After proving NASCAR Cup Series cars can compete in a street race after the July 2 Grant Park 220 Chicago Street Race, IndyCar driver Christian Lundgaard thinks both major North American racing series could share a street race weekend in the future.

I was part of a ZOOM conference with Lundgaard on Wednesday and posed the question to him if he would like to have an IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader on the streets.

“I would not want to turn that down,” Lundgaard responded to my question. “I think that would only be cool, the biggest American racing series sharing the same track. As a street race, that would bring a of people there from all over the country, potentially all over the world.

“That would definitely be something super exciting.

“It’s tough on street circuits to find the space for all the trailers, but I’m sure we would manage to find a way to sort that out if we had the opportunity.”

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver said the more cars on a street circuit helps to “rubber up” the track” which would benefit both NASCAR and IndyCar, even with two different tire compounds.

Since 2020, NASCAR and IndyCar share one racing weekend on the calendar at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the mid-summer Brickyard weekend. It was originally created out of necessity as both NASCAR and IndyCar had to remake the schedule because of the COVID-19 shutdown.

In 2020, IndyCar and the NASCAR Xfinity Series competed on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on the same day. The following day, Kevin Harvick drove to victory on the 2.5-mile IMS road course in the NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400.

Beginning in 2021, IndyCar, NASCAR Xfinity and NASCAR Cup Series have all competed on the IMS road course. The NASCAR Cup Series is expected to return to the IMS oval in 2024 when the schedule is released.

“What is good about the second GP is we share the race weekend with NASCAR as well,” Lundgaard said. “I was asked if that changes anything because NASCAR puts down different rubber. I think it’s very good to have those two separated.

“Personally, I’m pretty happy with the calendar as it is. I would prefer to do more superspeedways. I don’t have the experience which ones to go to.”

Lundgaard is preparing for the next race on the NTT IndyCar Series schedule, this weekend’s Honda Indy Toronto on the streets of Toronto.

From a business standpoint, Detroit would be a perfect place for an IndyCar/NASCAR street race weekend, but the actual race course may be too narrow and too short for the bigger stock cars. Also, Detroit had to utilize a dual pit lane in order to accommodate a full IndyCar field.

Lundgaard likes the idea of exposing IndyCar to different race fans. NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race was designed to expose the stock car racing series to people who had never seen a race before.

That is a similar approach to the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway July 22-23 with four major concerts surrounding two full IndyCar Series races.

“I have friends who won’t be coming to the race weekend at Iowa to watch the race, but attend the concerts,” Lundgaard said. “I think that is great because we get people out and people that come for the music and see the racing and hopefully get interested in the sport and comes to more races.

“That’s what we need.”