Looking Ahead to Chicagoland

This weekend the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to the Chicagoland Speedway for the first of ten races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the NASCAR Nationwide Series will also tag along with the Cup series this weekend in Illinois.

Chicagoland Speedway is $130 million, 1.5-mile, D-shaped, tri-oval located in Joliet, Illinois. The speedway has hosted one race each of the last 11 seasons dating back to the inaugural 2001 season.

Kevin Harvick went to victory lane the first two seasons the Cup series graced the speedway. Tony Stewart's three wins at the speedway is the most among active drivers; Stewart is the defending winner of the event.

This is where Tony Stewart began his unexpected amazing roll to his 3rd championship in his career, just weeks after saying this statement after a race at the Michigan International Raceway “I will be perfectly honest." You have to love this honesty "we’re wasting one of those top-12 spots right now.”

Tony Stewart came into this weekend a year ago without a win -- and most if not everybody was writing his championship chances off. Stewart went on to win five races in the chase and shocked the NASCAR world, and probably himself as he hoisted the championship trophy over his head at Homestead with his title-winning crew chief, who had been told a month prior to the final race in Homestead that he would not be returning to Stewart Haas Racing in 2012, celebrated awkwardly on stage next to him.

Darian Grubb will begin his traipse to back-to-back championships as a crew chief this weekend in Chicagoland with a driver who earned the No. 1 seed in the Chase, Denny Hamlin.

Last year marked the first time that the Chicagoland Speedway hosted a Chase for the Sprint Cup race; the Chicago race used to be scheduled right smack-dab in the middle of the summer stretch of the schedule.

All the action will kick off on Friday with two practices for both the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the NASCAR Nationwide Series, qualifying for both series' will be held on Saturday along with a NASCAR Nationwide Series race later in the afternoon, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series caps off the weekend on Sunday with a 400-mile race around the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval.

The weather this weekend in Joliet, Illinois is looking iffy on Friday and Saturday as there is chance of rain up to 50 percent, Sunday is looking clear and humid.