The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will take to Chicagoland Speedway this weekend, but it is no longer the regular season; the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins this weekend.

Weekend Schedule - (all times Eastern)

Friday, September 18

- Practice: 12:30 - 1:55 pm

- Qualifying: 6:45 pm

Saturday, September 19

- Practice: 1:30 - 2:25 pm

- Final practice: 4:30 - 5:20 pm

Sunday, September 20

- Race: 3:00 pm

Pre-Race Notebook

- The 16 drivers who made the Chase will face off in the first race of the Chase at Chicagoland Motor Speedway. It is the fourth year that the track has hosted one of the 10 races of the Chase and the 15th NASCAR race run at the track overall. It is the series' first visit to the track of the season.

- Chicagoland is a 1.5-mile oval, with the banking in the turns being 18 degrees, while the backstretch has five degrees of banking and the tri-oval has 11 degrees of banking.

- The race is scheduled to be 267 laps, which equates to 400.5 miles. The race has never been shortened due to weather (although there have been two instances of qualifying being cancelled), and the green-white-checkered rule has only ever been implemented at the track once.

- Five of the drivers in this year’s Chase have competed in all 14 NASCAR events at Chicagoland: Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, and Kevin Harvick. Harvick is also the only driver in the Chase who has won multiple times at the track.

- Jimmie Johnson is tied for the lead in number of top-10 finishes at the track, while also leading the series in average finishing position at Chicagoland. Tied for second with Gordon for most top-five finishes at the track, Johnson also has led 577 laps - the most of any driver at Chicagoland. Johnson enters the Chase seeking his seventh title, which would put him in a tie with Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Richard Petty in terms of career championships. He is also the only driver to have made every Chase since it came into existence in 2004. Adding to his list of leads, he also leads all drivers with 25 Chase wins. Additionally, this will be Johnson's first race after he extended his contracts with Hendrick Motorsports and Lowe's this past week.

- While Johnson has a history of doing well in the Chase, Kyle Busch has not had very much of his own. At Chicagoland, Busch has just one win, but four top-fives and five top-10s in 10 starts at the track.

- Jeff Gordon, who is retiring after the season, will tie Ricky Rudd this weekend for most consecutive starts in the Sprint Cup Series. Gordon is just 169 laps led from being the sixth driver in Sprint Cup history to lead 25,000 laps, joining Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Bobby Allison.

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Stevie Larson is a writer for the VAVEL USA NASCAR section. Follow him on Twitter at @littletwinsfan.