NASCAR Chicago Street Race hauled in massive viewership on NBC, Peacock

The first-ever NASCAR Cup Series city street race was a massive success, averaging a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.795 million viewers, according to NBC Sports.

The Grant Park 220 was the most-watched Cup Series race on NBC in six years (Indianapolis in 2017), as well as the network’s most-streamed NASCAR race ever. Viewership peaked at 5.383 million TV-only viewers from 9:15-9:30 p.m. ET when Shane van Gisbergen took the checkered flag to notch his first victory in his Cup Series debut.

NASCAR recorded the monster rating despite the weather doing its best to put a damper on the weekend. After being forced to call The Loop 121 Xfinity Series race Sunday, the Grant Park 220 took place on a wet surface, resulting in some slipping and sliding from the competitors.

Fighting through the conditions, it was van Gisbergen, the New Zealand native, who came out on top. He chased down Chase Elliott and Justin Haley in the final laps on a rainy Sunday evening to become the first driver to win his Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.

van Gisbergen chuckled when asked if he thought victory in the Chicago Street Race was possible.

“No, of course not, but you always dream of it,” he said, via Reid Spencer of NASCAR.com. “Thank you so much to the Trackhouse team and [sponsor] Enhance Health, Project 91. What an experience in the crowd out here. This was so cool. This is what you dream of. Hopefully, I can come and do more.”

Kyle Busch gives props to Shane van Gisbergen after NASCAR Cup Series Chicago Street Race

Kyle Busch, who raced his way to a P5 finish, gave props to the Supercars Championship driver after the race.

“He’s probably, I don’t know, four, five, eight years ahead of us in this sort of car in the things that he’s done with the V-8 Supercars,” Busch said. “I’ve worked with him before as a teammate with the Lexus program down at Daytona at the Daytona 24 Hours. He was on the other car, but we were all — six of us, eight of us were all in the same meetings talking together, so worked with Shane a little bit there.

“Yeah, saw he was talented in that car. We were all really fast, so he always kept probably the quickest time for the team the whole time we were down there for Daytona. He is no slouch. I knew he would be good when he came over.”