Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains.
That’s a baseball-inspired way of saying that — for the second summer in a row — was all wet. Look, many of us around these parts are still learning the ins and outs of communicating in stock-car terms. One slippery lap at a time, we’ll get there.
A year ago, the conceit in much of the local media coverage of the first weekend was that it was so new and different from the types of sporting events we were used to, we barely knew what the hell we were looking at and, thus, really couldn’t get the stories wrong as long as we were there trying. Your old pal here leaned into it big-time, like a first-year student in a fourth-year foreign-language class. By the end, truth be told, it felt rather silly.
On the other hand, it worked OK because of the unintended theme to NASCAR’s maiden foray onto our lakefront: Mother Nature rendered it a disaster.Last year’s Saturday Xfinity Series race, the Loop 121, was rained out after 25 of a scheduled 55 laps. Sunday’s Cup Series race, the Grant Park 220, was delayed 90 minutes due to rainfall that obliterated Chicago’s previous record for July 2 — set way back in 1982 — and eventually had 25 of the scheduled 100 laps lopped off the back end just so the race could reach a conclusion.
A bunch of concerts and other non-race activities were called off, a total bummer. But even if we weren’t fluent enough in stock-car racing to do the details of a pair of street race.
