestion in urban areas. This is really not the way to do it. We are also having a problem with illegal street racing killing people. So again, really bad idea. We do need events in chicago, but not just downtown. Our whole city is pretty darn amazing. Time to spend on all our neighborhoods.
@@jackieknits61 Agreed - especially with all the illegal street car activities that typically take place during summers. The city could be great for so many other things. This is an interesting novelty, but I would argue more for publicity and remote participation in the form of watching drone footage etc. rather than actually providing a desirable event for city or suburban dwellers to partake in.
@@StephenCoorlas Maybe not shutting down race tracks and forcing them to adhere to unreasonable rules. Allows individuals to express their love for cars in a safe location. Like locals in my home state of New Hampshire not allowing to put lights for the track.
You know what's funny though? The step down from the Cup series, the Xfinity series, also races on the Chicago street course and that car still has all of the older tech and it did just fine.
I worked on the resurfacing of this course. It was an awesome experience. Everything was lasered and mapped out before we milled the roads. Then done again to see how much we cut out of where and then done again once it was paved. They could see a bump that would need to be milled 1/8th of an inch with a micro mill. They had engineers try to figure out grade to make the bridge transitions smoother and everything. It was pretty neat.
As a dedicated nascar fan and a fan of yours, you did an awesome job with this video. Thank you for respecting the sport and the different things it’s trying to do.
I love racing, but always shrugged off Nascar as the stereotypical boring left turn fest. Last year I went to this race with my dad, it was my first ever race I saw in person, as well as the first Nascar race I ever saw, and boy was it fun, even with the horrible weather. I can't recommend it highly enough.
And it’ll be the last, or next to last, lol. The car itself is terrible. The road corse package is their least bad, so this race will be one of the least bad, but then you’ll tune into the next race and see how truly bad the cars are. They cannot handle the side air stream of a leading car, so they’ll get a run into a corner, pull out to pass, and it looks like they slam into a wall-just stopping. They also aren’t stable door to door, so they can’t race close through corners, needing almost a full car width between them to stand a chance of stable side by side racing. And all of that will be compounded when you realize the sport itself is just… gimmicks, not racing. With “stages” and a freaking “playoff” ladder that’s proven itself almost perfectly reliable at crowning not-the-best-team as champion.
@@piedpiper1172the short track and road course car is the worst aero setup for the current cup cars. There's simply too much grip for them to move around. I'm not real sure how you think the intermediate and superspeedway packages are terrible. The intermediates with the gen 7 car have been hands down some of the best racing NASCAR has had on 1.5 mile tracks in a long time. Go watch a kansas race from this or last season, and if you don't like the on track action, maybe oval racing just isn't your style.
My favorite architecture RUclipsr made a NASCAR video!!!!! I love it when I'm at the center of a Venn diagram that looks like two circles until you zoom in
That's super cool. Got into Nascar the past 2 or so years. Fairly new to it. Had no idea iRacing played such a big role in the development of the track layout.
This video is amazingly informational, accurate, and entertaining for an architecture blog taking on auto racing as a topic. My compliments! I consider myself a very well rounded racing fan, and I learned something too. I was extremely skeptical of this event before the initial running. Your discussion of the infrastructure improvements and sim racing exercise helped me understand how they ended up with an exciting but highly functional venue.
i work for one of the equipment rental companies. the INSANE coordination and teamwork that goes into setting these events up (lollapalooza is our big one) is something so insane to even comprehend how much gets moved into/out of grant park all summer for these events and then gone without a trace at the end.
0:55 It was not safer though during the first year in 2022 it was actually way more dangerous than the previous gen 6 car because it didn't have enough crumple zones. They would literally slam the wall on all 4 corners and the car didn't even look like it was wrecked. It also gave two drivers concussions and ended one of their careers.
Also: Sonama, COTA, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Charlotte Roval, Daytona Road Course, Portland, Mosport, Circuit Gilles Villenueve (Montreal), Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez (Mexico City).... just to name the ones nascar has raced at some point, in at least one of their series, over the past 25 years lol
Heard a rumor that F1 is also considering Chicago. Gridlife - one of the best grassroots motorsports companies out there is based in Chicagoland, there's a huge gearhead community here.
Likely won’t go through because of the negativity of NASCAR. Unless they can do it somewhere outside of downtown, or somewhere more isolated, then the residents will fight to not let it happen. Next year is the last year of NASCAR’s contract in Chicago
@@joshuamontanez3851 The odds of the city government agreeing is high because it brings in money, the odds of the citizens liking it? Close to none. If they’re gonna bring any sort of races to Chicago it should be on the outskirts away from main roads and downtown. There’s a whole area of Chicago that’s empty because it suffered from industrialization, if the racing organizations want to invest in making that area into a track used for these things then they can but the state shouldn’t charge citizens higher taxes so they can fund it. NASCAR and F1 could fund the construction if they want to make races here.
@@joshuamontanez3851Chicago seems to enjoy the races and they are popular, so it can definitely go through and the city may fight to renew the contract.
