Saturday in the Park
Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Special to MotorsportsMinutePlus
Tim Cronin
Writing from Chicago
Saturday, July 1, 2023
The great question going into Saturday’s inaugural on-track action in Grant Park was simple: Would the 2.2-mile 12-turn track be racy or would it not?
The answer seems to be the former. You can make a pass on it without sending the car you’re passing into the wall. You can also smack it hard, though in both practice, qualifying and Saturday’s Xfinity series race, The Loop 121, that more often happened on one’s own.
The Loop 121 was 25 laps in, which pole-winner Cole Custer dominating, when a lightning bolt was detected within eight miles of the course at 5:02 p.m. CT. The half-hour delay was extended by further strikes coming closer and closer until NASCAR, with storms north and south, threw in the towel for the day at 6:30 p.m. If the weather cooperates, Custer will lead the field back to action for the final 30 laps Sunday at 10 a.m. CT (USA Network). The Cup race, the Grant Park 220, has been moved up to 4:05 p.m. on NBC, a prime-time showcase for the sport.
”NASCAR had hoped to resume activities, but not until city officials allowed fans to return to the grandstands,” NASCAR officials said in a statement.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Custer took his pole position and guarded it like it was the family fortune, fending off all comers while the race was under green. John Hunter Nemechek offered the stiffest challenge, and was second from the start until the red flag was displayed. Justin Allgaier, Brett Moffit and Austin Hill round out the top five.
”It comes down to how we’re using first gear,” Custer said. “We’ve just got a fast car. We’ve got it dialed in. We have a chance to win this thing, so we have to keep it clean.
”I was honestly shocked we didn’t wreck more cars (at the start). This track you can’t overdrive it. It can get crazy at the end of the race. I hope I haven’t spoken too soon.”
Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Well before that, during Cup practice, luminaries including Kevin Harvick tried to cut it too close on some of the seven 90-degree corners and discovered that clipping the apex on the inside would send you unceremoniously into the outside at a 45-degree angle, denting the car and displacing the fence, made of five-ton barriers. The latter were fixed more quickly than the former, though the only human bruises were to egos.
Chase Elliott was the first to make the miscue, clipping the inside of 45-degree Turn 8, where the cars leave Michigan Avenue for the Congress Street bypass, and then thudding into the outside of it, during Cup qualifying.
”I just made a mistake,” Elliott said sheepishly. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Austin Cindric also did the inside-outside clout around the track.
The delay, which began at 5:02 p.m., was frustrating, because the thunderstorms went to the north, coming as close as Fullerton Ave., some four miles away, and then to the south, as near as Cermak Ave., just 10 blocks from Roosevelt Rd., the south end of the track. But that was close enough to be too close, especially for those under the trees of Grant Park and in the metal grandstands.
And that was it. NASCAR officials are crossing their fingers and lighting candles in the hope they get everything on Sunday, as rolling over anything to Monday will play havoc with the directive that all the streets have to be open again by Tuesday morning, which just happens to be the Fourth of July.
Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Hamlin on pole for Grant Park 220
Denny Hamlin won the pole for Sunday’s Grant Park 220, negotiating the circuit in 88.435 seconds, or 89.557 mph, about two mph faster than Custer. He and his Toyota-decaled chassis edged Tyler Reddick, who drives for the team owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan, by .044 seconds. New Zealand’s Shane van Gisbergen, a former champion in Australia’s Supercars series, will start third, with Christopher Bell next to him. Van Gisbergen was fastest in practice, which featured a bit of argy-bargy along the way.
”It’s a lot of fun when you can have days like today,” Hamlin said after his track-record lap.
Jenson Button, a former Formula One champion, will start eighth. Ross Chastain, last week’s winner on the Nashville Superspeedway oval, is slotted 34th in the field of 37.
Harvick, who won the first two races at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet in 2001-02, started 35th. Incidentally, it didn’t rain a drop in Joliet on Saturday.
- Tim Cronin
“This is pretty crazy, right?”
”This is pretty crazy, right?” Button said, and nobody argued.
”I’ll be watching others and their racing lines (in Xfinity practice),” said Ross Chastain, last weekend’ss Cup winner in Nashville. “A fast driver will pass others. You’ll work to have position and you’ll be able to pass.
”We all have the same parts and pieces. We can choose our settings, it’s just my team’s application of them and me driving.”Xfinity driver Austin Hill said a trackwalk showed the track wider than it seemed on a simulator, but reality showed something else to key on.
”The roads are crowned for rain runoff; when you go over that crowning entering and exiting corners, you’ll be off-camber. So you’ve got to be careful touching throttle.”
Those seven sharp corners could turn into passing opportunities for smart drivers, but don’t expect a lot of deliberate passing until the second half of the race. With only 50 minutes of practice time, both the Xfinity The Loop 121 and the Cup series Grant Park 220 will be a learning experience in the early stages. And if it rains, draw a driver’s name out of a helmet.
- Tim Cronin