Brad Perez will look to make his third NASCAR Xfinity Series start of the 2023 season as the series heads to the Chicago Street Course on Saturday, July 1st. Perez will pilot the No. 53 entry for Emerling-Gase Motorsports, and he will have primary sponsorship from Bonesteel Aerospace.
Perez, 26, is a skilled road racer, and he feels the Chicago Street Course will provide even more of an advantage for drivers like himself that specialize in road racing due to the unforgiving nature of the Chicago Street Course layout.
“I think it’ll be a matter of not making the very small mistakes that are huge in a stock car,” Perez explained to TobyChristie.com. “You think about your turn-in point, and the stock car guys are used to clipping the curbs all the time — there’s not going to be any real curbs around this track. If you turn in too early, you hit the wall. You hit the wall, you’re done.”
Perez feels that the Chicago Street Course will provide the most even playing field that you’ll see all season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
The young racer from Florida has become a fun follow during road race weekends because he has become known for his ability to give turns around road courses unique names.
Perez says he isn’t done naming the turns around the Chicago Street Course just yet, but says the fact that all of the turns are nearly identical with one another has made the process a little more difficult than usual.
“The unfortunate part about this track is that there aren’t many characteristic turns. They’re all like flat 90-degree corners,” Perez laughed. “On iRacing, when I was going on it earlier, I was like, ‘okay, this is the Xfinity turn, this is the McDonalds turn, this is the Lululemon turn, this is the little curvy-curvy, this is the Blue Cross Blue Shield corner,’ whatever is on the wall is what I call it.”
While Perez, who cut his teeth on road courses in the Miata series, has never participated in a street course race, just about everyone in the field for the race will be at about the same experience level on street courses as Perez, as this will mark the first-ever street course race for any of NASCAR’s National Series.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Loop 121 at the Chicago Street Course will take place on Saturday, July 1st at 5:00 PM ET with television coverage provided by USA Network.
