Ratings revealed for 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Chicago Street Race

The ratings are in for the Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Race and according to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal, Sunday’s race amassed 3.87 million viewers on NBC.

That represents a decline in viewership from last year’s inaugural race, which saw nearly 4.8 million tune in to see Shane van Gisbergen’s victory. A mid-race red flag due to rain, however, plagued this year’s Chicago Street Race. Still, Sunday’s viewership was 35% higher than the average NASCAR Cup Series race on the network in 2023.

This year’s race saw a first-time winner this season in Alex Bowman, whose strategy of staying on wet-weather tires rather than pitting for slicks paid off, as he passed Joey Hand on Lap 51 and didn’t look back from there. 

Alex Bowman takes checkered flag in rain-filled Chicago Street Race

Bowman outlasted the field after a day which went sideways from the beginning. Just as drivers fired their engines for the start of the race, rain began to fall, putting the race on hold. It eventually got underway but came to a halt just after Stage 1 when the track became too wet to race. From there, drivers battled the conditions on wet weather tires, racing until 8:20 p.m. local time when the clock ran out for race completion.

Though Tyler Reddick made a bid to catch and potentially pass Bowman on the final lap, the Hendrick Motorsports driver held on to secure his eighth career victory, breaking an 80-race winless streak.

“Man, let me tell you about how great NASCAR is to us drivers. I got to my hotel room, there’s a little box with my name on it, that had a bottle of bourbon in it, so that’s in my bag. I’m pretty excited about that,” Bowman said after the race. “But I’ve got a couple bottles, that were bought early in 2022, that were like, ‘The next win, we’re going to drink these,’ and they’ve been sitting on the counter way too f—ing long.

“So yeah, everybody that said I couldn’t win and don’t deserve to be at Hendrick Motorsports and all that bulls—, cheers to you.”