Elton Sawyer explains NASCAR decision to make timed ending for Chicago Street Race

NASCAR was forced to cut this past Sunday’s Chicago Street Race short due to rain and limited lighting in the downtown area.

Knowing that completing the full 75 laps was highly unlikely, NASCAR implemented a running clock with a cutoff time of 8:20 p.m. CT. Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition, said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday that language was put into the rulebook this past offseason to decide on a pre-determined time to finish races at tracks that don’t have lights.

🌇 "Looking at the night before, about an 8:30 sunset."#NASCAR's Elton Sawyer explains the decision to communicate an ending time for the #GrantPark165 early in the race on Sunday and the process of coming to that time.

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— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 9, 2024

“We put language in the rulebook in the offseason that gave us the ability for facilities like Chicago or this week at Pocono or Indy or Michigan that doesn’t have lights to look at sunset. And we can decide on a pre-determined time, which is what we did,” Sawyer said.

2024 Chicago Street Race cut short by rain

NASCAR informed teams after the end of Stage 1 that the race would have a strict cutoff time. Sawyer said the decision to wait until then to announce it came down to having the opportunity to see how the day unfolded.

“And then we communicated that to the industry, the teams that we would give them that time prior to starting the second stage,” Sawyer said. “So, at the end of the first stage, we make an announcement that we will race till X. All of that timeline and the reason we don’t do that prior to the race starting or even at 12:00 or Sunday morning was to give us all the opportunity to look at how the day unfolds, give us the longest runway possible to make the best decision to get the most laps completed that we could if we were gonna run into a delay and then again, once we got to the end of the first stage, it was pretty evident to us it was going to be difficult to get to Lap 75.

“Looking at the night before at about an 8:30 sunset, we felt like we were comfortable and right on the edge with still having enough sunlight to go to 8:20 and that’s where we landed on it. Again, that rule will be in effect again this weekend at Pocono.”