@@joshuamontanez3851 That doesn't matter as much as you think it does when it comes to F1 and the insane amount of money that follows them. A lot of people in vegas were upset with the F1 track changes to the city and the way the event itself was handled where locals were blocked from seeing the vast majority of the track during race week. Still brought hundreds of millions of dollars in and will do so again
Your perspective of how technology blends with the environment is really interesting, and it's got me thinking. I'm a big technology fan keeping up with the latest trends, but it's still surreal when I end up seeing the future of technology a full decade before it ends up being used in the mainstream. For example, I remember looking at the first tech demos of spherical cameras in 2004, and being fascinated and amazed at how incredible it was to watch those videos and have the ability to look in any direction, even on my mediocre 720p monitor. Those are the same type of cameras that now power street view, a ubiquitous part of every day life. It's easy to not realize how different the world is now that you can instantly look at photos from nearly anywhere you'd ever plan on visiting. I see the utilization of spatial environment capture as one of those next evolutions. While everyone is currently hyping the AI bubble, no one seems to be paying attention to how incredible spatial mapping technology is becoming. I remember first seeing the dirty point clouds that were generated by the spatial mapping software, and now the tools for generating and manipulating those point clouds have become so good that it's become realistic to take full environment scans of an entire section of a major downtown city, and turn it into a fully functional level in a video game. Just this year, Epic Games made reality capture free for small developers. Those changes are huge. Like, an incredible piece of technology that people aren't understanding. Being able to build levels in a video game sounds like the sort of technology that could be easily downplayed, but you're highlighting the real and practical applications of this type of technology, and how integral it's becoming to event planning, modeling, infrastructure, and all sorts of critical and important fields. Environment mapping is here to stay, and it's subtly but dramatically improving how we build things. None of this technology is "AI", but it's going to end up having a much bigger impact on the way we live our daily lives. Having an AI generate summaries of my emails isn't going to change the way I live my life, but being able to better design and run major events in crowded downtown areas is the type of thing that will definitely improve my life and resculpt the many decaying downtown areas in the US. It's funny how many of these life changing technologies are already out in the world, but no one is currently using them for anything, or the people who are using them aren't talking about the technology, so no one ever hypes it up and talks about it. I don't need an AI chatbot to recommend me pizza toppings, but almost no one is mentioning the far more important and world changing technologies that are being developed.
It was one of the best days of my life to see that race. I'd been a NASCAR fan since age 7 and for 13 years I really wanted to see a Chicago street race.
Love your videos! Glad you're getting into autosports as it as fantastic mix of ingenuity and skill. But just to nitpick, since this an engineering focused channel, banked turns do not generate extra downforce. What they primarily do is angle the normal force vector of the car so that part of it is in the horizontal direction pointing inwards toward the center of the turn. This creates a centripetal force and reduces the amount of grip required to keep the car turning. In theory, you can design a bank where a car at a known mass and velocity doesn't need any grip at all to make the corner, although this is usually better suited for things like bobsleds than cars. The amount of downforce (which usually means aerodynamic downforce) does not really change as the surface banks, although the normal force vector does increase, which is why you feel compressed in banked turns.
Your videos are absolutely the best. Graphics, none better ... Your narration is incredible. If you're not in this business as a professional, you should be. Great job as always
So many people hate on this and I don't know why. I live in the downtown area and thought this was a neat way to bring a different crowd to Chicago so they can see for themselves that it's nowhere near as bad as they think it is. It was pretty fascinating to watch on TV as well. The first year might've been a net loss in terms of profits. But, rarely do things like this do well in the first 5 years or so. It's an investment that takes time to build upon.
It's an awful investment for chicago or any city. Cars don't belong in dense urban areas. They can race other places. As a 3rd generation chicagoan, I want this gone. This was a total mistake.
NASCAR was "right turn racing" from the very start in 1947. NASCAR greats like Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace and Tim Richmond showed their talent with multiple wins at places like Riverside and Watkins Glenn. While the new car and all its tech is impressive, there are detractions. Side drafting is all but gone, and often one driver can run another one down but then becomes mired in "dirty air" making it almost impossible to pass. Another issue is the construction of this new independent suspension has proven to be fragile. One hit at the wrong angle and the toe links or control arms snap in two instead of bending, ending the driver's day. Having said that, the new cars look so much better than the clown wagon COT's of the early 2000's, but NASCAR still has a lot of work to do on them to make the week in and week out racing more competitive.
I wasn't expecting something so far out of your typical wheelhouse, but this was really good! It's actually fascinating how many kinks were worked out of the racetrack ahead of the time thanks to hardcore simulations and analysis
then let them do it there instead of disrupting the already busy as hell tourist destinations all around Grant Park. the museums last year said they were losing guest attendance and revenue due to how long it takes the track to set up and break down in Grant Park.
And the Detroit one has been great since it came back, its a fun course that brings tourism into the city and brings revenue to nearby businesses and hotels. Its like sporting events idk why people don’t like it
I’m an avid fan of this series and I really appreciate this informative video about all that went into this race. The overall positivity of your take towards this event I hope can spark interest into anyone not following domestic Motorsport. I haven’t dug deep into your videos but highlighting IndyCar street races would be awesome as they need viewers even more than stock car racing. Hell even just a highlight of their new hybrid systems would bring interest to the sport that fails to get 7 digit views on anything but Indy
Now we need the follow up for Long Beach,and a look back at Burke Lakefront Airport,which never put on a dull race,and got turned from an airport to a racetrack,and back to an airport again.I have so many questions about Cleveland's race,from a logistics PoV tooprodu
You may not remember me since it’s been years, but your lectures and these RUclips videos inspired me to present the way you do. To the point, yet detailed enough to understand. I’m in grad school now for architecture and wish I had another class with you
Can't believe I'm sending a link to one of my favourite Architectural RUclipsrs to all my racing fan friends but here we are! Such a well done video, with such an interesting take on the subject.
I been in chicago my whole life so last year when the nascar came in, it was a breath of fresh air for this city. Hopefully this can revitalize this city.
