CHICAGO — On NASCAR race day Saturday, Chicago native Aaron Moy stood alongside Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain decked out head-to-toe in NASCAR gear, complete with a checkered shirt and “DuPont Motorsports hat” with racing flags sticking out of it.
Unlike the race-goers surrounding him, the NASCAR lanyard that hangs from his neck doesn’t boast a VIP pass or a staff badge — it displays a picture of his deceased mother.
“She would’ve loved to see the race,” Moy said, recalling his mother’s excitement at seeing a NASCAR event won by four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon. “One of the rare times of seeing my mother excited was seeing that,” he recalled. “Our mom got us into NASCAR,” his sister, Amy Moy added.
The first day of the weekend’s events was greeted by 80-degree weather with light bursts of rain throughout the morning. The race’s 17-full time teams came to town just days after Chicago gained “the worst air quality in the world,” because of smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
While many online have expressed concerns over the potential effect of cars racing around downtown at top speeds on the city’s air quality, many NASCAR attendees don’t have significant concern. “Chicago’s a driving city. It is what it is,” said Sam Balistrieri, a Milwaukee resident attending the NASCAR events for his 26th birthday. “I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem,” echoed Cody Alguive of Hampton, Illinois, who drove three hours to attend the race.
A similar familial sentiment rings true for western suburbs resident, Bob Rath. “I’ve been a race fan all my life,” he said, recalling the first-race he ever attended: The Time trials in Indianapolis 60 years ago. “I used to live in Cincinnati, Indianapolis was just 90 miles from me, so my parents took us up,” he said. Fast-forwarding to today’s festivities, Rath expressed his excitement for the new street racing course. “They like to beat and bang on one another on these road courses, so it’ll be fun to watch and see how they perform. Plus, it’s a historic event for Chicago, so it’s fun to be here and be a part of it.”
The crowds aren’t only populated with die-hard NASCAR fans. In the free village event for those who don’t have tickets to the weekend’s race, Chicago dad James Griffith browsed the booths, holding his 3-year-old son Jack, tightly in his arms. “I’m not big into NASCAR,” Griffith said. “Jack really likes cars,” he added with a shrug.
Near the entrance, Toni Rossi welcomes race-goers to the “design your own Hot Wheels car” booth.
As an events-worker and actor, he has served at a variety of Chicago events, including last weekend’s pride festivities.
He recalled chatting with his fellow employees and expressing his excitement for events, such as NASCAR, “providing so many different jobs” to Chicago communities. He said that these large-scale festivities provide incentive for Chicagoans to explore new interests, saying, “I don’t think I would have come down and checked it out if I wasn’t working.”
Staley, the Chicago Bears mascot, waved to passersby as other Chicago mascots wandered among the crowd.
The never-seen-before nature of today’s event appears to be on the front of racers’ minds.
“The first time I saw the track in person, in real life was yesterday,” said Josh Bilicki, the driver for Live Fast Motorsports.
“Normally you have a lot of run-off area, like sand and gravel… here there’s just walls. So, you make a mistake, you’re gonna be in the wall and probably end your day,” he said. “Maybe instead of driving at 100%, you drive it at 90% and try to survive the race because some people are gonna push too hard and go off.”
