Records and facts

Last year's Grant Park 220 was delayed at the start by 50 minutes due to rain and standing water. The race was scheduled for 100 laps, but was ultimately shortened to 78 due to darkness. That said, the original start time for the race last year was a full hour later than this year.

Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell led early before dropping back. The cautions were plentiful. Noah Gragson got his Wendy's Chevrolet stuck in the tires on multiple occasions. That led to alternate pit strategies. Shane van Gisbergen, making his NASCAR debut, ended up down the order quite a bit. As the track continued to dry, he was able to casually knock each driver off, one-by-one.

Kaulig Racing's Justin Haley, who started dead last, got himself into the lead on pit strategy and looked good to win. However, van Gisbergen was more than a second a lap faster than him and was able to run him.

With seven laps to go at the time, van Gisbergen seemingly had the pass done, but Martin Truex Jr. went into the tires in turn 1 to bring out a yellow. That erased the pass.

On the restart, van Gisbergen was able to get by at turn 2 to take it back. Haley didn't take this sitting down as he was able to move back past on DuSable Lake Shore Drive. However, van Gisbergen crossed Haley over to make the pass stick for good. From there, van Gisbergen held on to win on debut.

Van Gisbergen won by 1.259 seconds over Haley. Chase Elliott was third, then Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch, who recovered from an early crash to finish fifth.

Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 2.2-mile street course, 75 laps (165 miles)
Banking: Variable

Grandstand Seating: 50,000

Pit Road Speed: 35 mph
Pace Car Speed: 45 mph
Opened: 2023

Website: http://www.nascarchicago.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASCARChicago

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NASCARChicago

Pre-Race Schedule:

Practice: Saturday, July 6, 12:30 - 1:20 p.m. ET on USA Network

Qualifying: Saturday, July 6, 1:30 p.m. ET on USA Network

Say What?!

"I have nothing but good things to say about that event as a whole. I thought they did a really good job with it last year. I thought the track was laid out really well. The logistics and everything flowed. It took a little time to learn (the course). I spent some time on iRacing, just trying to learn the turns, just because nobody had ever seen it before, so it took me a little time to memorize it. Usually when you get out on track in real life it comes pretty quick, and I was a little nervous about that going in. But it really came pretty fast and once you kind of get in the rhythm, things flow well." - Chase Elliott

"What’s good is we’ve been there. I think it was such a shock last year for the whole industry that you almost couldn’t focus on the racecar or the race. The ‘garage’ is on a street and the driver’s meeting is in a building down the street, you’re in a hotel instead of a motorhome, and you’re walking through a city to get everywhere. Everything was different than what we’re used to every other weekend. Plus, it was raining, and pretty heavily at times. So I feel like this year the initial shock of the whole street circuit is kind of gone. We know the lay of the land. So now we can go and focus on the racing.

"We don’t really know what we’re dealing with until the track walk. What’s changed with the road surface – potholes or other repairs, the location of the manhole covers, bumps, seams, paint – anything that could be an obstacle. Going into the second year, NASCAR probably refined a lot of things like barrier replacement or braking markers. I think the track walk is good at a place like Chicago. The bigger teams all have these big cameras and I don’t know what they do with them, but they take videos of every corner and pictures and stuff. And usually it’s just me and my teammate walking and doing the old foot scrub thing you do on the track. You’re like, ‘Well, you’ve got pavement,’ and then you go on with your day." - Justin Haley
 

"We really didn’t get to run the race straight up last year, so I still think it has a chance to be really crazy even if it’s dry. It’s going to be fun, though, to get to do something that’s still fairly new. Every time they’ve brought in something new the last several years, we all have been apprehensive. Just saying, ‘I don’t know about this,’ and then we do it and it’s turned out to be pretty cool. Just trying to stay open-minded and just trying to look forward to the challenge. It’s a difficult track, but that’s what makes it fun and I think it worked out better than we all expected last year. Hoping we qualify our Bass Pro Shops Camry up front, stay there, and have a shot in the end." - Martin Truex Jr.