I live in Chicago burbs and love variety. I’ve ridden my sport bike for track days in Nashville circle track, couldn’t believe how bumpy that was. Road America is nice and smooth though. Crazy to think how they drive cars in city with no wiggle room.
I did a video for my physics class giving a basic explanation of things like sway bars/anti-roll bars and how they work when it comes to preventing cars from rolling, and frankly, I was honestly hoping I’d had found a video like this one at the time. I couldn’t find any videos with an explanation of the device like the one in this video
"...first street course race NASCAR has ever held." Well, not really. Even if we limit it to the top step in the NASCAR portfolio, the original Daytona races were held on a street (A1A, or South Atlantic Ave) as well as the actual beach itself. In '57 they also ran a temporary circuit at the Bremerton National Airport in Washington. You judge if that counts as a street circuit or not. The Canadian series, now simply called the NASCAR Canada Series, has raced on numerous different street courses, including Circuit Trois-Rivières, Toronto Exhibition Place, as well as the Edmonton Airport circuit (again, you judge if you class it with street circuits or not), to name a few. Depending on who you ask, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may or may not be a street circuit, too. Either way, thanks for the vid. Lots of cool things that most people wouldn't have any idea about :)
Chicagoans, how long before the race do the barriers start showing up, and how long do they stick around afterward? I'd assume the 5 ton blocks at intersections get brought in and taken out as close to race time as possible, but i wonder how long others linger before and after plus how disruptive they are to foot and car traffic.
Not a ton of car traffic passes through Grant Park, but I'd be curious to know how they handle Lake Shore Drive though, they must keep it open until the day of the race, it'd be hugely disruptive otherwise.
They're putting up blockades and closing streets a month in advance and taking weeks to put it all back to normal. It's really disruptive to the folks who actually do commute through and use the park all the time.
Never thought id hear about NASCAR on this channel! Very cool about the new cars and building a race course on streets. Bet the people who live in Chicago were annoyed as hell though lol.
Had no idea that you're a nascar or general motorsports guy! If you aren't, and this is purely from solid research and maybe some help with the script, I'd be massively impressed, because this was incredibly well-done. Either way, great video, excellent explanations of various aspects of the cars and track design process. Hope you're at this year's race, excited to see how it races compared to the wet conditions we got last year (assuming the weather is a bit more favorable this time around lol)
I love that they had a bunch of pros race the simul model for testing. You can just let everyone have a go, and watch where and how the carnage happens without endangering anyone. Is the footage of that original test race available somewhere?
I really dislike changing the contest to make it harder for teams to make engineering improvements. Half the point is supposed to be to incentivize R&D that can be later applied to consumer vehicles. Besides it's just fucking cool when teams come up with nifty improvements to the car.
In most of racing history, the best R&D has been done by those who are trying to cheat so, seems just more of that to me. Look up a couple VINWiki videos if you want a better idea of what I’m talking about. “The Greatest Cheats in Racing History” and “Racing’s most Legendary CHEATERS”
hi, just a little mistake, if the car it's heavy on the front, will OVERSTEAR, not understear, because the rear are less heavy and have less grip. And viceversa. good video btw
@@Alan_Hans__ i'm a karting driver, and I can assure you that if you load the fronts, you get more oversteer, becaouse the rears are lighter. (and viceversa)
Because they had to shut down LSD for set up and breakdown, diverted traffic north south traffic in the region was in gridlock for a week over the busy 4th of July weekend. Chicagoans were not impressed.
I love Stewart Hicks videos and how well he breaks down large engineering projects in a fun and understandable way. This video confused me though. He mentioned NASCAR brought over 100M dollars to Chicago's economy, but he seems to be quoting a figure from the Chicago Tourism Board that has an interest in making this event look successful. He doesn't mention how it cost the city over 3M dollars in expenses to host an event for which they were paid 500k, an absurdly low number for shutting down the City's front lawn for an entire month. Or that it was over 4th of July, so most of the time that local citizens would be enjoying the lakefront, a large part of Grant Park was surrounded by high chain link fence. I don't know a single Chicagoan who wanted this. We love tourists and tourism is great, if all steakholders can gain something. From this article, below, from a local PBS station, most of the 47k attendees came from out of town and the entire event generated 29.5k hotel nights, including the staff who were in town for an entire month during the setup and tear-down. Contrast that with the Taylor Swift concert that generated a record 44k hotel nights for a two night concert. Or Lollapalooza which brings in about 300M overall revenue to the city every year over 4 days (and a little longer for the massive setup). Also, it's not held during the summer's biggest holiday. I just don't know where they are getting that 109M figure. They mention a 23M boost in "media value" to the city, but that just seems like a way of saying "we have no idea how much the city made, we're making it up, but check out how cool we look! " The numbers are just dubious, and now we are doing it all over again. On the week of July 4th. Again . news.wttw.com/2023/10/04/nascar-added-109m-chicago-s-economy-city-tourism-officials-say
i recall reading that the contract Lori signed was for $150k up front + 10% of sales. even accounting for hotel taxes, i can't fathom how that would translate to $100M for the city. $3M expended sounds right, though. i never got an answer on whether it would be NASCAR or the city paying Chicago Parking Meters LLC for all the on-street parking that was closed for the month surrounding the event, per the 2009 Daley deal, but that kind of price tag makes it sound like the taxpayers were indeed on the hook.
