Questions linger after NASCAR race at Road America
ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin – On a glorious Sunday afternoon, the allAmerican sport of NASCAR celebrated the extended Fourth of July weekend in the Heartland for the second time at a place with “America” in its name.
It felt right. It sounded right. It looked right.
For those who celebrate summer holidays with a cookout, it absolutely smelled right.
Still, questions and doubts kept wafting in from the background.
They started a month ago. Then they persisted as Chase Elliott led the field to green for the Kwik Trip 250, as he threatened to turn it into a runaway and when Tyler Reddick overcame Elliott and inched away for his first NASCAR Cup Series victory, another feel-good story in a season of surprises.
Would this be the finale to what appeared to be a highly successful twoyear experiment?
For now? Forever? And if so, why? Did it have to be that way?
“It’s just a special place,” said Richard Childress, the veteran car owner whose team also has won three times in the second-level Xfinity Series at Road America.
“It’s just a challenging racetrack, and the drivers … a lot of it’s in the drivers’ hands, how they can do it, attack it, and not overdo it.”
So it’s pretty clear Childress would love to come back. His winning driver, too, plus tens of thousands of rowdy fans who started the party early and saw it through. Those types of decisions aren’t made on emotion, though, and definitely not at the competitor level.
To recap the history, 11 years after Road America stepped in to keep the
Xfinity Series in Wisconsin after the failure at the Milwaukee Mile, NASCAR came with the Cup Series date that had been used at Chicagoland Speedway.
Not only would the race move 180 miles to the north, it would shift on the schedule for the Fourth of July, creating the opportunity for a family holiday celebration in a parklike setting. Diehards would never forgive the decision to stop racing at Daytona on the Fourth, but perhaps they’d come to tolerate this change.
Fans went bananas in 2021. The biggest crowd in decades, possibly ever, filled Road America and roared in approval as Elliott, the series’ most popular driver, came through the field to win the first premier-division NASCAR race at the track since 1956.
The deal was described as a partnership. It’s NASCAR’s date and Road America’s 4 miles of asphalt. Beyond that – and the fact the agreement was for two years –details of the split of responsibilities, expenses and revenues have been held tightly.
Now those two years are up.
Not everyone returned for the second go-round, but that was to be expected. The track enjoyed an overall bump in ticket sales for this season as more people became aware of the picturesque facility in rural Sheboygan County, and the weekend crowd was strong.
When Elliott ran away in the first two stages and made the race a snoozer, social media turned ugly. Maybe Road America isn’t so good for stock cars, the keyboard warriors opined. Maybe it is time for NASCAR to move the date again.
Maybe they were right. For as challenging as the track is to drive, it can be a tough place to pass. And when the best car is out front with no challenge, battles within the field can get lost.
Presumably the outcome softened the criticism.
Reddick, a runner-up five times but winless in his first 91 Cup starts, had picked up a couple of spots through the first half of the race and came out of the final pit stop right on Elliott’s tail. Four years earlier he struggled so badly at Road America, the weekend had him wondering if he could get the job done at the Xfinity or Cup level.
“But I had a lot of good people around me that believed in me, got me back where I needed to be, and from that point on, things have been a lot better,” Reddick said.
“It’s really crazy that this is the place I got my first win because this place four years ago had me questioning everything.”
Reddick’s story is one of a hard worker with an equally dedicated team of crew members, trainers and engineers finding the success for which they have fought. Reddick chased down the best stock car road racer of his generation – Elliott has seven road course victories among his 15 in the Cup Series – and kept his emotions in check and his focus intact for 17 more laps.
“Just had a lot of great people that have been willing to put the time and effort in to help me get better, and it’s all added up, everyone,” Reddick said. “You take one part of it out, one person out of the puzzle, we’re not here sitting – I’m not sitting here talking to you about winning this race today.”
What Reddick did Sunday was the NASCAR equivalent of living the American dream. What more could anyone want?
Unfortunately, the more important questions – the nagging questions – are what more could NASCAR want from Road America, and what more could the track deliver?
NASCAR has talked about being bold with its schedule, such as the decision to move the preseason Clash to a temporary oval inside the Los Angeles Coliseum. A street race in downtown Chicago is among the trial balloons that have been floated.
It’s fair to question the idea. If passing is hard at Road America, what would it be like on Michigan Avenue? Would race fans – real race fans, like the ones who camp for three nights at a track in rural Sheboygan County – really go to the Magnificent Mile? But it does look like a sexy venue in the midst of negotiations for the next television contract, whether such a race would be on the Fourth of July weekend or not.
“Doing a Chicago street course is a great idea,” Reddick said Saturday. “But getting rid of Road America is not the way to do it.”
From a numbers game, would it be possible to have both?
The Cup Series already has six road courses. It’d be hard to imagine adding without subtracting, and there’s been talk about Portland International Raceway, too. The Pacific Northwest is an untapped market, whereas the Upper Midwest is saturated.
“A street course has been on everybody’s wish list for a long time,” said Kurt Busch, the 2004 Cup champion whose family came from the Chicago area. “The street course attitude and atmosphere is just completely different and fun.
“The more ideas the better.”