NASCAR executive vice president Ben Kennedy recently spoke about the organization's plans to upgrade Chicagoland Speedway. The track will return to the 2026 calendar.The Series recently released the schedule for the 2026 season and has made a few changes, one of them being the return of Chicagoland. For the past three years, the races were held at a temporary street circuit in downtown Chicago. However, the series will return to the track during the Fourth of July weekend for the first time since operations were shut down in 2019.With regards to the schedule, fans asked NASCAR insider Jordan Bianchi about the conditions of Chicagoland Speedway. To which he replied with what Kennedy told the media. According to the latter, the track needs a few improvements, like fresh paint, new, safer foam, and renovation of the suite areas."I think the good news is it's relatively race ready, so we'll probably have to replace some of the SAFER foam. We'll probably have to put a fresh coat of paint on it, clean up some of the grandstands, renovate some of the suite areas. There's some parking areas that need to be repaved. We're going to have a long list of improvements that we'll need to make to the facility, and we'll make that well in advance of the time that we come there in July," he said, as per The Athletic reporter Jordan Bianchi. The track accommodates nearly 47,000 fans in the grandstands with tens of thousands of fans in the infield- and surrounding camping sites. The Series had first hosted a Chicago race downtown in 2023 but announced last year that they would not return the the temporary street circuit for a race in 2026.Denny Hamlin speaks about NASCAR's 'typical' habitJoe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin recently spoke about the leaked NASCAR Cup Series schedule for 2026. He also went on to highlight how the leak is typical and that the teams and the drivers have no control over the same.Earlier this week, NASCAR's possible schedule for the 2026 season was leaked, and it gave fans a sneak peek into the various places and destinations. Hamlin spoke about the same on his podcast 'Actions Detrimental', which he hosts alongside Jared Allen. He also spoke about how the teams and drivers have no control over the schedule. He said,“Some of this schedule stuff is slowly leaking out. This is typical each year. The weeks leading up where they’re leaking this track is in, this track is out. They’ve said Iowa is in limbo… Chicagoland, no Chicago, San Diego is in. You know, I don’t know, it’s an interesting kind of how it all works." (10:35 onwards)“I can assure you with one thing for certain, as much as they talk about collaboration - NASCAR doesn’t collaborate at all with the teams, drivers, or anyone on the schedule. That’s their whole thing. We have nothing to do with it, no input, no nothing. Whatever it is, it’s what they came up with,” he added.Denny Hamlin also co-owns the team 23XI Racing alongside NBA star Michael Jordan. He currently sits third in the championship with 766 points, four wins, thirteen top tens, and eleven top fives.