I'm not a hardcore nascar fan or a hardcore car jock. Yet, I like racing animes like Initial D, or MF Ghost. And I'm a Chicagoan that have to navigate the city for work. When we first got word that Nascar is having a race in Chicago. I was like.. NOOOOO!!! because that means they have to do road closers and such. Which is an inconvenience for me due to my work. But When the race started. The race got interesting with the rain, causing more drama, and strategy. Which got entertaining for a regular person to watch on TV. This year. The first race of the the year Xfinity cup series. It was an okay race, the weather was fine. But I almost fall asleep watching. Yet on the Sunday race, when it rain.. yeah, it got the same intensity as last year's race. But I still think last year Nascar cup series race is better than last year in regards of action and entertainment. Would the third year Nascar cup race be any better if it was perfect weather??
The use of road courses in NASCAR sounds interesting. I always preferred the street courses and other variable courses in Grand Tour Racing. They remind me of those Ridge Racer tracks where the players mostly drive on street courses rather than monotonous dedicated race courses.
Nascar has multiple road courses like Watkens Glen. These have multiple tight turns, yet cars have been doing it fine for years. The only difference between and road and street course is the road coarse is prepared. And old gen cars have done the Chicago course just fine too.
When they annouced this last year i thought it was a really dumb gimmick but last year race was overall a wonderful success despite the rain. A little tight on some corners and sucks they did not do the full 100 laps, but i love that nascar is doing road courses. But im a supporter of this race now and for doing it in other cities too. its a spark to get Nascar more popular.
I think I missed opportunity here is allowing another race organization hold a track day here. I think it would be great to have private race teams experience this as well.
Definitely something F1 and Circuit de Monaco could learn from. F1 drivers have to manoeuvre huge cars through a narrow and short track at incredible speeds with tight corners with barely no opportunity to overtake makes the race telecast so boring to watch.
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I’m a Chicagoan, former negative critic and now a 100% supporter. More events in downtown Chicago are really needed to keep the city going. It’s in an area outside the center and does not block major through street so doesn’t disrupt downtown too much. Downtown Chicago is huge, several miles long and a couple miles wide in case people don’t know.
I am a 3rd generation chicagoan. I totally disagree with you. Combustion engine racing does not belong in downtown Chicago. Or any downtown. We are trying to get cars out of congestion in urban areas. This is really not the way to do it. We are also having a problem with illegal street racing killing people. So again, really bad idea. We do need events in chicago, but not just downtown. Our whole city is pretty darn amazing. Time to spend on all our neighborhoods.
@@jackieknits61 Agreed - especially with all the illegal street car activities that typically take place during summers. The city could be great for so many other things. This is an interesting novelty, but I would argue more for publicity and remote participation in the form of watching drone footage etc. rather than actually providing a desirable event for city or suburban dwellers to partake in.
I’m a Phoenician
@@StephenCoorlas Maybe not shutting down race tracks and forcing them to adhere to unreasonable rules. Allows individuals to express their love for cars in a safe location. Like locals in my home state of New Hampshire not allowing to put lights for the track.
I currently live in chicago and I love the willis tower
Incorporating a My Cousin Vinny clip is always a great idea.
👍
Stewart Hicks doing NASCAR wasn't on my bingo card, but being Chicago I'm not surprised in the slightest!
I didn't realize my favorite architect is also a car guy. You just went up in my book, sir.
Just because he does a video on nascar doesn’t make him a car guy 🤦🏼♂️🤣
You know what's funny though? The step down from the Cup series, the Xfinity series, also races on the Chicago street course and that car still has all of the older tech and it did just fine.
Interesting point. I noticed the cars in iracing that raced on the virtual track at first were also the older generation cup car.
You can definitely make the older tech work. Like solid axles can be set up to handle really well if you know what you’re doing.
They handle worse but race better
NASCAR always was able to race on street courses, just never really did, theres videos of the last gen car on street courses
Nascars 5th tier west series also did street circuits in LA in the mid 00s iirc
I worked on the resurfacing of this course. It was an awesome experience. Everything was lasered and mapped out before we milled the roads. Then done again to see how much we cut out of where and then done again once it was paved. They could see a bump that would need to be milled 1/8th of an inch with a micro mill. They had engineers try to figure out grade to make the bridge transitions smoother and everything. It was pretty neat.
As a dedicated nascar fan and a fan of yours, you did an awesome job with this video. Thank you for respecting the sport and the different things it’s trying to do.
I am not a NASCAR fan, but these road races are a great idea.
I think this is a successful move. I'm a big racing fan, but I just never got into NASCAR. This is the first time i'm probably going to watch a race.
I love racing, but always shrugged off Nascar as the stereotypical boring left turn fest. Last year I went to this race with my dad, it was my first ever race I saw in person, as well as the first Nascar race I ever saw, and boy was it fun, even with the horrible weather. I can't recommend it highly enough.
I think of NASCAR a bit like baseball. You really have to get dialed into it or it’s just monotony.
And it’ll be the last, or next to last, lol. The car itself is terrible. The road corse package is their least bad, so this race will be one of the least bad, but then you’ll tune into the next race and see how truly bad the cars are.
They cannot handle the side air stream of a leading car, so they’ll get a run into a corner, pull out to pass, and it looks like they slam into a wall-just stopping.
They also aren’t stable door to door, so they can’t race close through corners, needing almost a full car width between them to stand a chance of stable side by side racing.
And all of that will be compounded when you realize the sport itself is just… gimmicks, not racing. With “stages” and a freaking “playoff” ladder that’s proven itself almost perfectly reliable at crowning not-the-best-team as champion.
@@piedpiper1172the short track and road course car is the worst aero setup for the current cup cars. There's simply too much grip for them to move around.
I'm not real sure how you think the intermediate and superspeedway packages are terrible. The intermediates with the gen 7 car have been hands down some of the best racing NASCAR has had on 1.5 mile tracks in a long time.
