DePaul University is excited to announce a partnership with Spire Motorsports for the 2025 NASCAR Chicago Street Race. DePaul will serve as the primary sponsor of Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Chevrolet ZL1.  

As part of the sponsorship, DePaul branding will be prominently featured on McDowell’s custom-designed No. 71 Chevy, his fire suit, pit road signage, and the Spire Motorsports crew shirts. Co-branded merchandise will also be available at the Chicago Street Race event and online. 

National visibility through broadcast, digital and social media, and in-person audiences will create a powerful platform to feature the university to new audiences. The race is projected to draw more than 4 million viewers nationwide, building on the success of the inaugural 2023 event, which became the most-streamed NASCAR Cup Series race in NBC Sports history and the most-watched on NBC in six years. Locally, the event is expected to attract over 55,000 unique spectators from around the world, with more than half traveling to Chicago specifically to experience the race firsthand. 

“At DePaul, we view athletics as the front porch of the university — a powerful entry point that invites the world to engage with our university,” said DePaul Vice President and Director of Athletics DeWayne Peevy. “Partnering with Spire Motorsports for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race allows us to spotlight DePaul on a national stage while embracing a global event in our own backyard. Even more exciting, this collaboration will extend into our classrooms this fall, offering our students a hands-on look at the business and science behind professional racing. It’s the perfect example of how we’re using sports to elevate our visibility and create real-world learning experiences for our students.” 

McDowell, a 17-year veteran of the NASCAR Cup Series with 518 starts, joined Spire Motorsports to pilot the No. 71 Chevrolet ZL1 ahead of the 2025 season. The Glendale, Ariz., native won the 2021 Daytona 500 and followed it up with a win in the 2023 Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The father-of-five and road course ace has finished inside of the top-10 in both attempts at the Chicago Street Race, including a fifth-place result in 2024. So far this season, he has recorded one top-five, two top-10 and seven top-15 finishes, including a fifth-place showing at NASCAR’s most recent road-course race in the Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.  

“I’m really looking forward to Chicago,” said McDowell. “We’re coming off some great momentum on road courses, and to have a cornerstone of the city like DePaul University on our car for the weekend is special. Chicago is a great city, and NASCAR has built a fantastic racetrack. It’s not every day you get to race through the streets. With the city as the backdrop, it’s a unique experience and a real opportunity for us to have success with a new partner like DePaul.” 

This partnership will extend well beyond the race weekend. Later this fall, students in DePaul’s Physics and Sport Management programs will benefit from exclusive engagement opportunities with members of the Spire Motorsports team, gaining firsthand insights into the high-performance, data-driven landscape of professional racing. 

This summer, in collaboration with NASCAR Chicago, DePaul’s School of Hospitality and Sports Business introduced a special topics course, HSB 198: A NASCAR Experience. As part of the curriculum, students will play an integral role in designing and executing the newly created College Tailgate at Turn 7—a fan engagement event tailored to college students during the race. Further anchoring this collaboration in the local community, the longstanding NASCAR internship program will continue to empower DePaul students and alumni, offering them leadership roles and on-the-ground experience during one of Chicago’s most prominent sporting events. 

“This initiative reflects DePaul’s continued commitment to authentically embrace its identity as Chicago’s university,” said DePaul Chief Branding Officer Cristel Turner. “This collaboration brings DePaul into the cultural and civic spotlight through a bold, innovative partnership that connects us with new audiences to build brand interest and support enrollment growth. What truly sets DePaul apart is our teaching philosophy of layered learning that merges classroom education with real-world, project-based learning and service learning that unlock real-world opportunities for our students.” 

DePaul students receive 20% off select race tickets for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race. Learn more and purchase here.  

Fans, students and alumni can tune in to see the No. 71 DePaul University Chevrolet ZL1 rally through the streets of Chicago July 6, at 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT) on TNT, MRN, SiriusXM, and MAX. 

