JOLIET, Ill. — Austin Hill could only shrug his shoulders after contact from Shane van Gisbergen sidelined him early in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.
“I’m sure y’all have seen the replay,” Hill said, “so if I have to explain it, people probably need to get glasses.”
Questions about corrective lenses aside, his Richard Childress Racing team had the view that the consequential bump that knocked Hill from Sunday’s eero 400 was intentional, causing terminal damage to his No. 33 Chevrolet after hard rear-end contact with the outside retaining wall.
Hill was out after completing 47 of a scheduled 267 laps, saddled with a 37th-place result and his second DNF in three weeks. Before heading to pit road and eventually the garage, Hill showed his displeasure by sideswiping van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet under caution.
“I was entering the corner normal,” Hill said. “Everyone blocks everybody’s air off, right? That’s the way these Cup cars are. I was just going down to block his air off, and from my standpoint, it just looked like he sped up. So, who knows?”
Van Gisbergen – who continued after the contact to a 25th-place finish — chuckled as he discounted the notion that his contact was retaliation, pointing out Hill’s role in their run-in while also apologizing for the outcome.
“I was shooting for the bottom, trying to get clean air,” van Gisbergen said post-race. “I was so tight, and he just chopped my nose and got in the wall. So, sorry about that. Sorry to his guys, they’re always nice people, and it happens.”
Childress, the NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner, said through the No. 33 radio communications that van Gisbergen’s nudge “was just payback for California,” referring to the crash that Hill caused at the Naval Base Coronado street race in San Diego two weeks ago. On a restart that weekend, Hill slid into SVG teammate Connor Zilisch while battling for the lead, sparking a multicar crash that eliminated both Trackhouse drivers and threw a wrench into van Gisbergen’s postseason hopes. Additionally, a week earlier at Pocono Raceway, both Hill and SVG were involved in a crash exiting Turn 3 after Hill inadvertently slid up from the bottom racing groove.
Hill, who’s in the No. 33 Chevrolet for the seventh consecutive week after the death of Kyle Busch, was evaluated and released from the infield care center. After his medical check, Hill said, “I have no idea,” when asked if the contact was retaliation for San Diego.
He was pessimistic about having a productive post-race conversation with his rival. “I don’t know how much I’m gonna get out of him,” Hill said.
Van Gisbergen also had low expectations.
“I’ll talk to him,” van Gisbergen said, “but he just grunts.”
The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series head to Chicagoland Speedway for stock-car racing’s return to Joliet, Illinois. Bookmark this page for everything you need throughout Chicagoland race weekend — including qualifying orders, practice speeds, race results and more.
JOLIET, Ill. — One week ago, Taylor Gray’s sputtering No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota sat helplessly out of fuel at Sonoma Raceway, and teammate Brandon Jones obliged with a push to help him across the finish line. Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway, there was more contact, but at far higher speeds and with late-race stakes.
Though Gray’s No. 54 bore some of Jones’ neon yellow paint on his logo-scrubbed left-front Goodyear tire, the hard racing in an event that Jones eventually won wasn’t his undoing. A smidge of wheelspin on a late restart and what Gray called a lack of aggression to block NASCAR Cup Series regular Chase Elliott’s charge shuffled him back in the order, and seventh place was the best he could muster.
Gray still rallied to a solid gain in the still-simmering showdown for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase, moving up one spot in the standings and providing him with slightly better footing in a bubble battle with JGR teammates Brent Crews and William Sawalich. The 21-year-old driver, now in his second full season of O’Reilly competition, now sits 11th on the provisional 12-driver grid, and he improved from a 20-point margin above the elimination line to a plus-52 cushion.
The positives were there, but after leading 55 of the 201 laps — second only to Elliott’s race-best 78 — so was a measure of remorse.
“I mean, the points are great, but I just want to win, man,” Gray said after Saturday’s Cuervo 300. “That’s what I come here to do: to win races, and I want to win races for these guys that work really hard throughout the week and throughout the weekend. Feel like I kind of took one away from us there.”
