Riley Herbst leads Cup practice in NASCAR's return to Chicagoland

For the first time since 2019, NASCAR is racing at Chicagoland Speedway. Because of that fact, series officials went with a more traditional race weekend format through a 50-minute practice on Friday.

Topping the speed charts was Riley Herbst in the No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota, followed by teammate Bubba Wallace. Herbst lapped the intermediate oval in 30.326 seconds (178.065mph), just 0.023s ahead of Wallace in the No. 23 Toyota.

Kyle Larson was one of three Cup drivers who took part in a test at Chicagoland earlier this year (along with Hamlin and Blaney), and he led the way for Chevrolet in third. Behind the Hendrick Chevy was the Joe Gibbs Racing duo of Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs.

All four 23XI drivers ended the session in the top eight, with Corey Heim sixth and Tyler Reddick eighth. Reddick also led the way in the ten-lap, 15-lap, 20-lap, and 25-lap averages. Additionally, Reddick ran more laps than any other driver at 61.

There were no incidents, but Erik Jones felt like something broke after going over the rough bumps, and took his No. 43 to the garage. Several drivers also missed the tight turn-in to get onto the pit lane as they practiced their pit-in, which will be something to watch on Sunday.

“Today was a bit weird”

Few drivers ventured into the higher grooves, and no one dared to run right along the outside wall. Reddick hopes that the NASCAR O’Reilly cars (which race on Saturday) will widen out the racing groove. He was also confused by the lack of tire falloff, even with the aged surface.

“I think our Camry is really good,” said Reddick. “We don’t get a lot of 50 minute practices anymore, but today was a bit weird. The falloff was pretty flat. This is the tire we run at other intermediates where we see a lot of tire falloff. The surface has age to it, but it was just strange. It didn’t act like the surface is as old as it is. You’re just trying to understand what we can fine tune on our Toyota Camry.

“In general, pretty happy. 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 race track to work with.”

NASCAR Cup practice results at Chicagoland

1		35	Toyota	43	30.326		178.065
2		23	Toyota	54	+0.023 30.349	0.023	177.930
3		5	Chevrolet	42	+0.032 30.358	0.009	177.877
4		11	Toyota	40	+0.032 30.358	0.000	177.877
5		54	Toyota	47	+0.053 30.379	0.021	177.754
6	23XI Racing	67	Toyota	56	+0.059 30.385	0.006	177.719
7		2	Ford	42	+0.072 30.398	0.013	177.643
8		45	Toyota	61	+0.092 30.418	0.020	177.526
9		77	Chevrolet	55	+0.144 30.470	0.052	177.223
10		17	Ford	52	+0.150 30.476	0.006	177.189
11		9	Chevrolet	59	+0.207 30.533	0.057	176.858
12		6	Ford	40	+0.218 30.544	0.011	176.794
13		38	Ford	50	+0.235 30.561	0.017	176.696
14		19	Toyota	55	+0.244 30.570	0.009	176.644
15		71	Chevrolet	43	+0.247 30.573	0.003	176.626
16		24	Chevrolet	56	+0.260 30.586	0.013	176.551
17		20	Toyota	57	+0.278 30.604	0.018	176.448
18		16	Chevrolet	43	+0.285 30.611	0.007	176.407
19		60	Ford	49	+0.290 30.616	0.005	176.378
20		41	Chevrolet	37	+0.309 30.635	0.019	176.269
21		42	Toyota	50	+0.357 30.683	0.048	175.993
22		12	Ford	58	+0.376 30.702	0.019	175.884
23		48	Chevrolet	49	+0.385 30.711	0.009	175.833
24		7	Chevrolet	49	+0.387 30.713	0.002	175.821
25	TrackHouse Racing	88	Chevrolet	50	+0.388 30.714	0.001	175.816
26		97	Chevrolet	41	+0.401 30.727	0.013	175.741
27		34	Ford	29	+0.412 30.738	0.011	175.678
28		4	Ford	48	+0.423 30.749	0.011	175.615
29		1	Chevrolet	29	+0.437 30.763	0.014	175.536
30	Wood Brothers Racing	21	Ford	42	+0.482 30.808	0.045	175.279
31		3	Chevrolet	50	+0.517 30.843	0.035	175.080
32		10	Chevrolet	41	+0.526 30.852	0.009	175.029
33		51	Chevrolet	33	+0.527 30.853	0.001	175.023
34		22	Ford	53	+0.568 30.894	0.041	174.791
35		43	Toyota	15	+0.618 30.944	0.050	174.509
36		47	Chevrolet	33	+0.648 30.974	0.030	174.340
37		33	Chevrolet	39	+0.742 31.068	0.094	173.812
38		44	Chevrolet	14	+1.025 31.351	0.283	172.243