Searching for NASCAR in sweet home Chicago

CHICAGO -- From the observation deck on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building, you can see for 70 miles in every direction. You can see Soldier Field, Navy Pier, the United Center, and -- barely visible among a cluster of Northside rooftops -- light towers sticking up from Wrigley Field. You can see the impossibly wide and alluringly turquoise breadth of Lake Michigan. You can see parts of four states, from Kenosha, Wis., to Gary, Ind., to Benton Harbor, Mich., the latter appearing as just a speck on the lake's opposite shore.

But you can't see Joliet. It's out there somewhere, beyond the outlying neighborhoods and the freeways and the elevated train tracks, lost in a convergence of sky and horizon and urban haze. But from atop this iconic tower astride the Magnificent Mile, it becomes very clear just how much land stands between Chicago and Chicagoland Speedway.

Fifty-one miles of it, to be exact, and more than an hour's driving time from the heart of downtown Chicago to Joliet, home to the region's big NASCAR racetrack. Best known for its proximity to the old Route 66 and as the site of the old state prison, Joliet seems almost more of an adjunct to the mass of suburban sprawl called Chicagoland, separated by a green buffer of cornfields and pasture. Heading east, it's a long time before the spires of the Sears Tower appear through the windshield. No wonder the Blues Brothers needed to stock up on gas, cigarettes and sunglasses before making the trip.

That kind of distance breeds challenges, especially for officials at Chicagoland Speedway trying to cultivate a ticket base within the city of Chicago itself. Of course, it can't be helpful that there aren't many short tracks in the metro area beyond Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Grundy County Speedway further west in Morris, and NASCAR-sanctioned Rockford Speedway, where championship crew chief Chad Knaus and current Sprint Cup director John Darby both started out. It can't be helpful that there are no Sprint Cup drivers from Illinois. It can't be helpful that Chicago Motor Speedway, a venue that hosted IndyCar and Craftsman Truck Series events, went belly-up just three years after it was built in 1999 outside of downtown.

NASCAR wants Chicagoland to be the Windy City's racetrack, even if the more cynical of media center wags see the facility's name as a weak attempt at connecting it with the nation's third-largest city. Conventional wisdom holds that the real race fans are in the nearby hotbeds of Indiana and Wisconsin, a theory bolstered by the large number of Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth fans you find at the Joliet track. But surely, Chicago can't be the motorsports dead zone that some make it out to be. Somebody has to have a Dale Jr. cap stuck in a closet. This city is home to 2.8 million people, after all. Since it's impossible to interview each one of them, the logical place to begin any search for signs of NASCAR is at one of Chicago's most popular gathering spots.

So you take the Red Line train to Wrigley Field, and boom, right after stepping onto Addison Street, you're hit with the sight of a NASCAR racecar parked on the sidewalk. Of course, it's the yellow No. 42 of Juan Montoya, whose Dodge for the Chicagoland event is sponsored by the chewing gum company founded by the namesake of the Cubs' ballpark. There are a few onlookers, but it's unclear if they're being enticed by the brightly-colored racecar or the people handing out free packs of gum. Later the driver himself, clad in a pinstriped home Cubs jersey with his last name and a 42 on the back, stops by for a few photographs.

Juan Montoya has performed twice at Wrigley Field.

Chip Ganassi's team makes the most of its relationship with the Wrigley company. During last year's race weekend at Chicagoland, drivers Montoya, Reed Sorenson and David Stremme all tossed out honorary first pitches. This year, the honors fall to JPM and new chief Brian Pattie. The yellow racecar makes a brief appearance on the warning track, surrounded by crewmen. Someone who looks very much like Ganassi Nationwide Series driver Bryan Clauson is spotted wandering the Wrigley Field concourse. During the seventh-inning stretch, Montoya makes a half-hearted attempt at singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, letting the sellout crowd of 41,605 do most of the work.

The NASCAR references don't stop there. The CEO of LifeLock, the company sponsoring that Saturday night's race, also throws out a first pitch. Announcements over the Wrigley Field public address system alert fans that tickets are still available for the Chicagoland event, a nice bit of cross-marketing. Amid a sea of Cubs shirts, there's a guy sitting at field level wearing a Jimmie Johnson football jersey, blue and gold with a large No. 48 on the front. Over at the Cubby Bear, the 55-year-old pub at the corner of Clark and Addison, news of Tony Stewart's impending departure from Joe Gibbs Racing scrolls constantly along the bottom of wall-mounted television screens.

Back on the train after the game, you spot a man sporting a Jim Beam Racing cap. Robby Gordon fan? No, Dan Wheldon. False alarm. But walking down Michigan Avenue a few nights later, there's Montoya's show car again, parked on the sidewalk in front of (predictably) the Wrigley Building. It's covered up this time, but the little bit of yellow showing from underneath the tarp gives it away. You look for more natural, less sponsor-driven proof of NASCAR's presence, but it's a tough crowd -- tourists snapping photos of city lights reflected in the Chicago River, or girls in skirts and high heels headed over to Rush Street for a night on the town.

That's it, you figure. To paraphrase Kyle Busch with 16 laps to go: search over. You're beaten, finished. So you head over to a pizzeria on Wabash Avenue, prepared to drown yourself in deep dish. Just for fun, you ask the bartender if people in Chicago are excited about the NASCAR race in town. The guy's name is Marley. He's a native of the city, the kind of genuine Chicagoan who roots for the White Sox. He replies with an answer that leaves you choking on your Leinenkugel.

"Ah, man, I wanted to go," he says, "but I couldn't get a ticket."

Soon enough, you find out why -- Chicagoland Speedway is a sellout. In an economic climate where sellouts are a rarity, in a season where more traditional NASCAR markets have seen thousands of empty seats, eight-year-old Chicagoland is a full house. So there must be some NASCAR fans around here, after all. Even if they're hiding in plain sight.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer