Denny Hamlin can\u2019t wait to return to Chicago following the success of the NASCAR Cup Series\u2019 Grant Park 220 Chicago Street Race Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe how many people were there,\u201d Hamlin said on his \u201cActions Detrimental<\/a>\u201d podcast Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s pouring rain, there\u2019s absolutely not a soul there for our intros. I mean, a hundred people I felt like were maybe there. All of a sudden we walk out to get in our cars and it\u2019s like \u2018Oh, it\u2019s filling up here. They\u2019re starting to file in. And at the end of the race, I get out of the car and the stands are full. I was like wow. People were committed. Definitely committed to going and that just tells you the enthusiasm at that whole place.\u201d <\/p>\n Hamlin, who started on the pole and picked up a P11 finish, added he viewed the event as a \u201chuge success.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were trying something new and I thought it was a huge success. I really look forward to having the opportunity to come back next year\u2026 It seemed like they [Chicago] were really excited to have us there. Definitely hope that we\u2019re able to keep this going for the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n Success would be an understatement, as the Grant Park 220 pulled in record viewers<\/a> on NBC<\/em> and Peacock<\/em>. The first-ever Cup Series city street race averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.795 million viewers, according to\u00a0NBC Sports<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n The Grant Park 220 was the most-watched Cup Series race on NBC<\/em> in six years (Indianapolis in 2017), as well as the network\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Under the current agreement with the city of Chicago, NASCAR will stage a race in the downtown streets in 2024 and \u201925. The city, which received $500,000 this year, will receive $550,000 in 2024, and $605,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n The post Denny Hamlin \u2018really\u2019 looking forward to NASCAR Chicago return next year<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Denny Hamlin can\u2019t wait to return to Chicago following the success of the NASCAR Cup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}NASCAR committed to Chicago Street Race for multiple years<\/h2>\n