June 2, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

World Wide Technology Raceway's debut should test even the best Cup drivers

MADISON, Ill.—There have been plenty of prognostications about the Enjoy Illinois 300 leading up to Sunday’s NASCAR Cup coming-out party.

Most of NASCAR’s current top-tier drivers have raced—and eight have won—at World Wide Technology Raceway since the Busch Series (now Xfinity) and ARCA Menard’s tour first debuted at the 1.25-mile track in 1997. 

The Camping World Truck Series joined the party one year later. Despite a three-year absence from 2011 until the truckers returned in 2014, NASCAR has enjoyed a two-decade presence at the track just minutes from downtown St. Louis. 

This weekend’s sold-out Cup race and accompanying events are sure to live up to the hype, and there will be bragging rights that come with being the first NASCAR Cup winner.

“Anytime it's an inaugural event, a new market, you feel that energy around the race,” said former champion Kurt Busch. “Last year with Road America—it was off the charts. Nashville was off the charts. You have that feel this year going into it. There's three days of track activity. 

“I'll be on the sim (this week). And it'll bring me back to when I raced there in the trucks. I was there in the year 2000 running trucks and shifting down the back straightaway at Gateway, so I'm looking forward to it. It's a big Phoenix, and it's not quite Darlington, and so it has its own character already before we get there.”

Ross Chastain is the most recent Cup driver to win a truck race at WWTR. Both he and Justin Haley are the only two drivers on the Cup tour that won at World Wide Technology after the track was completely repaved following the truck race in 2017. 

What aspects of the track had a lasting effect on Chastain?

“The heat, of course,” said the driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. “No matter what time of day, it will be hot, and couple that together with heavy braking. I think of that track a lot like a yo-yo. You build up speed through Turns 3 and 4. It’s flat but it is a wider turn so you have a lot of speed off Turn 4. You get down to Turn 1, you really have to slow the car down and that creates a lot of heat in the brakes, and causes the tires to slide. 

“Creating the momentum in 3 and 4, to make a pass in Turn 1, out-brake somebody and slide up in front of them, downshift, and all of that work coupled with the heat and humidity that we’ll have there. You’re going to have to be on it to make it through a whole Cup race there. I was worn out after the truck race, and that’s a lot shorter.”

Fortunately for the drivers and fans, temperatures will be fairly mild by Midwest standards—low 80s throughout the weekend. That doesn’t mean the drivers' tempers won’t get heated over the course of 240 laps—particularly competitors such as Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who consider the venue formerly known as Gateway a short track.

“To me, we’ve got kind of faster race tracks, short tracks and superspeedways,” Stenhouse said.  “Take Dover. It’s a short track but it races like a mile-and-a-half race track as far as brake pressure and how you work the throttle. Short tracks, to me, are any race track where you use 300-pounds of brake pressure, you let the car roll through the corner a little bit, obviously, we’re down-shifting. That, to me, classifies as a short track. I know Phoenix is a mile. Martinsville is a half-mile, Richmond’s a three-quarter mile, but I feel like they all race the same—set-up-wise.

“You could say (WWTR) is a mini-Darlington but obviously, a lot flatter in (Turns) 3 and 4 than any of the corners at Darlington. Turns 1 and 2 are way tight—with a little more banking but still, nothing like Darlington. If you flatten Darlington out and tighten it up a little bit, it would be the same. The brakes are definitely going to get tested this weekend—especially in Turn 1. We probably won’t use them as much into Turn 3 as we try to carry a lot of momentum into there.”

Chastain rolled into Gateway as a start-and-park truck in 2018 then returned with Niece Motorsports and won the following year. Since joining Trackhouse Racing and winning at the Cup level, the affable racer understands the benefits of having competitive equipment.

“I'm looking to build off of the base I have there,” Chastain said. “With this current car, we will be shifting. We were shifting with the trucks, so we will be with the car.

“I feel like that area is a bit unsaturated with NASCAR content, so I'm happy the Cup Series is going there. There’s a lot of big agriculture around that area, and I know a lot of people personally who are excited for the NASCAR Cup Series to come there."