Talk about a change scenery- the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour goes from the southland to the heartland, from historic Daytona to one of it’s newest venues- Chicagoland Speedway. When the checkered flag waves, they’ll be under the Saturday night lights.
It’s a very tight pack as the season winds down towards the chase. There’s a lot on the line with very little separation between seventh and fourteenth.
Track Facts
Chicagoland Speedway held it’s first NASCAR Winston Cup Series race on July 15, 2001. In that inaugural race, rookie Kevin Harvick- successor to the late Dale Earnhardt on the Richard Childress Racing team- won the first of two straight races at the Joliet, Illinois track.
Chicagoland Speedway is a mile and a half, d-shaped oval track with 18 degree banking in the turns, 11 degrees of banking in the tri-oval and 5 degrees banking on the back stretch. Compared to other tracks of similar length, Chicagoland Speedway is a flatter track- usually you’ll see more along the order of 25 degrees.
Granstand seating here in the ladn of Lincoln is 75,000.
Top performers
So far, Chicagoland Speedway has proven to be something of an equal
opportunity track. Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart are the career leaders for wins at this venue with two each. Given its short history, I can tell that every winner at Chicago is in the field for Saturday’s race. Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ryan Newman will need no compass to find victory lane as prior winners.
As fast as Brian Vickers was in his pole run, Jimmie Johnson holds the qualifying speed record with a speed of 188.147 miles per hour for a time of 28.701 seconds. Vickers adds his name to a list that includes Todd Bodine, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart and Casey Mears.
Kevin Harvick ran the fastest race in 2002. “Happy” took the checkered flag in a race that went 2 hours, 55 minutes and 37 seconds. is speed? 136.832 miles per hour.
The record for fewest cautions is 7- most recently accomplished in July of 2003. The most yellow flags waved for a Chicago race is 10. That happened twice- most recently on July 11, 2005.
The record for lead changes occurred also happened two times- most recently in July of 2007. There were just 13 in 2003.
A record 42 drivers finished the 2006 race. The record for fewest finishers was 32. Yep, that happened two times, most recently in 2005.
Where and When You’ll See It & Hear It
The green flag start for the race is at 8:16 p.m. Eastern time, 5:16 p.m. Pacific. TNT will provide the TV coverage, with pre-race getting underway at 6:30 pm Eastern, 3:30 Pacific. Pre-race will be hosted by Marc Fein and Larry Mc Reynolds. Ralph Sheheen, Wally Dallenbach Jr. and Kyle Petty call the race from the booth. Marty Snider, Matt Yocum and Lindsay Czarniak are your pit reporters.
MRN and Sirius XM Satellite network provide radio coverage.
Who Will Win
After a long dry spell since Kyle Busch’s victory at Las Vegas, I finally picked another win successfully last week at Daytona as Tony Stewart grabbed the
checkered flag. Given his consistency, it gets very tempting to pick Smoke every week, especially when he starts getting on a roll like he is now.
That said- it would be foolish to ignore the fact that other racers perform well. Though his season has been a disaster, one can’t forget that Kevin Harvick has also tasted great success early in his career at Chicagoland Speedway. Kyle Busch was last year’s winner- overtaking an otherwise dominant Jimmie Johnson. In 4 starts here, Busch has a win, a pair of top 5s and a pair of top 10s. Kyle’s average of 7.8 is second to Harvick’s 7.4.
Though they’ve never won here, good friends Jimmie Johnson and Brian Vickers have run very well on this track. Johnson has 5 tops 5s and 6 top 1os in his 7 starts. Both Johnson and Busch admit that Busch used a little bit of slick re-start strategy to beat him in 2008. The “48″ was fastest in Friday morning practice.
Speaking of Johnson, he’s not alone in representing Hendrick Motorsports well. Jeff Gordon has a win here and he’s been top 10 in every practice. In 2005, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a winner in his DEI days and he appears to be gaining confidence with the assistance of crew chief Lance Mc Grew. Mark Martin topped the charts in “happy hour.” He’s looked good so far and starts 14th.
Brian Vickers will no doubt come into the race with a high degree of confidence with his P-1 starting position. in his 4 starts at Chicago, Vickers has an average finish of 9.4- ranking him 4th among active drivers. He’ll be joined by teammate Scott Speed on the front row.
Other names that jump as having had fairly good practice runs are Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch, David Reutimann, Kasey Kahne and Carl Edwards. Now when it comes to success on cookie cutter track, you ordinarily think of the Roush Fenway drivers. Would you be surprised to find out this is Edwards’ second worst track for performance behind Talladega? As for Kenseth he has the 5th highest finishing average among active drivers. The Biff has also had a track record for solid performance.
Still- it’s just odd to think that Jack Roush has never had a driver win here. It’s strange, but true.
Before we try to zero in on a pick- here’s something else to ponder. While the word is that track position is huge (well I guess, where is it not on a 1.5 mile track), winners have come from all over the grid. While Kyle Busch won from the first position last year- check out the starting positions of other winners: 13th, 25th, 10th, 14th, 32nd and 6th. This bodes well for Stewart, who starts 32nd.
It’s a tough call. Most of the experts are going with Jimmie Johnson. It’s hard to argue with that, because well, he’s Jimmie Johnson. He’s never won here in spite of performing well, so he’s got a little extra motivation. I’m also certain he’d love to improve his chase seeding by tying Busch and Martin for the series lead in wins by winning at Chicagoland.
Gordon, Stewart and Kyle Busch are the other drivers everyone else is talking about. I won’t be surprised at all to see Shrub challenge for a win- it’s obvious by his comments this week he’s not happy with where his team has been performing. It may not account for much, but it seems like Stewart is running a little slower this week. My instincts are to avoid picking Smoke.
Vickers and Reutimann are attractive choices for dark horse pick status. The trick for Vickers is to get a better handle on finishing as well as he starts. For Reutimann, it’s not a very different deal. Striving for consistency is his team’s next hurdle. I don’t expect Junior to win, BUT I expect he’ll finish top 10.
I’d say the same for Denny Hamlin. He’d be a dark horse, but he looks poised for another good race.
This is a hard one. If I take Stewart out of the mix, I really start to focus in on Johnson, Rowdy Busch and Carl Edwards. The first two were 1-2 in 2008 at Chicago, and I have a feeling Edwards is getting his swagger back and will be more of a threat down the stretch now that he’s gained greater consistency.
We used to call this feature the “Fearless Forecast.” As tempting as it is to go outside the box with a Vickers, Reutimann, Martin or Edwards pick- I’ll say there’s a reason why he’s regarded as a favorite.
I’m going with Jimmie Johnson to win the LifeLock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
PHOTO CREDITS- Chicagoland Speedway at sunset and Kevin Harvick by Walter G. Arce. Chicagoland at night by KURT68. To see more visit flickr.com or click on the hyperlink. Johnson victory photo courtesy of Getty Images for NASCAR media.