Gray overcame a deficit from the start, taking the green flag in 25th after qualifying was a washout. He still managed to land in the points at the end of both stages, padding his stature in the standings and regaining some of the ground he lost at Sonoma, where a nearly assured top five evaporated within sight of the finish for a 29th-place result.
Some of the final-stage restarts went his way, and others didn’t, but veteran crew chief Jason Ratcliff was quick to remind him post-race on the No. 54 team radio about the big-picture progress.
“All in all, a great day and he drove a race that deservingly he should have won, but it’s not over till it’s over,” Ratcliff told NASCAR.com. “So I know he’s disappointed, but a lot of good takeaways. Pit crew did a good job, the race car’s good, all the guys did a great job building the car, and he drove an awesome race. So yeah, you leave here with a little bit of a bitter taste in your mouth, but something you can build on, some momentum. Really, the last month and a half has been really solid. We’ve been capable of winning a couple races in the last four. Just gotta keep plugging away. That’s part of it.”
Ratcliff is in his second season atop the pit box for Gray’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series efforts, and the list of drivers he’s worked with in his long career includes a host of NASCAR Hall of Famers or likely future inductees — Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth and Christopher Bell among them. Ratcliff says he’s been impressed with what Gray has shown him so far, noting his on-track poise and off-track diligence.
Gray has converted for a pair of wins in their time together — a redemptive victory at Martinsville Speedway in last season’s penultimate race and a triumph this spring at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile venue with Chicagoland similarities. Ratcliff says he sees more in Gray’s future.
“I mean, he’s obviously got the talent to win,” Ratcliff said. “He’s got a couple wins under his belt now at two different styles of race tracks and a lot more opportunities that just slipped away from him, which happens when you’re … not a rookie, but a sophomore or whatever you want to call it. So he’s doing the right things, he’s preparing right, he’s coming to the race track and learning every week. He’s doing all the same things that all the great drivers I’ve worked with in the past are doing, and is producing on the race track. We were hoping at this point we would have a couple more wins under our belt at this point in the season, so we’ve had a couple hiccups along the way, but all in all, it’s still been very successful here, and we’ve got a lot of races ahead of us, and I think that he’ll win a couple more before the season’s out.”
The races both before and after his Kansas win in April have been a mixed lot. In the last 10 races, Gray has finished outside the top 25 five times — including a pair of consecutive DNFs after crashes sidelined him from contention at Dover Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Three top-10 outcomes — including Saturday night’s at Chicagoland — in the last five events have helped offset those issues, though Ratcliff admitted how the Sonoma setback still stings. Just four races remain until the 12-driver Chase field is set, and Ratcliff hopes more days like Saturday will make the difference.
“I mean, we’re our own worst enemy when it comes to the points. We’ve beat ourselves more than we’ve been beat,” Ratcliff said. “Like last week, we gave up 20-some points just not being smart. It just comes down to math, and we just missed it on our fuel deal. So we just have to do a better job of capitalizing when opportunities present themselves and points won’t be a problem. But it was good to have a good finish under our belt today after last week, when we gave some up. So to come out of here, it’d have been great to win it, but we’re doing what we need to do. We’re coming out here and being competitive, we’re getting stage points, we’re running up front, and we keep doing that, it should take care of itself.”
JOLIET, Ill. — Stealing the lead from Chase Elliott on the final restart, Brandon Jones celebrated NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway with a dramatic victory in Saturday night’s rain-delayed Cuervo 300.
In the first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race to require overtime this season, Jones’ No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota stayed side-by-side with Elliott’s No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet through the first two corners on the decisive Lap 200 restart.
Jones took control in Turn 3 on the white-flag lap. Elliott made a determined run at the top of the track on the final circuit, but Jones blocked the lane and crossed the finish line 0.171 seconds ahead of the 2020 Cup Series champion.
“It’s been an up-and-down year,” Jones said after climbing from his car. “We had some success early on. We’ve been in a little rut the last couple weeks, so it’s just nice to do it like we did today. We had to earn that one.”
The victory was Jones’ first at Chicagoland (which hosted its first race since 2019), his first of the 2026 season and the eighth of his career, and he achieved it by outrunning an elite Cup Series driver.
