Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle and Juan Montoya may figure prominently in this weekend's Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway, just like they did earlier this decade at another Windy City oval, one currently facing the wrecking ball.

The facility hosted open-wheel racing in 1999, and a sellout crowd of 70,000 was on hand to watch Montoya win by .783 seconds over Dario Franchitti.

Funded by a group of investors which included Chip Ganassi, Chicago Motor Speedway was built at a cost of $70 million next to the Sportsman's Park horse track. The track, which measured just a little more an a mile, was shaped and somewhat banked like a larger Martinsville, owing to the fact that the property was long and narrow, sandwiched between the horse track on the backstretch and a set of railroad tracks behind the main grandstand.

The facility -- just miles from Midway Airport -- hosted open-wheel racing in 1999, and a sellout crowd of 70,000 was on hand to watch Montoya win by .783 seconds over Dario Franchitti. The next season, NASCAR's Truck Series was added to the schedule, and it was 55-year-old Joe Ruttman who held off a young Biffle over a two-lap shootout for his third victory of the season.

Ruttman -- younger brother of Indianapolis 500 winner Troy Ruttman -- started from the pole but dropped deep in the field after making a pit stop early in the going. He and Biffle swapped the lead during the second half of the race, with Ruttman getting out in front to stay on Lap 163. Biffle made it interesting by hounding Ruttman over the closing laps. But the veteran made the most of two late-race restarts, using the preferred lower groove to hang on for the win.

''There at the end, I was just protecting my position,'' Ruttman said. ''I knew that Greg and Mike [Wallace] were back there and I was going to do everything that I could do to make sure they stayed behind me.'' (Continued)