Harvick hopes to change fortunes in Windy City

JOLIET, Ill. -- Kevin Harvick used to circle the date for NASCAR's visit to Chicagoland Speedway at the beginning of the year. Who could blame him?

Harvick won the first two Sprint Cup races at the 1.5-mile track in 2001 and 2002, which quickly became one of his favorites on the tour.

Kevin Harvick has been so-so since winning the first two Chicago races. (AP)

But then the winds of fortune changed direction for Harvick in the Windy City.

Harvick suffered through finishes of 17th, 10th and 19th the next three starts, suddenly struggling at a track that had been so good to him when it first opened its gates.

"Obviously, we got off to a really good start the first two years," Harvick said. "Seems like we are always running in the top 10 and I think it is a pretty good race track for us."

Harvick has been able to notch a pair of fourth-place finishes the last two seasons in Chicago and hopes to use that as a foundation to build on for a possible third trip to Victory Lane in Saturday night's Lifelock.com 400, as well as boost in the Chase stretch drive.

"We know as a team that we can run good here and that helps our confidence certainly coming into the weekend," said Harvick, who comes into the weekend two points behind Tony Stewart for the final Chase transfer spot. "I think it's just trying to get the momentum on our side and get things going our way to go along with the performance of the race cars being pretty good."

Matt Kenseth has had pretty good race cars at Chicago in his seven Cup starts at the track with a pair of runner-up finishes to his credit. He came close to winning two years ago until he and Jeff Gordon made contact racing for the lead down the stretch, an incident that ended in a 22nd-place finish for Kenseth.

But the Wisconsin native, who considers Chicagoland a home track with such close proximity to so many fans, friends and family members, brings a positive outlook to Saturday night's race.

"We've had a car capable of winning the past few years but for one reason or another, that just hasn't happened," Kenseth said. "Some might think that it's really frustrating, and it is, but I also think we should be proud that we've had a car capable of putting us in position to win."

Kenseth will try again this weekend for the first Cup win at his adopted home track, although he doesn't see any kind of home-field advantage.

"Well not an advantage but I certainly see fans and family and friends a lot more than, probably any other track we go," said Kenseth, who will extend his visit to the Midwest Tuesday with a race at Slinger Superspeedway, a short track north of Milwaukee where he cut his teeth early in his racing career.

"Yeah it's always fun to be able to get back to places like Slinger and to be able to tie it in with the NASCAR weekend in Chicago is great," he said. "We'd sure like to bring the Chicagoland trophy with us up to Slinger and show it off to our friends and fans up there."

Another Midwesterner hoping for better things in Chicago this weekend is Stewart.

A two-time Chicagoland winner and the defending race champion, Stewart comes into this weekend's race fresh off a newsworthy week of announcements that confirmed his departure from Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the year and plans to start his own Stewart-Haas Racing team in 2009.

With the distractions of his future plans finally being revealed, Stewart is hoping to concentrate solely on the business of driving his racecar Saturday and picking up his first win of the season.

"We'll see what happens," said Stewart who tumbled down three spots to 12th place in the Sprint Cup standings when relief driver J.J. Yeley, who subbed for the flu-stricken driver, finished 20th at Daytona. "We always seem to run well at Chicago. We're cautiously optimistic that we're going to run well. We need a good week, that's for sure. The good thing is that the morale of the team is up. This team has battled adversity so many times that it takes a lot to beat this team down."

Stewart will start 12th Saturday night after qualifying was rained out and the lineup set by the point standings. The weather robbed drivers of a chance to run under the newly-installed lighting system making Saturday night's first-ever prime-time Cup race at the track a bit of an unknown entity.

"The track temps are going to come down tremendously, not only from where we practice to the start of the race, but from the start of the race to the end of the race it will be even a bigger change," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will take the green flag outside of polesitter and points leader Kyle Busch. "So there are a lot of unknowns and I think everybody is just going to take their best guess at."

"Some people will figure it out better than others. But most race tracks we go to, they kind of do the same thing at night. They just gain more grip. And I don't think that will be any different here."

Despite the uncertainty of what to completely expect come race time, like most drivers, Earnhardt Jr. is excited about the opportunity to compete under the lights –- for a variety of reasons.

"It will be fun to race here under the lights," Junior said. "It is always fun when you go to tracks and get to run under the lights for the first. I think it is a little more energetic of an atmosphere for the drivers, the fans and the crews. And everybody is pretty excited about having Sunday to make some plans of their own."