Sunday Setup: Bumps create Chicagoland challenge for crew chiefs

JOLIET, Ill. -- NASCAR is back at Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019, but it might as well be the NASCAR Cup Series' first time ever. Despite 19 prior races on the 1.5-mile oval dating back to 2001, the Cup Series has never raced at the Joliet speedway with its Next Gen car. That alone provides an extra challenge to crew chiefs ahead of Sunday's eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). MORE: Starting lineup | At-track photos All 38 teams received 50 minutes of practice on Friday afternoon, but three cars came with some semblance of a reference point. Chris Gayle, crew chief of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and driver Denny Hamlin, got a step forward with a two-day tire test at Chicagoland in late April, earning extra laps along with the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team and No. 12 Team Penske group. "It's not huge, but it is an advantage, right?" Gayle told NASCAR.com on Saturday. "You get a leg up on where the place is. You get to try a few more things than what you would have tried in a 50-minute practice session, right? So our notebook for, 'OK, we need to do this many things in practice and hustle through' is a little different than other guys. And then it gives you a baseline setting for, OK, I think this is where I need to come back. "But a lot of cars that get on the race track and start laying rubber down, and that kind of always shifts your target for balance where you need to be compared to the test, and so that's always still a little bit of a guess and not gonna be fully fixed for you. But it helps. And then the driver obviously has a lot of experience here, but it's been a while, so it kind of refreshes (Hamlin) on what to expect on the first few laps versus some of these other guys that you hear them on the radios, like, 'oh my gosh, it's so rough. This is terrible.' He's already tuned in and ready for that." Those bumps may create the most unique test this weekend. Other 1.5-mile tracks on the circuit feature worn pavement, but seven years of unraced asphalt mixed with the age of seven Chicagoland summers and winters have given the track's aging pavement years of character development that would make any Hollywood director proud. "I think the bumps are really aggressive," Gayle said. "Particularly, two different styles, right? There's basically a big spike bump in (Turns) 3 and 4 at the tunnel, which has a huge amplitude. And then Turn 1 is a little different, where it's got kind of a longer duration of bumps, but a lot higher frequency on the way in. So I think you get the variety of everything. It feels rough in general everywhere, and there are big seams and cracks, and they've had to fill a lot of that." Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and driver William Byron, described that variety of bumps through Turns 1 and 2 as "ripple bumps" and "washboard bumps." There is a particular section of bumps at the end of the frontstretch, though, that has caught Fugle's eye. "The bump into Turn 1, which has been there forever, it's a patch. But now it's a launch point," Fugle told NASCAR.com. "You almost take off. It reminds me of a little bit of San Diego, where some of us were airborne. I know the cars aren't airborne, but the car gets super, super light through there, so it's a big, big jump." [caption id="attachment_517573" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media[/caption] That added texture places responsibility on the crew chief, who must set up the car for smooth straights and various track surfaces throughout each 1.5-mile lap. "You have to make the car ride over the bumps and not hit the race track in different ways," Fugle said. "There's bumps here that the car bottoms out, and actually the bottom of the car hits the track. There's plenty of bumps where you hit the (shock) stop limiters that we talk about all the time, and that's a ride-quality thing we try to find. It's a fine line. We try to be on one side or the other of that, but we're right on the edge of it." With added track texture comes the question of tire wear. Fugle said the tire wear he observed in Friday's session didn't deviate much from other mile-and-a-half tracks on the circuit like Kansas Speedway or Texas Motor Speedway, with Gayle noting "it'll be Charlotte-ish." But how they manage eight new sets of Goodyear tires throughout a 267-lap race will help dictate the outcome Sunday -- particularly in a rash of quick cautions. "I will be surprised if you get 20, 25 laps in, if there's any varying strategies," Gayle said. "I think you're going to want tires and you're probably going to want four at that point. I just am curious about running out of tires, maybe. Like, you would want them every time you get cautions, and I think that's just going to be about those cautions, right? If you get the quick cautions that are only two or three laps on tires on a restart, then everybody's safe. It's when you get those every 15 laps that you could ultimately be short on tires." MORE: Cup Series standings  That particular fear may be every crew chief's nightmare. "Whenever the cautions come out every 10 laps, you're scared to death," Fugle said. "The five-lap cautions are, they're kind of fun because you have the opportunity to trade and get ahead of something. If you pit (after) the five laps, it's probably not advised, but if you get another one in five laps, everybody in front of you is going to pit, and then you get to stay, so some of those are fun. But when you get to 10, 12, 15 laps on tires and you stack those, you get really scared." But how long will tires last on a given run? That answer may change between Friday's practice and Sunday's checkered flag. "At most of these intermediates, we would see cords in 35 laps," Gayle said. "I don't think anybody ran that long (in practice) with the number of tires we had yesterday. Somebody I thought ran 29 or 30, but I never heard of any cords or anything. But again, we're going to need to go 40, 42, laps in the race, maybe a little longer (with) Stage 3 going green. I think it'll be OK by then, but for as abrasive as it is, I think it's more about the bumps and handling those because the fall-off isn't all that different than a Kansas or anywhere else."