Israeli NASCAR driver Alon Day’s hope of delivering message in Chicago detoured by wreck

Israel’s Alon Day, his nation’s only professional NASCAR driver, came to Chicago to race in Saturday’s Xfinity Series Loop 110, a rare foray onto a U.S. track or street course for the four-time NASCAR European series season champion.

With the Israel-Hamas War raging, Day, 32, had no illusions about blending in with the rest of the field. He knew his No. 45 Chevrolet — blue and white like the Israeli flag and emblazoned with the Hebrew word for “life” — would draw unique attention, especially if he had a good day zipping around the lakefront.

A few weeks before the race, in a video call, he discussed what he was feeling.

“I never actually thought ever in my life I would have to talk politics and war and death in my career,” he said. “How crazy is that? But that’s the reality. I’m racing in Chicago to talk about it. I’m coming to the States to raise awareness about Israel and about anti-Semitism because America is a big part of Israel; they’re probably our biggest ally. If they’re gone, we are gone.”

He understood not everyone in Chicago would be receptive to his message or in favor of his presence.

“Bring it on,” he said. “I know there are probably going to be people against me. That’s what it is. I can’t run away from the fact that I’m Israeli and I’m Jewish. That’s part of me. If people will protest against me, whatever happens, bring it on. And I hope I will be able to change their minds.”

But war is a drowning out of unheard voices, and Day’s presence on race day ended up being as quiet and lonely as a hand-written sign that hung from the Lincoln Park pedestrian overpass above the southbound lanes on DuSable Lake Shore Drive:

“BBQ IN USA, FAMINE IN GAZA,” it read.

On the street course a few miles down the lakefront, in what turned out to be a treacherous Turn 4 — right at Lake Shore and Roosevelt Road — Day didn’t even make it through his warm-up laps before the qualifying session for Saturday’s race began. Nearly 20 cars ahead of Day’s, Illinois native Justin Allgaier, who grew up outside of Springfield, had run his No. 7 Chevrolet into a tire barrier in Turn 4, where the road surface transitions from asphalt to concrete. Half a minute later, Day came around and crashed into him, totaling both cars.

“WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED?!” @NASCARonNBC tweeted to its 378,000-plus followers.

What happened appeared to be that Day — unlike the other drivers behind Allgaier — received no warning from a team spotter watching ahead on the course. It would explain why Day came through the turn at such high speed and into a collision that did so much damage.

“From my side, on the radio, it was pretty quiet,” Day told a reporter for Frontstretch after leaving the infield care center with his own body seemingly intact. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Allgaier was able to qualify and run the race in his backup car. Day — who was scheduled to run in what essentially was the Alpha Prime Racing team’s third-string car — had no backup vehicle. Just like that, he was one of five in the Xfinity field who failed to qualify and his experience here was over.

Perhaps some of his personal story is worth hearing anyway.

At 26, after winning the first of his EuroNASCAR championships, Day — his obligatory military service long since over — moved to the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel. Kfar Aza was near the Gaza border, but it was rural and quiet and just what Day, a native of the city of Ashdod, was looking for. He lived there in 2018 and 2019 and called it “one of the most beautiful places,” where there was no such thing as a stranger.

“It was one of the best times in my life,” Day said.

On Oct. 7 of last year, Kfar Aza was invaded by Hamas and more than 60 residents were killed, with a reported 19 taken hostage. Day had friends and former neighbors in both categories and carefully spells out the names of five hostages from Kfar Aza — twin brothers Ziv and Gali Berman, Doron Stainbrecher, Emily Damari and Liri Albag (the sister of an Israeli motorsports driver) — who have not been freed.

Living in Ashdod again, Day is, he says, neither “far right” nor particularly religious. He believes Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas or else, “They will come back again … [and] it will never end.” He is dubious of Americans’ understanding of his part of the world because, as he put it, “We are deep in the [expletive] and, I guess, you’re not.”

He’s also just a race-car driver, not a statesman or even a spokesman.

Finding sponsorship here — which he eventually landed from the downtown-based Jet Support Services Inc. — was difficult. Sponsorship in Europe has been elusive through the years, too.

“I’m always the Israeli guy, always different than anybody else,” Day said. “[Potential sponsors] usually don’t want to be connected.”

Somewhere in Day’s imagination, though, thoughts of winning a race in Chicago fluttered around for a little while. Alas, his connection with the city ended almost before it started.

Contributing: Ellery Jones