How NASCAR’s Chicago track was built and installed for the first Cup Series street race

CHICAGO – Setting up the concrete, mesh and metal that define the boundaries of the 12-turn, 2.2-mile street course in the heart of the Windy City crosses a lot of borders.

The project was overseen by Geobrugg, a Switzerland-based company that has handled fencing and wall systems for tracks around the world playing host to Formula One, IndyCar and MotoGP.

The 2,200 barriers were built by Avan Precast, a company in Lynwood, Illinois, about 30 miles south of downtown Chicago.

The frames and brackets that connect the barriers and mount the catchfences are manufactured in Germany.

And a fabrication and welding company in Tennessee installed the fences and walls.

It’s a network of interlinking corporations and countries that doesn’t even touch the various local constituencies that are involved with constructing a temporary street circuit in the middle of a metropolitan area whose myriad thoroughfares are used by nearly 10 million people.

“The most important thing is coordination with the city, the track operators and the companies that set up everything because otherwise you get a huge mess,” Tien Nguyen, Geobrugg’s senior motorsports project manager, told NBC Sports. “The most important thing is the communication with all the involved parties.”

Nguyen has been working on the Chicago Street Race weekend with colleagues Marty Hunt (the main project manager for Chicago) and Garrett Grogan, the three employees from Geobrugg’s motorsports arm that supervised the

Here’s a look at how the course took shape trough and some other facts and figures about the first street circuit in the 75-year history of NASCAR’s premier series:

BARRIERS/FENCING

Avan Precast built 2,200 barriers, which are 12 feet long, 42 inches tall and weigh nearly 10,000 pounds. Geobrugg, which also handles the fencing and walls for IndyCar’s Music City Grand Prix in Nashville and Detroit Grand Prix, uses local companies to cast the barriers because they are too heavy to ship from Europe.

But Geobrugg sends the metal frames and brackets for the barriers and walls from Germany. The fencing is 8 feet, so the total system is about 12 feet high.

Installation is completed by four teams split into day and night line shifts that work 24 hours daily for the week leading into the race. Two teams work in tandem: The first handles placing the barriers with the help of heavy equipment; the second team mounts the fence panels and helps connect the barriers.

Transporting the barriers and fences to Chicago is a heavy lift. Because of regulations, only four barriers could be transported at a time from Avan -- so it took about 500 trips to bring them to a marshaling area near Soldier Field where they waited until the course assembly began.

Though NASCAR requested new barriers be constructed for this event, Geobrugg brought the same fence panels that were used at Nashville (which had 2,150 barriers and fence panels on its course), and an extra 140 fence panels arriving from Detroit as a backup).

Hunt, who also oversaw the work at Nashville and Detroit, said the fence panels weigh about 385 pounds and are trucked from Nashville in racks of 18.

INSTALLATION

Racetrack construction began June 18 for the July 1-2 race weekend, and it didn’t follow any master plan for mirroring the layout of the course.

The first barriers were placed between the final two turns on Jackson Street. Michigan Avenue wasn’t closed until what the Geobrugg refers to as “Event Day,” which is when all of the final openings need to be plugged.

One of the most important at Chicago was the adjacent area of Turns 1 and 6, which wasn’t closed until 18 hours before Xfinity cars were on track because it was the most important artery connecting the two halves of the course.

“This is a huge intersection and a lot of trucks need to go in and out,” Nguyen said while sitting in a cart at the exit of Turn 1 as workers scrambled nearby to put up barriers.

“So if you close this at the beginning, it would be a huge mess because you have to keep driving around, so we keep this open until the last point.

“We define which areas are the most important ones of where the trucks and all the cars, construction vehicles go in and out. And we keep them open until the last day before you close the track.”

Nguyen said the installation always depends on street closures and when the city allows them.

Watching as cranes and tractors were repositioned around Michigan Avenue, Grogan chuckled while mulling how the work is prioritized.

“It really whatever they really let us do,” Grogan said. “It’s a street race, so you want to go by the layout that’s been planned out, but can’t really make a schedule with road closures at certain times. It’s kind of winging it, to be honest. It sounds crazy.

“The thing that’s important is anytime you need openings, you want to make sure you place your blocks first and make sure they’re set, then you can take them out for openings so the event can get the trucks through and catering.”

But once the schedule is worked out, putting in the barriers and fencing “is kind of simple, really.

“It’s like laying barricades on a highway really, but it’s a special system,” Grogan said. “It’s the safest system in motorsports. It’s really simple.”

The track’s tire barriers are handled by another company, but Geobrugg coordinates with getting them in place (along with the workers who are laying camera, lighting and power cables).

There are four sections of the Chicago Street Course that have an extra barrier and fence panels behind the primary system: the Turn 1 and 6 adjacency, Turn 12, Turn 4 and through Turn 7.

“In all the high-speed corners, we basically built two barriers instead of one,” Hunt said. “With the weight and speed of these cars, it’s all the precautions you have to take.”

Nguyen notes the double-stacked fencing is a failsafe in case cars get airborne. The section in Turn 7 is in front of the Michigan Ave. storefronts.

“We do it to protect those buildings,” Hunt said.

WHAT IS GEOBRUGG?

Nguyen, who was born and raised in Germany and commutes to Switzerland for work said Geobrugg’s primary business is in rockfall barriers.

About a decade ago, the company realized it could use some of its expertise in motorsports and since has branched out into working on world-famous tracks such as Spa, Mugello and Imola.

After studying business administration, Nguyen joined Geobrugg and then was tapped to work on the Vietnamese Grand Prix (which was postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic and then a bribery scandal) and has remained on the motorsports side since then.

“We went from rockfall barriers to motorsports barriers,” Nguyen said with a smile. “There still is 90 percent of our income and revenue are from rockfall barriers. But our colleagues who work for the metro hazard department all say we make the company sexy!”

Nguyen’s next project will be the inaugural F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas. He and Hunt both helped at the Miami Grand Prix, which also is how Grogan, 24, recently was hired.

After working in stadium operations for the Miami Dolphins (who helped organize the F1 race), Grogan started June 1 and was in Chicago two weeks later.

He is a newcomer to motorsports while Hunt has been working in the racing industry for more than 30 years. Formerly in charge of facilities and operations for Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Hunt has worked for Geobrugg since January 2018 and travels the world while living in Indianapolis.

He has been part of the Chicago Street Race project for the past two years and began regularly commuting to the track footprint last year.

Though he’s worked on many major-league events, one of Hunt’s favorite projects was putting in a Geobrugg safety system at its first half-mile dirt oval (Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, New York).

“We’re very fortunate that Geobrugg has a very turnkey system,” Hunt said. “To have an opportunity to work for a company like this and sell this stuff and then get to put it in, there’s a lot of pride in that for me personally. But most importantly it took me four years to convince NASCAR to put this system in, and I’ve known many of those guys for 25 years because I was there during the first Brickyard 400.

“IndyCar was the same way; it took two and a half years to convince them. Nashville was the first venue they put it in and then Detroit. Now they’re looking at a couple of other places to venture off to, so it’s very good.”