“I think it says a lot about how resilient we are and how hard we’re working out there,” Jones said. “Chase made it really difficult on me. He’s one of the best in the sport. We were on old tires, and that was a blast, sliding around and dueling it out like that.”
Elliott chose the top lane for the final restart and didn’t get the push he needed from third-place finisher Jesse Love, the culprit being well-worn tires.
“I don’t think that was why we lost by any means,” Elliott said. “I know he was planning on giving me a good push … We ended up kind of having the momentum going the wrong way into Turn 3. I tried to drive in way hard and got myself super tight.
“Credit to Brandon. He did a good job. He had a good restart, stayed side-by-side through 1 and 2 and had the momentum going his way into Turn 3. I got myself in a bad spot and paid the price.”
Austin Hill finished fifth behind Love and rookie Brent Crews.
For JGR teammates Crews and Taylor Gray, the race was eminently productive in the battle for positions in the postseason Chase. Gray led 55 laps — second only to Elliott’s 78 — and ended the evening seventh in the race and 11th in the standings with a 52-point cushion above the current Chase cutline.
Crews is 12th, the final Chase-eligible position, with a 44-point margin over teammate William Sawalich, the first driver below the current cutoff.
But Sawalich was seething after contact from Crews’ front bumper sent him spinning through the infield grass on Lap 165 of a planned 200 to cause the fifth of seven cautions. Sawalich finished 29th and faces an uphill battle with only four races left before The Chase field is set.
With qualifying canceled in favor of practice after rain wiped out O’Reilly Auto Parts Series practice on Friday, Connor Zilisch started on the pole via the NASCAR Rule Book after a rain delay of more than four hours. He led the first stage wire-to-wire, finishing 4.935 seconds ahead of second-place Love.
Under caution, however, Zilisch’s No. 1 JRM Chevrolet ran out of fuel and had to be pushed to pit road. Zilisch restarted Stage 2 in 26th place and climbed to ninth by the end of the stage on Lap 90.
Elliott was first off pit road during the first stage break and held the top spot through the end of Stage 2.
Zilisch’s rotten luck continued after the break. He cut a tire after contact with the outside wall and started from the back once again, only to spin on Lap 156 and repeat the process. For a third time, he climbed through the field to finish 10th.
Justin Allgaier, Zilisch’s JRM teammate, had a similarly adventurous night. Allgaier started 17th and charged to fourth by the end of Stage 2. But a safety violation on pit road for an improperly uniformed crew member sent him to the rear for a restart at Lap 100.
Allgaier rallied to finish sixth and leaves Chicagoland with a 195-point series lead over second-place Love.
Behind Allgaier and Gray, Sam Mayer, Cole Custer and Zilisch completed the top 10. With Elliott, Allgaier and Zilisch in the top 10, JRM extended its streak of placing at least one car in the top 10 to 77 consecutive races, two short of RFK Racing’s series record, set from 2008 through 2010.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series moves to EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta for next Saturday’s Focused Health 250 (7 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Inspection was completed in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage, confirming Jones as the Chicagoland winner. The Nos. 0 and 54 each had one lug nut not safe and secure, resulting in a loss of pit selection at EchoPark. Additionally, the Nos. 54, 88 and 99 will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for teardown inspection.
After spending the last three years racing on the streets of downtown Chicago, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Chicagoland Speedway in nearby Joliet for the first time since 2019.
With this serving as the first race for the Next Gen car at Chicagoland, expect drivers to face challenges from the track’s aged and bumpy nature while navigating multiple grooves from the bottom to ripping the fence. Several drivers need a strong showing at a crucial point in Sunday’s eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), as just eight regular-season races remain.
With no on-track action at Chicagoland in the last seven years, could experience at the 1.5-mile Illinois track be key to reaching Victory Lane? Here’s a look at other drivers to keep an eye on, as well as the full projected results for Sunday’s Cup Series race.
DRIVERS TO WATCH
KYLE LARSON: With his winless streak reaching 42 races entering Chicagoland, this feels like the perfect opportunity for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to return to Victory Lane. The defending Cup Series champion has led laps in the last 12 of 13 races on 1.5-mile tracks. Larson is also riding some momentum lately, with five top-five finishes in the last six Cup Series races. After qualifying second for Sunday’s race, look for Larson to contend for the win.