Go watch a kansas race from this or last season, and if you don't like the on track action, maybe oval racing just isn't your style.
Miles Kosik literally was planning to write the exact same thing
My favorite architecture RUclipsr made a NASCAR video!!!!! I love it when I'm at the center of a Venn diagram that looks like two circles until you zoom in
I've watched you for years, but seeing a video about not only racing but iRacing which i have thousands of hours on is a surprise! Great video
That's super cool. Got into Nascar the past 2 or so years. Fairly new to it. Had no idea iRacing played such a big role in the development of the track layout.
also new atlanta, coliseum, and a handful of other tracks they are constantly testing new things
This video is amazingly informational, accurate, and entertaining for an architecture blog taking on auto racing as a topic. My compliments! I consider myself a very well rounded racing fan, and I learned something too. I was extremely skeptical of this event before the initial running. Your discussion of the infrastructure improvements and sim racing exercise helped me understand how they ended up with an exciting but highly functional venue.
Architecture takes many forms. This is a great video for many of them. I thought I knew something about NASCAR and iRacing, now I know a lot more.
Fantastic! I didn't know diddly squat about either, and now I'm super curious. Cheers
i work for one of the equipment rental companies. the INSANE coordination and teamwork that goes into setting these events up (lollapalooza is our big one) is something so insane to even comprehend how much gets moved into/out of grant park all summer for these events and then gone without a trace at the end.
0:55 It was not safer though during the first year in 2022 it was actually way more dangerous than the previous gen 6 car because it didn't have enough crumple zones. They would literally slam the wall on all 4 corners and the car didn't even look like it was wrecked. It also gave two drivers concussions and ended one of their careers.
chicago isnt the only nascar race on a track that isnt left turns, watkins glen has been around for ages and was even used for formula 1
Also: Sonama, COTA, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Charlotte Roval, Daytona Road Course, Portland, Mosport, Circuit Gilles Villenueve (Montreal), Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez (Mexico City).... just to name the ones nascar has raced at some point, in at least one of their series, over the past 25 years lol
The “they only turn left” stereotype will prevail no matter how much truth you throw at it.
@@ItzzzBeamo Yep, people are not just real good at learning these days.
As a long time NASCAR fan and more recent fan of Chicago, this is a very cool crossover between my two interests. Great analysis!
Thankyou for being the first non-motorsport / sim-racing youtuber to make a topical video and respect the sport(s) appropriately
Heard a rumor that F1 is also considering Chicago.
Gridlife - one of the best grassroots motorsports companies out there is based in Chicagoland, there's a huge gearhead community here.
Likely won’t go through because of the negativity of NASCAR. Unless they can do it somewhere outside of downtown, or somewhere more isolated, then the residents will fight to not let it happen. Next year is the last year of NASCAR’s contract in Chicago
@@joshuamontanez3851
The odds of the city government agreeing is high because it brings in money, the odds of the citizens liking it? Close to none. If they’re gonna bring any sort of races to Chicago it should be on the outskirts away from main roads and downtown. There’s a whole area of Chicago that’s empty because it suffered from industrialization, if the racing organizations want to invest in making that area into a track used for these things then they can but the state shouldn’t charge citizens higher taxes so they can fund it. NASCAR and F1 could fund the construction if they want to make races here.
@@nicoleskorupsky1007 Lots of big events bring in money to Chicago. Lolla paid more to use less of the park for a week than NASCAR paid for a month.
@@joshuamontanez3851Chicago seems to enjoy the races and they are popular, so it can definitely go through and the city may fight to renew the contract.
@@joshuamontanez3851 That doesn't matter as much as you think it does when it comes to F1 and the insane amount of money that follows them. A lot of people in vegas were upset with the F1 track changes to the city and the way the event itself was handled where locals were blocked from seeing the vast majority of the track during race week. Still brought hundreds of millions of dollars in and will do so again
Its really cool to me that the racing sim is a source of data you can't really get otherwise
Your perspective of how technology blends with the environment is really interesting, and it's got me thinking. I'm a big technology fan keeping up with the latest trends, but it's still surreal when I end up seeing the future of technology a full decade before it ends up being used in the mainstream. For example, I remember looking at the first tech demos of spherical cameras in 2004, and being fascinated and amazed at how incredible it was to watch those videos and have the ability to look in any direction, even on my mediocre 720p monitor. Those are the same type of cameras that now power street view, a ubiquitous part of every day life. It's easy to not realize how different the world is now that you can instantly look at photos from nearly anywhere you'd ever plan on visiting.
I see the utilization of spatial environment capture as one of those next evolutions. While everyone is currently hyping the AI bubble, no one seems to be paying attention to how incredible spatial mapping technology is becoming. I remember first seeing the dirty point clouds that were generated by the spatial mapping software, and now the tools for generating and manipulating those point clouds have become so good that it's become realistic to take full environment scans of an entire section of a major downtown city, and turn it into a fully functional level in a video game. Just this year, Epic Games made reality capture free for small developers.
Those changes are huge. Like, an incredible piece of technology that people aren't understanding. Being able to build levels in a video game sounds like the sort of technology that could be easily downplayed, but you're highlighting the real and practical applications of this type of technology, and how integral it's becoming to event planning, modeling, infrastructure, and all sorts of critical and important fields. Environment mapping is here to stay, and it's subtly but dramatically improving how we build things. None of this technology is "AI", but it's going to end up having a much bigger impact on the way we live our daily lives. Having an AI generate summaries of my emails isn't going to change the way I live my life, but being able to better design and run major events in crowded downtown areas is the type of thing that will definitely improve my life and resculpt the many decaying downtown areas in the US.
