RELATED: See the action at Chicagoland
Ten teams took part in a two-day Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series test on Tuesday and Wednesday at Chicagoland Speedway, site of the playoff opener set for Sunday, Sept. 17. Chief among the goals for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and several others were preparation for the playoffs.
With wins at Daytona and Talladega, Stenhouse and his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford team will be part of the 16-driver postseason. Given his dirt background, Stenhouse is a fan of the aging track surface at the 1.5-mile track.
“Finally, we are in the playoffs,” Stenhouse during a break in testing. “We always come to Chicago and the last few years, we’ve always kind of said as a team and acting like we were in the playoffs and tried to put the best 10-race stretch we could together. I feel like we got a little practice, even though we were not in the playoffs the last couple of years, but I think we’re ready.
“There’s some good tracks for us in the playoffs starting here in Chicago. … Nice being able to come here and test and see if we can improve our car for when we show up.”
Ryan Blaney, who will be in the 16-driver playoff as well thanks to his Pocono win in June, felt the test was beneficial to get prepared for not just the start of the playoffs, but the fact that half of the 10 postseason races are on 1.5-mile tracks.
“This place is a really, really fun race track and it’s only of those places you can run on the bottom all the way to the wall,” Blaney said during a break in testing. “You’re constantly moving every single lap and those are some of the best 1.5-mile tracks we have and this is definitely one of the better ones.
“I think it’s a great place to kick off the playoffs and that’s another great thing about testing here, being in the playoffs you can kind of get a head start on what is going to be like, hopefully.”
On hand to represent their respective organizations were seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports), Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing), Jamie McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing), Ty Dillon (Germain Racing), Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing), Brad Keselowski (Team Penske), Stenhouse Jr. (Roush Fenway Racing), Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports), Kurt Busch (Stewart-Haas Racing) and Blaney (Wood Brothers Racing).
In addition to the teams testing, Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota had their respective wheel force cars on hand at the 1.5-mile track to gather data. Alex Bowman (Chevrolet), David Ragan (Ford) and Drew Herring (Toyota) handled the testing work for their respective manufacturers.
According to the NASCAR National Series Master Unified Test policy, no more than one team from each company may take part in an organizational test. Two more organizational tests remain: Oct. 10-11 at Martinsville Speedway and Oct. 24-25 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.