TYLER REDDICK: Only 21 Cup Series drivers have made a start at the premier level at Chicagoland. Reddick, however, is not one of them. The 23XI Racing driver last competed at the 1.5-mile Illinois track in 2019 in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, finishing ninth. Despite not having Chicagoland Cup Series experience, don’t expect that to slow Reddick down. The driver of the No. 45 Toyota has five top 10s in the last six races on 1.5-mile tracks. He also has an average running position of 5.16 on these tracks this year, ranking second behind polesitter and bossman Denny Hamlin. Reddick qualified 13th for the eero 400, but paced 10-, 15-, 20- and 25-lap averages in practice. Expect the No. 45 Toyota to be a factor on Sunday.
RYAN BLANEY: After six consecutive top 10s, Blaney comes to Joliet on a summer heater. The Team Penske driver very well could pick up his seventh straight top-10 finish on Sunday. He has two top 10s at Chicagoland in four career Cup Series starts, and his average finish of 9.8 here is his best among all 1.5-mile tracks. Rolling off the grid in 14th, the No. 12 Ford should lead the charge again for the Captain’s organization.
JOLIET, Ill. — Christopher Bell has gotten his left wrist out of a cast and into a splint ahead of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.
The lingering outcome of his June 7 crash at Michigan International Speedway has led to discomfort rather than pain as his fractured wrist continues to heal.
“The pain level has been low ever since the beginning, but I would say my ability to drive the car is the same as what it has been,” Bell said Saturday at Chicagoland. “I just keep using the word clunky. Like, I just can’t be quick and precise with the wheel, with — I had a cast on my arm, and now I’ve got the splint, but my mobility is the same. So hopefully I can gain movement of my left wrist here shortly, and I’ll be back to normal.”
His June results reflected the recent abnormality Bell and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team have had to navigate. The Michigan wreck triggered a three-week stretch of poor results: 31st at Michigan, 26th at Pocono Raceway and 39th (last) at Naval Base Coronado after rookie Brent Crews substituted mid-race and suffered an engine failure.
That, in part, is what made last week’s fifth-place effort at Sonoma Raceway so much sweeter for Bell, racking up a whopping 50 points in the process that jumped him two spots to 10th in the Cup Series points standings and further away from the 16th-place cutline to make The Chase in eight weeks’ time.
“I mean I’m super proud of it, and I’m proud of my team for persevering,” Bell said. “Obviously, this has been a trying time with us, and it was depressing after Michigan and then Pocono and San Diego seeing those points slip away and us get closer to the cutline. So it was rewarding to get a lot of points and have a great solid finish, and we’re looking forward to what’s next. There’s no reason that we can’t have another great points day here at Chicagoland.”
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
Those hopes took another step forward after Saturday’s qualifying session as Bell wheeled the No. 20 Toyota to a sixth-place starting position for Sunday’s eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bell said he can’t overstate how rough the surface of Chicagoland’s worn asphalt is. That hasn’t been a hindrance to his wrist in his attack through either Friday’s 50-minute practice or Saturday’s qualifying session, but it will impact how he and his competitors approach Sunday’s race.
“Denny (Hamlin, Bell’s JGR teammate) did the tire test, and he was kind of debriefing with us and telling us what his thought process was,” Bell said. “And we knew it was going to be rough, but then I went out there Run 1, Lap 1, and I’m like, holy smokes. Nothing will do it justice for you guys, how rough it is inside these race cars. And what we found out over the course of the Next Gen car, is it does really well on smooth tracks, but the bumps and the rough race tracks are very hard and challenging for the crew chiefs. It’s challenging for the drivers because you need that thing as low as you can get it, but the bumps will affect that. So it’s going to be a very challenging race.”
With the 2026 campaign halfway complete, Bell is simply looking to finish where he knows his cars have potential to take the checkered flag. He was second at both Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway, but what preceded Charlotte was a five-race spell of finishes 17th or worse. What followed Nashville was his Michigan downturn — where he crashed while battling for second.
The team’s ceiling is winning races and contending for a championship. Its floor? Finishing outside the top 20.
