What is it about Chicagoland Speedway that keeps a crew chief awake at night?

According to Todd Berrier, nothing ... except the fact that Saturday night's race will be the first on the 1.5-mile oval with the new car, and that there are very few ways to keep the thing glued to the track.

"I don't know if anything keeps me up at night, but there is some added pressure there because Kevin [Harvick] does so well there," Berrier cracked. "He's been able to win twice in a row. You're looking over the stuff you've done this year, knowing that we're racing the [new car] there for the first time and that we've not run a place that similar to Chicagoland yet ... maybe, Texas and Charlotte might be similar.

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You just look through what you've learned and all the changes you made and hope you've applied the right decisions.

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TODD BERRIER

"You just look through what you've learned and all the changes you made and hope you've applied the right decisions."

The biggest challenge Berrier and Harvick and the rest of the No. 29 Chevrolet team face this week is remarkably similar to the challenges they face every week with the new car: getting it to turn.

"It's the same thing everywhere, honestly," Berrier said. "The things don't turn. When you make them turn, you get the back of it too free on the power on the exit, and when you get around some people, you just stall out. It's unbelievable how much you slow down when you get within 10-15 car-lengths of another guy."

Not an unfamiliar story so far this year, which makes track position that much more critical.

"Track position is going to be the most important thing, but you're still not going to be able to win the race without a car that is at least somewhat balanced. It's going to be a juggling act to get it to turn, just like it is every other week, without compromising rear grip."

The new piece has changed the way that Berrier -- and probably every other crew chief in the garage -- calls his race.

"It has changed," he said. "I don't know that it's the car as much as it is the tire, but the combination of the two definitely is not a great pairing. Several years back, we went to running a tire that would last forever, and every time you took off on it again as a scuff it would run faster and faster and faster.

"It forces you to be dead-on on the car, because you don't get opportunities to work on it throughout the race like you once did. If we had tires that every time the caution came out you would put a set of new ones on because it was going to give you a performance benefit, then you'd be working on the car every time you'd go.

"Now, the way it is, you're going to be lucky to get four pit stops, and track position being what it is, there's no way you're going to make major changes on it and lose two or three spots in the pits because it will take you half of that next run to get one of them back."

Berrier also said that the use of scuffed tires -- tires with a heat cycle on them -- is way down because NASCAR keeps the tires for the teams, and that forces teams to put on sticker tires every stop. Some teams will keep one of their four sets of practice and qualifying tires as scuffs, but Berrier said those were usually a last-ditch effort to see if it helps the car late in the race.

As for the speedway itself, Berrier said it was a good example of the 1.5-mile tracks the teams race on all year.

"Nothing about it was very hard, but since we went to this car, it's a touch faster down the straightaway because it has a little less drag than what we had before," he said. "It's got a lot higher center of gravity and [is] a lot heavier, so it's really hard on brakes. The thing that we're going to fight at Chicago is knowing that we made the right decision back at the shop to come here with enough brake but not too much to cause you any trouble."

The new car has caused teams to beef up their brake packages across the board, given its weight, taller stance and lack of flexibility in adjustment.

"You're typically using a lot more brake every week compared to what we did last year, so we've added some brake and that's the only thing that's uncertain."

The new car has caused the teams to work harder to get it to handle, and that has made life a little tougher in the garage.

"It hurts from where we've been in life," Berrier joked. "You work on trying to make the front of the car turn and you unhook the rear end. When we add some side force and some things like that, all of a sudden you've got some aero stuff that counters that and tightens the car back up.

"With this car being so square and so boxy and whatever, it's not what we're used to, but it is what it is, and we have to make it work."

Fuel mileage will be a big factor at Chicagoland, Berrier added.

"It has come pretty high on the priority list," he said. "It's now to the point where we fool with a lot of carburetors, leaning it out, fool with a lot of things now to try to stretch it a lap or two. It seems like every other race it comes down to the caution flag coming out four laps before the window.

"It forces you to hope you can sharpen that pencil and hope that he [Harvick] can save you a lap or two and if you run out coming to the checkered flag, you're still ahead of where you'd be if you had to pit under green. It's gotten a lot trickier than it was."

Given the weather in Chicago this time of year -- hot and muggy -- the issue of heat buildup in the cars is something that can't be taken lightly, and Berrier doesn't.

"It is tremendously hot in those racecars," he said. "At the end of these races, the back half of the car, wheel tubs and around the fuel cell, the gray chassis paint has burnt to yellow. We've added insulation everywhere, and since Talladega, we've put in another air conditioner. We have one going to his helmet and the other one to the seat to try to keep the bottom of it cooler."

Berrier postulates that the splitter on the front has a lot to do with it.

"There's not a lot of air moving under the car because of the splitter," he said. "It doesn't let you evacuate any of the heat. It transfers up through the pieces, parts and components. It's hard to fix without getting rid of the splitter and putting an air dam in."