JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — It has been seven years since NASCAR last raced at Chicagoland Speedway. Seven years of Midwest heat, rain and snow covering the aging asphalt at the 1.5-mile track. That last weekend also was before NASCAR moved into its Next Gen cars. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

The Cup Series returns to Chicagoland on Sunday, and what was old is new again.

“It is definitely like learning a new racetrack,” Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe said.

NASCAR ran 19 Cup races on the D-shaped oval in Joliet — about 50 miles southwest of downtown Chicago — from 2001 to 2019. It tried to build interest in the event in a crowded market, even making Chicagoland the opening race of the 2011 playoffs. But the race struggled with attendance before NASCAR pulled out.

NASCAR raced on a street course in downtown Chicago on the first weekend in July each of the previous three years. The future of that concept is in question; it could return in 2027 on a different weekend.

In the meantime, Chicagoland Speedway is back.

“I would say from a character standpoint, this is the closest thing we have to Homestead or maybe Darlington,” Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon said. “But mile-and-a-half wise, this thing has a lot of character, so I love it and I think it’s going to put on a great show for TV.”

Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson participated in two days of tire testing at the facility in April. But the drivers largely stayed in one line lower on the track. As rubber accumulates on the asphalt this weekend, Hamlin and company could begin to explore the higher lines.

“I’ve been around long enough to know that a test racetrack and a race weekend track are two vastly different things,” said Hamlin, who has the pole position for Sunday’s race. “So, lots of unknowns.”

The biggest unknown is the Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022. Chicagoland Speedway is rough and bumpy, and the Next Gen cars do not like rough and bumpy.

But Brad Keselowski thinks that might be a good thing.

“It should be interesting to see the car-versus-track combination,” Keselowski said, “because the fact that the car hates the track could actually be really good for the racing, as it opens up different grooves and makes you do different things to try to accommodate that as a driver or as a team with the car setup.”

Bubba Wallace is driving a “Space Jam”-themed car in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Looney Tunes movie. Wallace also attended an event at Navy Pier paying tribute to the movie in the runup to the race.

Wallace drives the No. 23 Toyota Camry for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan.