Chicagoland represents the return the old Atlanta after Cup practice

Upon climbing out of the 23XI Racing No. 45, and despite being amongst the fastest in practice on Friday at Chicagoland Speedway, Tyler Reddick seemed puzzled.

“In general, pretty happy,” Reddick said in a way that sounded anything but. “Feeling pretty good about where we’re at. I guess the only thing I’m holding back on — just confused about — I thought we were going to be ripping the top today, but it just took forever to clean up. Hopefully those O’Reilly boys will go clean it up for us and we have a wide racetrack to work with.”

It was an interesting session, the first at the Joliet intermediate since the 2019 season, as the patches in Turns 3 and 4 created a bumpy ride quality over the course the hour long session.

There’s also something of a jump bump in Turn 1.

So how was the ride quality, Chris Buescher?

“Rough like we knew it would be coming in,” said the RFK Racing veteran. “A little smoother than the simulator so I’ll take that. There’s definitely some guys bottoming out. You saw their smoke or dust a little bit. It has some roughness to it.

“It’s the same bumps that were here before but we’re discovering them with a completely different race car, right? We’re now more rear limited now versus the old cars where it was all front and truck arm mounts. It’s changed because of the race car but it’s hard to tell you that the bumps are any worse.”

When the Cup Series was last here, it came using the Gen6 car and the NA18D (550 horsepower) rules package. Those cars featured truck arms and were nose down and rear up whereas the NextGen is independent rear suspension that is balanced nose up and rear down.

Effectively, this is a new racetrack.

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Despite the lengthy session, and the track taking rubber, drivers did not turn laps up against the wall whatsoever on Friday. Carson Hocevar wishes they had but wasn’t going to be the first and risk crashing.

“I was hoping someone would do it and no one did,” Hocevar said. “I just didn’t want to be the first one.”

Buescher called the track ‘clingy’ during practice but does expect it to widen out.

“We joked, there are places where the asphalt is super gray because it doesn’t have any rubber in it, but the outside lane was orange and we said it was because of all the rust,” Buescher said. “But it did move up pretty quick, which surprised me, for such a short practice and it being that green to start.

“So, my suspicion is that, yes, we will be all the way up against the fence pretty quick. I think the O’Reilly Series race is going to get up to the wall pretty fast and should set the tone for us on Sunday.”

Ryan Blaney echoed that sentiment.

“I think the track’s going to get to the wall, I mean, and that’s just my prediction,” Blaney said. “I definitely think we would have been even higher if the (O’Reilly) guys got a chance to run practice, but I think it’s going to be every lane available, which is great.”

Daniel Suarez said Joliet reminds him of Kansas, arguably the best track on the schedule with this car, but with a little bit more character.

“I think the racing is going to be pretty good,” Suarez said. “Honestly, this track reminds me of Kansas but with bigger bumps. It’s a big jump, not a consistent bump. A lot of people this week were talking about ‘this is going to be Charlotte 3 and 4, which is super bumpy and this is not like that.

“Charlotte has a lot of small bumps, but here, there are a couple of big bumps. I think it’s going to race really well. I think we’re going to put a lot of rubber on the race track and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”

With Atlanta Motor Speedway now a drafting style track, Kansas and Chicago might be the closest conceptual versions of that kind of intermediate track.

“I think we’re all nostalgic for old Atlanta,” Hocevar said. “And this is the closest thing, in our minds, we have. We’re all nostalgically blind, arrogant and delusionally hoping for the old Atlanta.”