Explained to me by some Evolution instructors...
Back in the day when Nationals roamed the country from site to site, the
Chicago Region came up with an ingenious idea to give the region a favorable
chance at winning more trophies.
There's a national rule about how close together slalom cones can be. The
Chicago Box, itself, is just a tight three-cone cone slalom, boxed in by
cones. By boxing in the 3 cones of the slalom, it was technically no longer
considered a slalom, allowing the Box to skirt around the rule.
Chicago Region used this to their advantage, practicing the Box throughout
the season and then incorporating a number of them in their Nationals course
design. Then, just as now, the first time people see a Chicago Box, they
all go "AWWWW F#$K," and botch the maneuver.
-A.
> Does anybody know the origin of the name "Chicago Box" for this
> autocross feature?
>
> Speculation has it that the feature originated (or was at least used
> quite a bit) in Chicago, thus the name.
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