It's funny how many of these life changing technologies are already out in the world, but no one is currently using them for anything, or the people who are using them aren't talking about the technology, so no one ever hypes it up and talks about it. I don't need an AI chatbot to recommend me pizza toppings, but almost no one is mentioning the far more important and world changing technologies that are being developed.
I’m a huge NASCAR fan, your video was amazing and I’m definitely going to subscribe after looking at your other videos
10:06 The joke in my head when I saw "Designed in Germany"...
Ring racer coaster at Nürburgring
"I wonder why Germany is so good at making Fences.... Oh yeah...."
@@soad3838 oh no 😅😂😂
@@soad3838 I mean, I was referring to the the fly stuck in the glass... Either the glass was made in China or the fly was made in Germany 🙂
It would be cool to see this road race open up for different classes.
It was one of the best days of my life to see that race. I'd been a NASCAR fan since age 7 and for 13 years I really wanted to see a Chicago street race.
Love your videos! Glad you're getting into autosports as it as fantastic mix of ingenuity and skill.
But just to nitpick, since this an engineering focused channel, banked turns do not generate extra downforce.
What they primarily do is angle the normal force vector of the car so that part of it is in the horizontal direction pointing inwards toward the center of the turn. This creates a centripetal force and reduces the amount of grip required to keep the car turning. In theory, you can design a bank where a car at a known mass and velocity doesn't need any grip at all to make the corner, although this is usually better suited for things like bobsleds than cars.
The amount of downforce (which usually means aerodynamic downforce) does not really change as the surface banks, although the normal force vector does increase, which is why you feel compressed in banked turns.
9:27 "Only 4 can be moved at a time" An European truck would be able to move 6 or 7 of these. US trucks have really low payload limits.
I like the idea that all those kids that grew up playing play Gran Turismo are now in charge and they're just bringing there dreams to life.
I remember watching that iRacing broadcast in 2020 on FS1. That was utterly surreal to see that course *virtually* on a national broadcast.
0:11 - Nascar has previously held street races in Tacoma, Spokane, & Los Angeles.
Not just that, but with the Left-Right Series, they wanted a whole street series but it never happened,this was back in the 80s howevergoing
Your videos are absolutely the best. Graphics, none better ... Your narration is incredible. If you're not in this business as a professional, you should be. Great job as always
Ngl the ad work is superior 💪🏿 12:23
Great video! Chicagoan here - I went today and loved the event! Planning to go again next year
So many people hate on this and I don't know why. I live in the downtown area and thought this was a neat way to bring a different crowd to Chicago so they can see for themselves that it's nowhere near as bad as they think it is. It was pretty fascinating to watch on TV as well.
The first year might've been a net loss in terms of profits. But, rarely do things like this do well in the first 5 years or so. It's an investment that takes time to build upon.
Didn’t he say it costed $50M and brought in $100M?
I think it'll do well. The F1 race in Las Vegas, which was very similar, seemed to be successful.
@@P51DFreak25 It brought $100M into Chicago, I don't think he mentioned the ROI for NASCAR
@@skyerune seems like a good investment for Chicago
It's an awful investment for chicago or any city. Cars don't belong in dense urban areas. They can race other places. As a 3rd generation chicagoan, I want this gone. This was a total mistake.
NASCAR was "right turn racing" from the very start in 1947. NASCAR greats like Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace and Tim Richmond showed their talent with multiple wins at places like Riverside and Watkins Glenn. While the new car and all its tech is impressive, there are detractions. Side drafting is all but gone, and often one driver can run another one down but then becomes mired in "dirty air" making it almost impossible to pass. Another issue is the construction of this new independent suspension has proven to be fragile. One hit at the wrong angle and the toe links or control arms snap in two instead of bending, ending the driver's day. Having said that, the new cars look so much better than the clown wagon COT's of the early 2000's, but NASCAR still has a lot of work to do on them to make the week in and week out racing more competitive.
I wasn't expecting something so far out of your typical wheelhouse, but this was really good! It's actually fascinating how many kinks were worked out of the racetrack ahead of the time thanks to hardcore simulations and analysis
Indycar has been racing on the streets of several cities for decades. Street races this year include Long Beach, St Pete, Detroit, and Toronto.
Indy car is not nascar
Nascar was probably the only major racing series to not use street courses.
then let them do it there instead of disrupting the already busy as hell tourist destinations all around Grant Park. the museums last year said they were losing guest attendance and revenue due to how long it takes the track to set up and break down in Grant Park.
@@mileskosik472I mean, they used to. Very sparingly, but they did
And the Detroit one has been great since it came back, its a fun course that brings tourism into the city and brings revenue to nearby businesses and hotels. Its like sporting events idk why people don’t like it
I’m an avid fan of this series and I really appreciate this informative video about all that went into this race. The overall positivity of your take towards this event I hope can spark interest into anyone not following domestic Motorsport. I haven’t dug deep into your videos but highlighting IndyCar street races would be awesome as they need viewers even more than stock car racing. Hell even just a highlight of their new hybrid systems would bring interest to the sport that fails to get 7 digit views on anything but Indy
Wow, this is a surprise! Very cool! You even talked about iRacing.
Another phenomenal video Stewart!
Now we need the follow up for Long Beach,and a look back at Burke Lakefront Airport,which never put on a dull race,and got turned from an airport to a racetrack,and back to an airport again.I have so many questions about Cleveland's race,from a logistics PoV tooprodu
You may not remember me since it’s been years, but your lectures and these RUclips videos inspired me to present the way you do. To the point, yet detailed enough to understand. I’m in grad school now for architecture and wish I had another class with you
Ted Moseby?
