NASCAR/IndyCar: Now Pittsburgh wants a street race (Update)

Not to be usurped by NASCAR at every turn, Graham Rahal, Chip Ganassi push for IndyCar to enter the Pittsburgh street race mix.

“I’ve felt strongly that a race down near Heinz Field — or whatever they’re calling it now, I’ll always call it Heinz Field — would be a tremendous place to host an IndyCar race,” Graham Rahal told the Post-Gazette in an interview Monday.

“And NASCAR, I know, people think is bigger, better. Whatever. I don’t know that it works in Pittsburgh due to the noise of the cars. And just the operations of it I think are more of a challenge than IndyCar, who’s well suited and well prepared to come in and put on an event because that’s what we do.”

He noted that major Pittsburgh companies are already deeply involved in the sport. PNC Bank sponsors 2020 series champion Scott Dixon. And PPG’s colors adorn the No. 2 Chevrolet of two-time series champ Josef Newgarden. Rahal himself is sponsored by Bortek Industries, based in Mechanicsburg.

The collective power of just those brands alone, he feels, could generate the necessary support to stage an event here.

Oh, and did we mention one of the most powerful men in the sport calls Fox Chapel home, too?

It’s for that reason that Rahal tagged team owner Chip Ganassi in a Twitter post touting Pittsburgh as a destination for IndyCar following the Post-Gazette’s story last week.

Reached by the Post-Gazette later Monday, Ganassi expressed support for such an event, as well. It’s an effort he’s actually been behind for a long time, telling the newspaper that he’s had discussions with officials that date as far back as the Richard S. Caliguiri administration.

The biggest stumbling block, he said, is timing.

“It’s hard to get a weekend that is available on the motorsports calendar between Memorial Day and Labor Day,” he said. “That would probably be the only time you could do it in Pittsburgh. You bump up against the Steelers and the Pirates, what have you, on our side. And then on the racing side, they have sort of the good weekends are all taken. Whether it’s July 4 or Memorial Day, obviously. And all the weekends are taken, just about, so it’s a challenge to find a date.”

More at Post-Gazette.com

Next year, NASCAR will stage its first street race since the 1950s in Chicago, right along the shores of Lake Michigan.

And if Pittsburgh tourism officials have their way, it’s possible we could see stock cars flying down the Boulevard of the Allies or through Schenley Park at some point, as well writes Adam Bittner of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“We would love to host a NASCAR event in Pittsburgh, especially one that would create another iconic event on our annual calendar,” SportsPittsburgh executive director Jennifer Hawkins told the Post-Gazette in a statement. “The opportunity to provide a unique live-event experience for drivers, spectators and international media is perfect for Pittsburgh.”

Spokesperson Shannon Wolfgang later clarified that the organization has not had any advanced discussions about the possibility of hosting a NASCAR event previously, but views the Chicago announcement last week as a possible jumping off point for planning a credible bid.

The Chicago street race is more than a one-off. It’s part of a deliberate strategy to add novelty, creativity and new markets to a Cup Series slate that had grown rather stale previously.

Pittsburgh could fit into that strategy for a few reasons.

For one, it’s one of the biggest markets that exists in a relative racing desert. The closest Cup Series tracks are all about a four to five hour drive at a minimum. That means it’s hard for millions of fans both locally and regionally to consume live events.

Only Seattle and Denver really challenge Pittsburgh — and if we want to talk about them together, Cleveland — in terms of racing isolation domestically.

With NASCAR indicating it will consider street races moving forward, Pittsburgh has a compelling case to make for another reason: know-how.

It already stages an annual street race in Schenley Park. Granted, the Vintage Grand Prix cars that zip around the grounds there every summer don’t have nearly the horsepower of a Cup Series Chevy Camaro or Ford Mustang.

But the event’s success — it was expected to draw 50,000 fans to the park last weekend — and its 40-year history show that a street race would be far from a foreign concept here because the city already stages one with regularity.