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Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
National
Robert Channick, Hank Sanders

After nearly a year of planning, the NASCAR Chicago Street Race is here. Will it rev up the city’s economy as promised?

After months of planning, weeks of disruption and an 11th-hour push to complete the transformation of Grant Park into a pop-up NASCAR track, ready or not, the inaugural Chicago Street Race has arrived.

The July Fourth weekend event is expected to draw 50,000 fans, generate nearly $114 million in economic impact and provide hours of national TV coverage to burnish Chicago’s image as a gleaming lakefront tourist destination — assuming the Canadian wildfire haze dissipates.

But for the city at large, and the hotels, restaurants, museums and retailers near the 2.2-mile route, there is a mix of optimism and angst over how the first street race in NASCAR’s 75-year history will play out, beyond creating an unusual downtown traffic jam.

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