Spire Motorsports PR

NASCAR Cup Series — Race No. 18 – 260 laps / 400 miles

Echo Park Speedway (1.54-mile oval) – Hampton, Ga.

Fast Facts for June 27-28, 2025

Tire: Goodyear Eagle 18-inch Superspeedway Radials

Set limits: Cup: 1 set for qualifying and 9 sets for the race

     (8 race sets plus 1 set transferred from qualifying)

Tire Codes: Left-side — D-5174; Right-side — D-5228

Tire Circumference: Left-side — 2,264 mm (89.13 in.); Right-side — 2,279 mm (89.72 in.)

Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 20 psi; Left Rear — 22 psi;

     Right Front — 52 psi; Right Rear — 50 psi

Notes – Fourth race for Cup cars on this Atlanta tire set-up: Being on 18-inch bead diameter tires, NASCAR Cup teams will run a different tire set-up than those in the Xfinity Series at Atlanta this weekend . . . this is the same combination of left- and right-side tires that these teams have run at Atlanta since the beginning of 2024 . . . this is the only track at which these teams are scheduled to run either of these two tire codes . . . with this 18-inch tire, and its lower profile sidewall, NASCAR Cup cars do not run inner liners in any of their tires.

Goodyear quote – Stu Grant, Goodyear’s general manager of global race tires: “This weekend’s race marks the first repeat track on the Cup schedule, so teams have a good notebook built on this tire set-up.  Since we’ve been running the superspeedway rules package there, Atlanta has produced some of the best racing on the NASCAR circuit.  There are only nine races left in the Cup regular season, so teams are making moves and putting themselves in their best position for the playoffs.”

GOODYEAR TIRE NOTES

NASCAR Xfinity Series — Race No. 17 – 163 laps / 251 miles

Echo Park Speedway (1.54-mile oval) – Hampton, Ga.

Fast Facts for June 26-27, 2025

Tire: Goodyear Eagle 15-inch Speedway Radials

Set limits: Xfinity: 4 sets for the event

Tire Codes: Left-side — D-6124; Right-side — D-6126

Tire Circumference: Left-side — 2,225 mm (87.60 in.); Right-side — 2,250 mm (88.58 in.)

Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 19 psi; Left Rear — 19 psi;

     Right Front — 52 psi; Right Rear — 48 psi

Notes – Xfinity returns to Atlanta on established tire set-up: Being on 15-inch bead diameter tires, NASCAR Xfinity Series teams will run a different tire set-up than those in the Cup Series at Atlanta this weekend . . . this is the same tire set-up these teams have run at Atlanta since the beginning of 2022 . . . as on all NASCAR ovals greater than one mile in length, Xfinity teams are required to run liners in all four tire positions at Atlanta . . . air pressure in those inner liners should be 12-25 psi greater than that of the outer tire.

GOODYEAR TIRE NOTES

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – Race No. 15 – 100 laps / 153 miles

Lime Rock Park (1.53-mile road course) – Lakeville, Conn.

Fast Facts for June 27-28, 2025

Tire: Goodyear Eagle 15-inch Road Course Radials

Set limits: Truck: 5 sets for the event

Tire Code: D-6144 (same on all four tire positions)

Tire Circumference: 2,240 mm (88.19 in.)

Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 22 psi; Right Front — 20 psi;

     Left Rear — 17 psi; Right Rear — 17 psi

Notes – Trucks debut at Lime Rock: NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams will run the same Goodyear tire code on all four corners of the car at Lime Rock this weekend . . . this is the Trucks’ first road course race of the season, and the first time they have run this tire code . . . as on all NASCAR road courses, Truck teams will not run inner liners in their tires at Lime Rock.

