By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CHICAGO – The more things change, the more they stay the same.
As expected, it’s been all Shane van Gisbergen on Saturday in Chicago after the 2023 winner of the NASCAR Chicago Street Race put his No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet on pole for Sunday’s running of the Grant Park 165.
The New Zealander posted the fast time early in the session before being eclipsed by Chase Briscoe, but regrouped and went back out on track to post the pole winning lap of one minute, 29.656 seconds over Spire Motorsports driver Michael McDowell
In addition, SVG will lead the field to green in Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race after winning the pole there as well in the Chevrolet he will drive for JR Motorsports.
“That was epic,” van Gisbergen said of his run. “The guys did a great job. The WeatherTech Chevy is ripping really good. I’m a lucky boy. I’ve got some great cars today. Xfinity pole, Cup pole, it’s pretty special. Looking forward to the race tomorrow.
But yeah, what a tune up, practice wasn’t that great. Went out in qualifying and the car felt really good. Laid down two pretty good laps.”
SVG added that having the extra track time in the Xfinity car helped to give him a leg up on the changing track conditions when it was time to climb behind the wheel of his Cup car and go for pole.
“You can always do something better, right? You’re always learning. I learned a lot in the Xfinity car this morning and it just gives you a great leg up for the Cup car. It’s great running two cars. You get a great advantage there and it certainly helps.”
Carson Hocevar will start third, followed by Tyler Reddick, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Busch, Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher, Ty Gibbs, and Austin Dillon to round out the top-10 starters.
A number of drivers found themselves in trouble on the treacherous Chicago layout, among them being Chase Elliott, William Byron, Bubba Wallace and others, all starting from 37th on back.
Legge Bests Heim for Final Open Spot on Starting Grid
With 41 cars entered for Sunday’s race and a maximum of 40 drivers allowed to start, it meant that one driver among the non-chartered teams would be going home.
That battle came down to Katherine Legge in the Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet against Corey Heim in a third 23XI Racing Toyota. Both drivers had contact with the wall at some point during their qualifying efforts, with Legge ultimately able to squeeze just enough speed out of her machine to eclipse Heim on the timing sheet.
Legge will make her third Cup Series start of the season on Sunday.
“I tried my best to mess that qualifying up, honestly,” Legge said with a laugh while watching a replay of her run.
“They give us a lot of pressure to come in with only 20 minutes of practice on a street course where there’s no room for error to try and put it in the show. But I actually feel pretty good about it now. Having done that, we would’ve been a lot faster I think had I not kept nicking the walls. I’ve given my crew a lot of work to do. Sorry guys.
“But I just had to like keep pushing and putting it in the show, which we did. So, I’m very proud of them and I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow and a little bit less stress.”
Rough Start to the Weekend for Hamlin
Denny Hamlin will have his work cut out for him when the green flag drops on Sunday after a mechanical issue on his warm-up lap in practice sidelined him for the remainder of the day and relegated him to 40th on the starting grid.
As Hamlin was getting up to speed in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, smoke could be seem coming out of the tailpipes of his car before he looped it around in the next corner.
He would climb from the machine, looking underneath it to try and diagnose what went wrong before heading off to debrief with his team, noticeably annoyed with how things had transpired.
“I’m not saying this is us, but the processes or something, it just f***** everything up. We can’t even get our cars together. It’s f****** agitating,” Hamlin could be overheard saying.
In an interview with TNT Sports, Hamlin said much of the same, but in a much calmer fashion as he broke down what happened.
“Just hadn’t even hit the gas yet and came off Turn 4, just started accelerating and blew the whole bottom out,” Hamlin said.
“A lot of things we want to be in control of as a driver. We want to be in control of our result. You don’t want to have processes or mechanicals stop you from that. Obviously, this is a track that’s important to have reps. We spend hours upon hours practicing and getting ready and all that stuff and we couldn’t even make a pace lap before we blew up.”
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