Ryan Blaney Shares Early Takeaways From NASCAR’s First Chicagoland Test

Chicagoland will be back on the calendar after seven years to host a race in July. Before that return, NASCAR hosted a two-day Goodyear tire test on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ford’s Ryan Blaney was one of three drivers who took part in the session and shared his experience at the test. 

The 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway last hosted a NASCAR race back in 2019. The track had since been idle for the most part, except in 2023, when it hosted the SuperMotocross playoffs. The two-day test gave a glimpse of what is yet to come in July.

While talking to RFKRacingDigest, Ryan Blaney spoke about his learning from the testing. He said, “We made a bunch of long runs this morning. So that was good. These tire tests, their main focus is we’re trying to pick the tire that we’re going to run here (in the July race) and kind of future development stuff with Goodyear.”

Blaney further spoke about his experience working with the Goodyear team and said that it has been a productive testing. Each team was provided with eight sets of tires, which mainly consisted of the left-side tires. The test helped Goodyear determine the drop off of the tires, since the track hasn’t been used in quite some time.

Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin were the other drivers testing for Chevrolet and Toyota respectively. The two-day gave the teams and manufacturers an idea how various tires will perform at Chicagoland when they return.

For Ryan Blaney, this visit to the track brought back memories from his previous visits. The 2023 NASCAR cup series champion also talked about NASCAR’s future in Chicago.

Ryan Blaney talks about NASCAR’s future at Chicago

Earlier this year, NASCAR announced that it would no longer host the Chicago street race after three iterations. Before this, the series wasn’t racing in the city between 2020 and 2022.

Ryan Blaney shared the importance of racing in the market and why it could be a mistake for NASCAR to exit it. He said:

“It’s a large city, a lot of serious sports fans kind of all across the board, whether it’s football or baseball or motorsports, things like that. So it’s important to have a presence here, that’s for sure. And even though we’re just 45 miles (from downtown Chicago), it’s still at least gettable here.”

NASCAR will return to racing at Chicagoland Speedway on July 5.