Wet Weather Tires – Goodyear to bring white-lettered “wets” to Lime Rock: Goodyear will bring its 15-inch wet weather radials to Lime Rock for use by teams in the Craftsman Truck Series, should NASCAR decide that conditions warrant . . . Truck teams will have 4 sets of wets available for their event, with a maximum of 3 sets for the race . . Truck teams last ran in the wet at Martinsville in 2023 . . . in addition to the obvious difference of a tread pattern versus Goodyear’s dry weather “slick” tires, the “Goodyear” and “Eagle” lettering on the sidewalls of the wet weather tires is white, not the standard yellow.

Goodyear Racing PR

The road to the 2025 PRI Show, December 11-13, downtown Indianapolis, continues in just a few weeks when attendee registration opens for qualified industry members on Tuesday, July 15.

This year’s event will once again offer an experience unlike any other trade show on the planet, delivering the three biggest business days of the year for the global motorsports community.

With a focus on the present and future of racing, the 2025 PRI Show promises to feature all the newest parts, latest innovations, nearly unlimited networking opportunities and access to an unrivaled number of motorsports manufacturers and service providers that can’t be matched anywhere else. Attendees can also get excited for some of the Show’s signature events and features, including the Featured Products Showcase, the Grand Opening Breakfast (keynote speaker set to be announced at a later date), the world-famous Machinery Row with live demonstrations, the PRI ESports Arena and much more.

You can also view the current 2025 PRI Show Floorplan here. Check back in during the leadup to the Show to see what other motorsports brands are added to the world’s largest gathering of motorsports professionals.

Before registering, PRI Show organizers recommend attendees book their hotel rooms now to start planning the best PRI Show experience possible. Click here to secure your accommodations.

In addition, prospective attendees should also renew their PRI Membership, which is required to attend the Show.

For more information on the 2025 PRI Show, visit here.

Chase Briscoe is still adjusting to his new life as someone who should win races, not a driver who shocks everyone when he does.

That’s a strange place to be for a driver whose entire career has been one of those against-all-odds, Hollywood stories (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s quite eye-opening).

Things are much different for Briscoe now. Driving for one of NASCAR’s powerhouse teams in Joe Gibbs Racing, Briscoe is expected to win, and it would have been a huge disappointment if he didn’t. In fact, his entire career might be built on a false premise if he was unable to find victory lane in his situation.

That’s why he quickly expressed relief on Sunday night at Pocono Raceway, after he somehow conserved enough fuel to hold off the track’s all-time wins leader in teammate Denny Hamlin.

“I’ve only won three races in the Cup Series. This is by far the least enjoyable because it’s expected now,” he said. “You have to go win.”

There’s no sugarcoating that. At JGR, it’s win or find someplace else to work. And if you’ve shown you can’t win in the best equipment? Good luck getting someone else to take a chance on you.

That’s the stark reality Briscoe signed up for: Fast cars, but major expectations. And he could feel the pressure creeping in as he sat winless near the halfway point of the season.

“The last couple weeks especially, (it’s) like this huge weight on my shoulders, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” he said. “My wife (said), ‘What is going on with you?’ I’m like, ‘I have to win. I don’t think you realize how bad it is if we don’t win a race and lock into the playoffs.’”

When you drive for @JoeGibbsRacing, excellence isn’t just expected – it’s demanded.@chasebriscoe talks about securing his first victory with his new team. pic.twitter.com/lFuSaSDhJz

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 23, 2025

Briscoe said when he was signing his contract with JGR, he was shown a statistic: Out of 40 possible playoff berths to that point in the elimination playoff era, the team had made it 38 times. The expectation, he said, was clear: “If you don’t make the playoffs, you’re not going to be in this car anymore.”

There are times when we wonder why NASCAR drivers don’t seem to be having fun. Hey, that was some cool racing for sixth place out there! Why don’t they get out of the car and smile?

It’s because for those at the top of the sport — anyone who drives for JGR, Hendrick Motorsports or Team Penske — winning is about the only thing worth smiling about.

Briscoe, the career underdog who made it big, now knows that all too well.