Is that you?
Great work! Ty! .. I'm a local and am stoked to see this again! 🏁
This is absolutely fascinating
Can't believe I'm sending a link to one of my favourite Architectural RUclipsrs to all my racing fan friends but here we are! Such a well done video, with such an interesting take on the subject.
I been in chicago my whole life so last year when the nascar came in, it was a breath of fresh air for this city. Hopefully this can revitalize this city.
I live in Chicago burbs and love variety. I’ve ridden my sport bike for track days in Nashville circle track, couldn’t believe how bumpy that was. Road America is nice and smooth though. Crazy to think how they drive cars in city with no wiggle room.
I did a video for my physics class giving a basic explanation of things like sway bars/anti-roll bars and how they work when it comes to preventing cars from rolling, and frankly, I was honestly hoping I’d had found a video like this one at the time. I couldn’t find any videos with an explanation of the device like the one in this video
"...first street course race NASCAR has ever held."
Well, not really. Even if we limit it to the top step in the NASCAR portfolio, the original Daytona races were held on a street (A1A, or South Atlantic Ave) as well as the actual beach itself. In '57 they also ran a temporary circuit at the Bremerton National Airport in Washington. You judge if that counts as a street circuit or not.
The Canadian series, now simply called the NASCAR Canada Series, has raced on numerous different street courses, including Circuit Trois-Rivières, Toronto Exhibition Place, as well as the Edmonton Airport circuit (again, you judge if you class it with street circuits or not), to name a few. Depending on who you ask, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may or may not be a street circuit, too.
Either way, thanks for the vid. Lots of cool things that most people wouldn't have any idea about :)
Rare footage of NASCAR drivers not turning left
Really cool video! thanks for talking about all the things I wanted people to know
im very impressed with you doing car content. nicely done !
Chicagoans, how long before the race do the barriers start showing up, and how long do they stick around afterward?
I'd assume the 5 ton blocks at intersections get brought in and taken out as close to race time as possible, but i wonder how long others linger before and after plus how disruptive they are to foot and car traffic.
It's like a month overall.
Not a ton of car traffic passes through Grant Park, but I'd be curious to know how they handle Lake Shore Drive though, they must keep it open until the day of the race, it'd be hugely disruptive otherwise.
Roads closed off this week and won’t be resolved till early August because Lolla comes to town
@@P51DFreak25 So LSD is closed south of Jackson all summer? That seems insane to me.
They're putting up blockades and closing streets a month in advance and taking weeks to put it all back to normal. It's really disruptive to the folks who actually do commute through and use the park all the time.
I love that you included the clip from My cousin Vinny. Marisa Tomei is great in this role!
Never thought id hear about NASCAR on this channel! Very cool about the new cars and building a race course on streets. Bet the people who live in Chicago were annoyed as hell though lol.
What an awesome combination of two of my favorite topics
Amazing video! I’d love to see more like this on motorsports!
What great content for this topic! Thx
She knows cars, your Honor.
She's cute too, huh?
as a chicagoan whose also a racing fan I see a lot of potential in the course for other series and honestly Id go every year
All cars have years of engineering behind them. Nice to hear you speak positively
Had no idea that you're a nascar or general motorsports guy! If you aren't, and this is purely from solid research and maybe some help with the script, I'd be massively impressed, because this was incredibly well-done. Either way, great video, excellent explanations of various aspects of the cars and track design process. Hope you're at this year's race, excited to see how it races compared to the wet conditions we got last year (assuming the weather is a bit more favorable this time around lol)
You forgot one thing NASCAR did use the Chicagoland Speedway before they closed it and start using the streets
NASCAR still owns it and operates it for other races.
Kind of silly to shut everything down when Chicago already has a NASCAR racetrack.
I love that they had a bunch of pros race the simul model for testing. You can just let everyone have a go, and watch where and how the carnage happens without endangering anyone. Is the footage of that original test race available somewhere?
Great video! Also nascar has raced at road courses since 1948
nascar out here fixing Chicago's streets before the Gov't
This first Street race NASCAR has ever run was Daytona Beach
I really dislike changing the contest to make it harder for teams to make engineering improvements. Half the point is supposed to be to incentivize R&D that can be later applied to consumer vehicles.
Besides it's just fucking cool when teams come up with nifty improvements to the car.
In most of racing history, the best R&D has been done by those who are trying to cheat so, seems just more of that to me.
Look up a couple VINWiki videos if you want a better idea of what I’m talking about. “The Greatest Cheats in Racing History” and “Racing’s most Legendary CHEATERS”
hi, just a little mistake, if the car it's heavy on the front, will OVERSTEAR, not understear, because the rear are less heavy and have less grip. And viceversa.
good video btw
Nope. He's correct.
@@Alan_Hans__ i'm a karting driver, and I can assure you that if you load the fronts, you get more oversteer, becaouse the rears are lighter. (and viceversa)
@@oscaraprile6609 Karting characteristics are very different from full sized cars at those speeds. Wheelbase changes everything
@@widdly-scuds yes, but the physic Is the same for everything
Is your weight overloading the tire and causing it to lose grip or is the lighter part of the car not getting enough traction and breaking free?
If Vegas could pull off Formula One, Chicago can pull off NASCAR
So iracing is exactly just a racing game you'd play. Just a high end one.
it’s like dcs vs warthunder
It certainly sounds like this was handled and received better than F1s introduction to Las Vega
Because they had to shut down LSD for set up and breakdown, diverted traffic north south traffic in the region was in gridlock for a week over the busy 4th of July weekend. Chicagoans were not impressed.