“Oh boy, we have them both covered right now,” Bell said. “It seems like the lowest of lows and the highest of highs are our capability every single weekend. That’s our weakness right now. We need to elevate our floor, and once we do that, we’ll be in good shape.”
As for Bell’s wrist, healing appears to be on schedule.
“The goal was to be out of the cast for Chicago, and I don’t have a cast on my arm anymore, so that’s really good,” he said. “But honestly, the cast, the splint … I can wear a normal fire suit, which is nice, and I can wear it close to my normal glove, which is nicer, but my mobility of my wrist is still the same as it would be in a cast.
“It’s just gonna be (until) whenever I can race with freedom and not have my wrist taped up and locked down. I was hopeful that that would be North Wilkesboro, and I think it’ll either be Wilkesboro or Indy, but Atlanta, I think we’re gonna take a step backwards and go back to a cast for Atlanta, just with the nature of the beast there and make sure that I have the maximum protection that I can have.”
NASCAR officials levied penalties to the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports teams Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway for multiple pre-race inspection failures, the sanctioning body announced.
The No. 71 Chevrolet failed three times before passing on its fourth try. Consequently, driver Michael McDowell was not permitted to attempt a qualifying lap and will forfeit pit-stall selection. He’ll start Sunday’s eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) from 38th and will also serve a pass-through penalty upon the green flag. Additionally, car chief Travis Young has been ejected for the remainder of the race weekend.
The No. 5 Chevrolet, driven by defending series champion Kyle Larson, failed inspection twice before passing on its third try. As a result, the team also lost pit-stall selection, and car chief Jesse Saunders was ejected for the remainder of the race weekend. Larson qualified second for the 400-miler.
McDowell enters the weekend with consecutive top-10 finishes at Naval Base Coronado and Sonoma Raceway, and sits 21st in points — 32 markers behind the provisional Chase cutline. Larson is fifth in points and finished runner-up in each of the series’ last two visits to the 1.5-mile track in 2018 and 2019.
Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Chicagoland Speedway is expected to begin at 10 p.m. ET after a lengthy delay due to inclement weather (The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The Cuervo 300 was set to begin at 5:30 p.m. ET at the 1.5-mile Illinois track before thunderstorms arrived in the area. It’s the series’ first visit to Joliet since 2019.
Friday’s practice session was postponed until Saturday due to rain and was held in place of qualifying. Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love topped the leaderboard at 173.533 mph during the 50-minute session.
The starting lineup was set per the NASCAR Rule Book. When the race begins, JR Motorsports driver Connor Zilisch will lead the field to the green flag in his No. 1 Chevrolet, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brent Crews joining him on the front row.
Track: Chicagoland Speedway Location: Joliet, Illinois Track length: 1.5 miles When: 6 p.m. ET Where to tune in: TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,233,037 Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles Segments: 80 | 165 | 267 Sunday’s starting lineup| Pit-stall assignments
Veterans, first-timers share new-car feel in Chicagoland’s rebirth
JOLIET, Ill. — Coming back to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019 has felt in some ways familiar. The trappings of race tracks that sprang up in the late 1990s and early aughts are all still here, and many of the faces that starred in the track’s first era are still stars during its rebirth.
Several Chicagoland memories have been replayed — the Kyle Busch crying-eyes meme, the Tropicana orange invasion, the Victory Lane slimings — in the buildup to Sunday’s revival, but many other facets of big-league stock-car racing have changed in the years since. Three organizations — 23XI, Trackhouse and Kaulig — didn’t exist as Cup teams back in 2019, and the current-generation Cup Series car that bowed in 2022 is a radical shift from its on-track predecessor.
Nostalgia notwithstanding, there’s plenty of reason for drivers to approach Sunday’s eero 400 as a new race at a new venue on the schedule after three years of racing on Chicago’s downtown streets. It’s also another moment for the In-Season Challenge — another feature that wasn’t around in 2019 — with 16 drivers moving into the second round of the second-annual tournament.
With the degree of newness comes a measure of mystery. Of the 38 drivers in the field Sunday, 21 of them have Cup Series starts at Chicagoland. Those Joliet veterans, however, say that their experience in the track’s previous era may not tip the performance scales in their favor.