“There were a lot of people they could have put in this car,” he said. “It was the most sought-after seat in the offseason. For me to be the one blessed enough, lucky enough to get it is great.

“With that, you have to prove yourself. To be able to come here and win, it doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to be in it for awhile — but it certainly is nice to know I can do it at this level, in this equipment. Hopefully, I can be here my entire career because the sky definitely feels like it’s the limit here.”

Pit call pitfall

You can understand why Brad Keselowski wanted to stay out for one more lap.

With nothing but clean track in front of him and suddenly freed from the scourge of Pocono’s dirty air problem, Keselowski was ripping around the 2.5-mile track and making up ground on those drivers who were in the middle of a pit cycle.

Or so he thought. But his team, with all their data and lap times on the pit box, radioed to tell him that wasn’t the case. He was actually losing time to the cars who had come off pit road with fresher tires and needed to pit now instead of running longer.

Keselowski had committed to running long in his mind and asked if he could do one more lap. The team said yes. So he did. Except right then is when Shane van Gisbergen spun out and caused a caution, which ruined Keselowski’s pit strategy altogether.

Instead of starting that final run somewhere in the top five and having a chance to win the race, Keselowski had to restart 24th and spent the rest of the race driving back up to ninth.

Brad Keselowski second-guessed his pit box at a key moment Sunday. When some bad luck ensued, he lost a shot at a win. (Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)

At this point, for a driver in 30th place in the standings, wins are the only thing that matters. You can’t blame Keselowski for trying to do what he thought was right; he’s a veteran with nearly 600 Cup starts, a highly intelligent team owner who has a firm grasp on strategy, and a person who has spent a lifetime in racing. If there’s no caution, his decision doesn’t look bad.

Still, the driver has limited resources inside the car. Whatever he’s seeing for lap times and however information is being relayed in his ear, it’s no match for the computers on the pit box and the engineers in the war rooms back at the race shops who are helping call the race in real time.

The best drivers and teams in the Next Gen Era are the ones who let the driver drive and the crew chief be the crew chief. Cliff Daniels doesn’t ask Kyle Larson what to do; he tells him, and Larson says “OK” and does it. Denny Hamlin doesn’t question Chris Gayle (or Chris Gabehart before that); Hamlin puts the strategy in the team’s hands.

We’ve yet to see a case lately where a driver overruling the team has worked out. But we have seen multiple high-profile cases where the driver got it wrong (Justin Allgaier at Charlotte, for example). Keselowski, unfortunately with bad timing as a factor, now becomes the latest example.

What happened to the No. 5 team?

Wait a second. Is Larson suddenly not as fast anymore?

Larson is tops in laps led this season and was setting a blazing pace in that category, making it seem inevitable he could reach 2,000 laps led in a season again (like he did in 2021). Except suddenly, Larson and the No. 5 team have just been … OK?

In the last four races — Nashville, Michigan, Mexico City, Pocono — Larson has led zero laps. Not one! It had been almost a year since Larson went even three straight races without leading a lap.

Surely, people will point to the disastrous Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 weekend as some sort of turning point. But this is about the speed of the cars, not the driver; remember, Larson shot to the lead at Charlotte and led 34 laps before crashing.

Something isn’t quite firing on all cylinders with the No. 5 team right now, and Larson has made several puzzled comments about it recently (like at Michigan, when he said he wouldn’t have finished any further regardless of the fuel mileage game).

“I just hope we don’t carry what we had the last few weeks into the rest of the season,” Larson said after Pocono. “Prior to the last few weeks, we’ve been really fast. It’s just been a rough stretch, but we’ll continue to go to work.”

New life for Legacy

Legacy Motor Club seems to have come to life in the last two months after a disappointing couple seasons. The question is: Can the team keep building on the momentum, or is this a temporary spike?