0:12 incorrect. The first Daytona Beach races were also a street course, run on public roadway
Nice vid!
I think your understeer/oversteer and weight bias demo is backwards though
Definitely backwards.
This is a pretty cool video!
So, you're saying there is at least 1 street route in Chicago without potholes?
What kind of sucks is that this race replaced on the schedule, I believe, the Road America race up here in Wisconsin
that 500 trips are crazy, imagine the cost for transport and the polution it makes
I love Stewart Hicks videos and how well he breaks down large engineering projects in a fun and understandable way.
This video confused me though. He mentioned NASCAR brought over 100M dollars to Chicago's economy, but he seems to be quoting a figure from the Chicago Tourism Board that has an interest in making this event look successful.
He doesn't mention how it cost the city over 3M dollars in expenses to host an event for which they were paid 500k, an absurdly low number for shutting down the City's front lawn for an entire month. Or that it was over 4th of July, so most of the time that local citizens would be enjoying the lakefront, a large part of Grant Park was surrounded by high chain link fence.
I don't know a single Chicagoan who wanted this. We love tourists and tourism is great, if all steakholders can gain something.
From this article, below, from a local PBS station, most of the 47k attendees came from out of town and the entire event generated 29.5k hotel nights, including the staff who were in town for an entire month during the setup and tear-down.
Contrast that with the Taylor Swift concert that generated a record 44k hotel nights for a two night concert.
Or Lollapalooza which brings in about 300M overall revenue to the city every year over 4 days (and a little longer for the massive setup). Also, it's not held during the summer's biggest holiday.
I just don't know where they are getting that 109M figure.
They mention a 23M boost in "media value" to the city, but that just seems like a way of saying "we have no idea how much the city made, we're making it up, but check out how cool we look! "
The numbers are just dubious, and now we are doing it all over again. On the week of July 4th. Again .
news.wttw.com/2023/10/04/nascar-added-109m-chicago-s-economy-city-tourism-officials-say
i recall reading that the contract Lori signed was for $150k up front + 10% of sales. even accounting for hotel taxes, i can't fathom how that would translate to $100M for the city. $3M expended sounds right, though. i never got an answer on whether it would be NASCAR or the city paying Chicago Parking Meters LLC for all the on-street parking that was closed for the month surrounding the event, per the 2009 Daley deal, but that kind of price tag makes it sound like the taxpayers were indeed on the hook.
This is so cool cities have been doing this for f1 for decades
ye ye middle of the city its a genius location, so iconic
Why on earth has everyone suddenly begun saying ‘invested into’ instead of ‘invested in’?
i love non NASCAR RUclips channel talking about NASCAR
6:08 funny enough you can still run the prototype course they were trying for Chicago on iracing still
2:28, center of mass in front is causing over, center of mass in back causing the understeer, am i wrong??
I'm not a hardcore nascar fan or a hardcore car jock. Yet, I like racing animes like Initial D, or MF Ghost. And I'm a Chicagoan that have to navigate the city for work. When we first got word that Nascar is having a race in Chicago. I was like.. NOOOOO!!! because that means they have to do road closers and such. Which is an inconvenience for me due to my work. But When the race started. The race got interesting with the rain, causing more drama, and strategy. Which got entertaining for a regular person to watch on TV. This year. The first race of the the year Xfinity cup series. It was an okay race, the weather was fine. But I almost fall asleep watching. Yet on the Sunday race, when it rain.. yeah, it got the same intensity as last year's race. But I still think last year Nascar cup series race is better than last year in regards of action and entertainment.
Would the third year Nascar cup race be any better if it was perfect weather??
Hope they keep this track. Great time even with the rain
I went to the nashville race last week and it blew my mind
The use of road courses in NASCAR sounds interesting. I always preferred the street courses and other variable courses in Grand Tour Racing. They remind me of those Ridge Racer tracks where the players mostly drive on street courses rather than monotonous dedicated race courses.
1:50 One of my alltime favourite movies. 👍🙂
Nascar has multiple road courses like Watkens Glen. These have multiple tight turns, yet cars have been doing it fine for years. The only difference between and road and street course is the road coarse is prepared. And old gen cars have done the Chicago course just fine too.
Missed opportunity in not calling our skyscrapers "concrete mountains" at 9:54.
Would be fun if Indycar, Formula E, and IMSA (Weathertech or MCP) goes to Streets of Chicago that would be definitley fun to watch it
It would be really cool if cross country long distance races become the norm like the ones seen in the early year's of the automobile
When they annouced this last year i thought it was a really dumb gimmick but last year race was overall a wonderful success despite the rain. A little tight on some corners and sucks they did not do the full 100 laps, but i love that nascar is doing road courses. But im a supporter of this race now and for doing it in other cities too. its a spark to get Nascar more popular.
I think I missed opportunity here is allowing another race organization hold a track day here. I think it would be great to have private race teams experience this as well.
Definitely something F1 and Circuit de Monaco could learn from. F1 drivers have to manoeuvre huge cars through a narrow and short track at incredible speeds with tight corners with barely no opportunity to overtake makes the race telecast so boring to watch.
I don’t look at Monaco is a race so much as a very high speed parade…
Thats the max with there
iRacing Official needs to update their b-roll, that computer man at 5:09 looks like he's working on Windows Vista
I would not be sad if the last race was held somewhere else!
Moved to downtown beginning of the month. 1 block north of trump tower. The traffic was wild a f lol