JOLIET, Ill. — For the last three years, Ryan Blaney really appreciated racing the downtown Chicago street course. It wasn’t just the challenge of the temporary track, but Blaney also loved exploring the Windy City with his wife, sightseeing, enjoying some of the city’s best restaurants, and museums.

“I just liked getting to be able to get to know the city a little bit when we came here for the street race,” Blaney said Wednesday on the second day of a Goodyear tire test at Chicagoland Speedway. “There was things about this city I had no idea about and was able to learn them, and just a gorgeous place, incredibly clean. It definitely is probably one of my favorite big cities in the United States, personally.”

But in a way, Blaney felt right back home at Chicagoland Speedway. Blaney, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, and O’Reilly Auto Parts drivers Justin Allgaier and Brandon Jones all took part in the test in preparation for the return of Cup, O’Reilly, and Trucks to the 1.5-mile permanent tri-oval. In an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports, Blaney opened up on his experience testing at Chicagoland, where the garage will be back in business after seven years.

It’s been a while since NASCAR last raced at Chicagoland Speedway

No level of NASCAR has raced at Chicagoland Speedway since 2019. In fact, the track has been totally dormant for the better part of the last seven years, with the exception of a one-day SuperMotocross playoff race in September 2023.

“It’s nice to be back, that’s for sure,” Blaney said. “I always enjoyed coming here. It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since we came and raced here last.”

Because NASCAR could not reach an agreement on an extension of the street race in downtown Chicago, the sanctioning body embraced returning to Chicagoland in the Chicago suburb of Joliet, Illinois.

The facility has undergone quite a bit of cleaning and touching up when all three series come to race there on the upcoming 4 of July weekend, which will celebrate the 250 birthday of the United States. The fact that the Cup race will be held under the lights on Sunday, July 5, is also inspiring, Blaney said.

“Honestly, the place looks to be in really good shape,” Blaney said. “I didn’t really know what to expect with this place being on hiatus for a while, but it looks really good, and the surface has held up really nice, and it has a lot of wear. I feel like it wears more than when we were here last, which is normal. We should put on a really good show when we come back.”

Blaney would love to really make Chicago his kinda town with a win on the July 5 spectacle. So far, in his four prior Cup events at Chicagoland, his best finishes were 4 in 2016 and 6 in 2019. He also finished runner-up in 2015 and fourth in 2014 in O’Reilly Auto Parts events.

Tire test brought back memories of how tough Chicagoland Speedway is

Even though it’s been seven years since he was last at Chicagoland, the two-day tire test definitely jogged Blaney’s memory.

“The tunnel bump in (turns) 3 and 4 is massive, and it’s just gotten bigger, which is good, though,” Blaney said. “It adds character to racetracks like this. One of the neatest things about this place, I thought the surface was at a really good point of very well-aged to where we’re going to use the whole racetrack.

“Tire fall-off is going to be pretty big, especially when we come back in the summer. So we’re going to be able to use everything of the racetrack, which is good. It’s always nice when you have mile-and-a-halfs that are wide, tire fall-off is big. Here, with only a few cars, we haven’t been able to get up at the fence, which is kind of normal. But when we come back, it’ll be all the way up there.

“I just remember we put on really good races. And curved backstretches is different. Yeah, I have a lot of fun memories about this place.”

While he enjoyed his three races in the street course events from 2023 to 2025, Blaney missed Chicagoland Speedway – one of numerous drivers who missed the place and hoped it would someday return to the Cup schedule.

“I was personally hurt a little bit when this place got taken off the calendar,” Blaney said. “Circumstances back in those times definitely made that happen. But I think everybody always enjoyed coming here. Everyone always thought it put on a good race, and all the drivers and teams really enjoyed it. And always thought they got a really good crowd out here, kind of just outside the city.

“It was nice for a few years to go to the streets of Chicago and things like that. But it’s nice that we still have a race in Illinois here close to Chicago, close to the city. Yeah, it’d be nice to add this one (back in a long-term), and you never know, maybe the street race comes back, too, while we still have this one.

“But I was just happy that this track came back because I thought it always did a great job and draws a good crowd and puts on a good race, too.”

Test will determine which tires drivers will race upon at Chicagoland

The two-day tire test was mainly to examine tire drop-off on a surface that hasn’t been used in seven years. Each team was given eight different sets of Goodyear rubber, primarily left-side tires, Blaney explained. “They wanted us to run and chasing fall-off, chasing durability, stuff like that.

“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. It’s always fun working with those folks and seeing what we can get to as far as softness and things like that. So, yeah, it was nice to run a day and a half of that.

“More racetracks where there’s more room for error is when you get good racing. If everyone’s locked down, running the bottom, that’s when you don’t really have good shows. When you have places like this where the seams are really wide, there’s massive bumps in the racetrack, the room for mistakes is larger, and I think that’s what competitors really enjoy, and what people enjoy is people making mistakes trying to get on the edge. So, yeah, I loved driving in. It started coming back to me when I got a couple miles out.

“I was like, I remember this area now. Everything was great. Like I said, the facility looks good, and it’s only going to look better and better when we get down to it.”

Blaney said it would be a big mistake if NASCAR ever completely pulls out of the Chicago market (it already was out from 2020 through 2022 before the first street race in 2023).

“It’s important for NASCAR to be here, and this is one of the biggest fan bases or populations, to make sure you have a presence here, especially on a showcase weekend like the July (holiday) weekend,” the 2023 NASCAR Cup champion 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.”

One thing Blaney failed to mention, but likely will help ticket sales: Given that his team has won five of the first nine Cup races this season, it’s almost a sure bet that 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan will be at Joliet for that race, returning to the same city where he earned six NBA championships.