John Hunter Nemechek has back-to-back sixth-place finishes at two wildly different track types (Mexico City and Pocono) and has risen from 25th to 21st in points in the last two weeks. He has a career-high six top-10s this season, all in spaced-out, consecutive pairings — but after each one has hit a slump.

Teammate Erik Jones is 18th in the standings with only two top-10s all year, but that’s because Jones has been more consistent and has avoided bad finishes. Pocono was his fifth straight finish of 17th or better and Jones has rocketed 11 spots in the standings during that stretch alone (he was 29th after last month’s Kansas race).

Jones is well-established, and his talent is well-known in the garage. Sitting 18th in the point standings with nine races remaining until the playoffs isn’t a major shock based on his past, but it is surprising given how Legacy ran the past two seasons (when Jones finished 27th and 28th in the standings, respectively).

Nemechek is more of an eyebrow-raiser. He had a solid start to the season (he was inside the playoff standings for the first five races) and then faded, but has now been able to re-establish his footing. The 28-year-old is tied with Michael McDowell in the standings and the two of them are just one point behind the much-discussed Carson Hocevar and eight points behind future Hall of Famer Kyle Busch.

There’s a tangled jumble of eight drivers within 25 points of one another in the standings — from 17th place to 24th place — so it’s a trap to get too caught up with points position now. But just to be in the mix at this point, considering the expectations for Legacy after the last two years, is worth noting.

(Top photo of Chase Briscoe celebrating Sunday’s win: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)

Toto Wolff is one of the longest-standing team principals on the Formula 1 grid. Usually watching from inside the Mercedes garage, Wolff looks at home within the hustle and bustle of motorsport. And while his headphones don’t always survive a race weekend, he’s been one of the most successful voices on the grid after he joined the sport in 2009.

But before he became a titan of both business and motorsport, the Austrian was an 18-year-old struggling to afford even the fuel for his SEAT Ibiza while he worked at the Österreichring, now named the Red Bull Ring.

“I used to work at the Red Bull Ring. It has always felt a bit like a second home,” he reflected via a release from Mercedes. “Back then it was known as the Österreichring. I was 18 years old, and a driving instructor.”

While chasing his own motorsport aspirations, the now-billionaire was working as a driving instructor at the track to fund his dreams.

“I was trying to make a living and finance my own driving career,” he continued. “The best part was always getting to shake down the cars at the end of the day when everyone else had gone home.”

1991 was a big year for motorsport in the country. The now-famous circuit had been removed from the F1 calendar due to safety concerns despite the 5.911-kilometre layout being famous for its challenging turns. But with the sport evolving and safety standards showing equal growth, it failed to make the cut.

Toto Wolff, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

But while F1 was out, other motorsports continued at the famous venue, allowing it to live on with the Austrian Superbike Championship being a favourite for track-goers.

Wolff struggled financially despite his tenacity.

“I would sleep in a farmhouse near to the track while I was doing the instructing, the people were super lovely and friendly,” he said. “I would drive back and forth between Vienna in those days, in my SEAT Ibiza. I could barely afford the fuel.”

While also continuing his education at Vienna University, this was a challenging time for the team chief.

“Yeah, hand to mouth because I had no financial support from home. I tried to make the uni, so-so and I got the offer from the best Formula Ford team back in the day to work as an instructor on the old Spielberg.”

His excitement for motorsport stemmed from a friend of his, who was driving in the German Formula 3 Championship at the time. 

“I was with some friends, we were visiting Amsterdam, don’t ask why, and we were driving back and passing the Nurburgring.

“One of my dear friends was one of the frontrunners in the German Formula 3 Championship back in the time and I was fascinated by the environment, loved cars and drivers and decided I wanted to give it a go.

“I found out about everything and decided to buy myself a SEAT Ibiza, a tiny little SEAT car. I could make it with my pocket money and earning a little bit extra.

“I could just make the monthly leasing rates and I started to race the car. Sold my road car, raced the car and drove it on the road. This is how my racing started.”