NASCAR At Chicagoland Speedway 2011 Weekend Schedule

If you think about it, NASCAR's weekend at Chicagoland Speedway has been a long time coming.

The 2011 season kicked off with "Preseason Thunder," which was followed by the NASCAR media tour, the buildup to the Daytona 500 and the "Race to the Chase" (the 10 races leading up to the playoff).

And now, finally, the 12-driver field has been set and the first Chase race is here.

Below is the weekend schedule for Chicagoland, but you'll want to make one important note. The race start time for most of the Chase races is 2 p.m. Eastern, not 1 p.m. Eastern.

Here's the NASCAR Chicagoland 2011 weekend schedule (all times listed are EASTERN...track is on Central Time):

FRIDAY

10 a.m. – Camping World Truck Series practice (1 hour)

11:30 a.m. – Camping World Truck Series final practice (1 hour)

12:40 p.m. – Nationwide Series practice (1 hour, 10 minutes)

2 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series practice (1 hour, 30 minutes)

3:40 p.m. – Camping World Truck Series qualifying

4:30 p.m. – Nationwide Series final practice (1 hour, 15 minutes)

6 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series final practice (1 hour, 25 minutes)

8 p.m. – Camping World Truck Series race (150 laps, 225 miles)

SATURDAY

12:05 p.m. – Nationwide Series qualifying

1:40 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series qualifying

3:30 p.m. – Nationwide Series race (200 laps, 300 miles)

SUNDAY

2 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series race (267 laps, 400.5 miles)