NASCAR completed a two-day Goodyear tire test at Chicagoland Speedway on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for the sport’s return to the 1.5-mile facility just outside Chicago, Illinois, during Independence Day weekend.
Representatives from all three Cup Series manufacturers took part in the test: Ryan Blaney (Ford), Kyle Larson (Chevrolet) and Denny Hamlin, while Justin Allgaier (Chevrolet) and Brandon Jones (Toyota) put down laps for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
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The test marked the first time Chicagoland had seen cars on track since 2019.
“You’ve raced so much between then and now that I didn’t really remember a whole lot of the track other than just the big bump in one and some bumps in [Turns] 3 and 4, and those are all still there,” Larson told media at the track. “It’s just cool. It’s really fast. A lot faster pace than what I remember the old car being here. We’re on the throttle quite a bit, but it’s also not as hot as what it was the last times we were here. It’ll be hot when we come back, so the pace should slow down.”
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“One of the neatest things about this place, I thought the surface was at a really good point of like, very well aged, to where we’re going to use the whole race track,” [Ryan] Blaney said. “Tire falloff is going to be pretty big, especially when we come back in the summer. So we’re going to be able to use everything of the race track, which is good, but that’s always nice when you have mile-and-a-halfs that are wide. I just remember it puts on really good races, and the curved backstretch is different, but I have a lot of fun memories about this place.
— NASCAR.com —