CHICAGO — Not long after he claimed the pole for Sunday’s historic Chicago Street Race with a speed of 89.557 mph, Denny Hamlin made a surprising declaration.
Saturday, the first time a national NASCAR series had ever put rubber to a literal city road, was “probably my single best day at the race track in all of my career for sure.”
In a NASCAR career spanning more than 15 years and 49 Cup Series wins, who would have thought it would come here?
But Hamlin, who will start from his third pole of the season, reiterated that later in his post-qualifying press conference. Part of it was due to the significance of the event at the 12 turn, 2.2-mile road course constructed right off Lake Michigan.
“Just going into a race that obviously has got a ton of hype, right?” Hamlin said. “There’s a ton of eyes looking at this race. Just the overall performance of our team today. From lap one of practice to the last lap of qualifying, we just have been strong on a track that is really tough and everyone had to learn it at the same rate of speed.”
On a circuit where no one has a “veteran advantage,” Hamlin said that it was “just a very proud moment” for the No. 11 team to “come here on equal footing with everyone and perform as good as they did today.”
Hamlin’s pole, the 39th of his career, placed him ahead of his own driver at 23XI Racing, Tyler Reddick, who will start second (89.513 mph).
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver posted the second best fast lap in practice (88.263 mph). He was behind the surprise performance of Shane Van Gisbergen, the New Zealand Supercar driver who is making his NASCAR debut driving the No. 91 for Trackhouse Racing. Hamlin also posted the best 10-lap average at 87.581 mph.
“I’ve never felt like I had more speed in reserve than what I did today,” Hamlin said. “I just knew that, ‘Well, I can go get that. You want me to run four tenths faster? Ok, I feels there’s areas where I can go get that.’”
Hamlin cautioned there’s “risks” with that approach in Sunday’s 100-lap race.
“You’re going to have to just back it down slightly to take away 20 to 30 percent of risk,” Hamlin added. “You’re going to have a half-second slower lap, but you’re going to take away the risk of making a huge mistake and I feel like when you have a car as fast as mine, I’m able to back that up and still run fast enough pace.”
What are Hamlin’s overall impressions of the temporary street course that has the building formerly known as Sears Tower looming over it?
“Just really props to NASCAR and the city for making it happen,” said Hamlin, who admitted he “certainly was pessimistic” when it was first announced last year. “I started warming up to it a little bit in the months leading up but obviously, when you see the fans that are walking around here on Saturday, their excitement of just seeing a NASCAR race car up close, taking pictures.
“I mean, it kind of is like what we were supposed to do here.”
Before Saturday, the number of Cup Series regulars who could say they had ever raced on a street court circuit was slim.
However, among them was Kevin Harvick, who competed in a NASCAR Southwest Tour event on the streets of Los Angeles in 1999.
Harvick doesn’t remember much about that 20th Century race other than “we ran through a big gutter and it would rip the rocker panels off, so we’re one step above that here so far today from what I’ve seen.”
Harvick made his comments before he posted the fifth slowest single-lap speed in practice and before he crashed in turn one in qualifying. However, Harvick felt better about the 2.2-mile course compared to what he experienced in 1999.
“I think as we’ve gone through all of this, to me, this one looks easier just because you can connect the dots. Everybody is starting with the same experience level,” Harvick said. “We’re all starting from scratch and, for me, I feel more comfortable with where we’re going to start than where we did at say Road America.”
Harvick wasn’t the only victim in practice and qualifying.
Chase Elliott plowed nose-first into the inside wall of turn eight with about three minutes and 45 seconds left in the Group B qualifying. That area of the track — which features a sharp 90-degree, right-hand turn emptying into a long half circle turn — also claimed Ricky Stenhouse Jr, who will go to a backup car.
“Obviously, [turn] eight, we all knew eight was going to be a problem coming here,” Kyle Busch said. “Turn seven is really, really tight … We already see it, just mindful of it and just doing the best you can.”
Another problem area is turn four, a very quick right-hand turn that quickly leads into a sharp 90-degree, right-hand turn.
“Turn four is one where I was talking to Denny [Hamlin] and he’s definitely got a level of comfort that I don’t there,” said Reddick. “And so you know, just try and keep working up to it. I think in traffic it’s going to be a difficult time to figure that out.”