“I definitely thought coming into this, past experiences would matter,” 23XI’s Tyler Reddick said before qualifying 13th Saturday. “I mean it’s just one sample of it and that was yesterday’s practice, but just based off yesterday, I would say past experience doesn’t matter quite nearly as much as I thought it was going to. I remember coming here in an O’Reilly (Auto Parts Series) car, and lots of (tire) fall-off, having to move around. I’m sure they’re experiencing that right now, but just by nature, how different the Cup car can be kind of showed itself a bit yesterday.”
While there are comparable 1.5-mile tracks, the idiosyncrasies of each one present distinct challenges. The bumps from the original, sealed-up asphalt surface remain, but those quirks have hit differently with the Next Gen racer. A sizable drop in Turn 1 has unsettled several cars in practice and qualifying, and another dip through Turns 3 and 4 has provided another series of character marks. Finding reference points elsewhere on the Cup schedule has been a speedway scavenger hunt.
“No, because it’s like really smooth, and then it’s just the biggest slam that I think we have, and then you’re smooth again,” said Carson Hocevar, who was 16 years old when NASCAR last visited here and who connected Chicagoland’s traits to everything from the rough San Diego street-course runways to the treacherous portions of Texas.
In the short span of the first weekend back so far, several trends have already emerged. Cup Series drivers were reluctant to be the first to test the higher lanes in Friday’s 50-minute practice, but the groove widened upward once O’Reilly Auto Parts Series cars ventured that direction in Saturday’s preliminary sessions, hinting at more of the same in Sunday’s main event.
The other trend was speed from the Cup Series points leader as Denny Hamlin secured the top starting spot for the fourth consecutive oval race. The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver was one of three who participated in a Goodyear tire test here in April, with fellow front-runners Ryan Blaney and defending champ Kyle Larson joining him.
That experience might not tilt the playing field. Same goes for the experience from the first Chicagoland incarnation.
“I’ve been here a lot through the years, and that being said, going out there in this car after that long, felt like the first time,” said RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, who made four Chicagoland starts from 2016-19. “Yes, I knew the bump into (Turn) 1 is big and has that big moment. I knew the roughness in (Turns) 3 and 4 was going to be there, but I’m still relearning where it’s all at and what this car does with it. So, is there an advantage there? Probably not a ton. Denny pointed out, even from the test here, there’s a couple cars that did a test, and you’d think that they would have a big advantage, and they may have for about five laps, but ultimately stuff changes really quick and everybody’s going to figure it out rather quickly.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
In the details …
The Cup Series schedule has made four trips to 1.5-mile tracks this season, excluding the same-length EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta and its superspeedway-hybrid style of racing. The intermediate-sized circuits have been a leading indicator for teams’ overall performance, but success at this specific track type doesn’t necessarily correlate to stature in the Cup Series standings.
Another 1.5-mile layout arrives Sunday in Chicagoland, and there’s a level of uncertainty looming, given the track’s seven-year absence from the schedule. Here’s a look at top performers on 1.5-mile tracks this year and their points placement heading into Sunday’s showdown:
Driver
Average finish
Points position
Denny Hamlin
2.5
1st
Tyler Reddick
5.5
2nd
William Byron
6.8
12th
Brad Keselowski
11.0
18th
Daniel Suárez
11.0
9th
Bubba Wallace
11.3
13th
Speed reads
Race-day essentials:
• Chicagoland hub: Key information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more • Sunday Setup: Navigating the nuances, tires and strategy in Chicagoland | Read more
• Revisiting greatness: A look back at Kyle Busch’s 2018 triumph in Joliet | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Bracket, format, schedule and more for Round 2 | Read more
• Analysis: Predictors, expectations abound in Chicagoland’s return | Read more • Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh at-track looks for Sunday’s 400-miler | View gallery • Hauler Talk: A glimpse inside the Remote Race Control center | Listen now • NASCAR Classics: Reminisce with full-race replays from Chicagoland | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Bell looking for a spark after Sonoma | This week’s ranks
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).
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.”
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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.”
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.”
