For the fourth time in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and the first time since the mid-May race at Kansas Speedway, Richard Childress Racing are set to field the No. 33 Chevrolet this weekend at the Chicago Street Course.
Jesse Love, who also drove the No. 33 car at Bristol Motor Speedway in mid-April, competed for the team at Kansas in mid-May, and he secured the car's best finish of the year with a 29th place result. He had previously finished in 31st at Bristol.
The car has made just one other appearance in 2025. Austin Hill drove it to a 31st place finish at Darlington Raceway in early April.
Now Hill is set to return at Chicago.
It's somewhat of a risky move for Richard Childress Racing, not specifically because they picked Hill over Love, but because of the fact that there are 41 cars on the entry list for this Sunday afternoon's 75-lap Grant Park 165 around the 12-turn, 2.2-mile (3.541-kilometer) temporary street circuit in Chicago, Illinois.
With the 36 chartered cars locked into the race, this means that there are five non-chartered (open) cars, including the No. 33 Chevrolet, going for the only four spots still open.
Not since November 2018 at Texas Motor Speedway has a non-Daytona 500 race seen a driver fail to qualify because there are more cars on the entry list than spots in the field. That weekend, Timmy Hill and MBM Motorsports (now Garage 66) failed to get into the main event.
On paper, Richard Childress Racing and Hill should be safe, even with fellow multi-car Cup Series teams Kaulig Racing and 23XI Racing set to field one open entry each for Will Brown and Corey Heim, respectively.
The two other teams set to field an open entry in Chicago are Garage 66 and Live Fast Motorsports, two teams that don't generally have much speed and don't run full-time.
Josh Bilicki is set to drive the No. 66 Ford for the former while Katherine Legge is set to drive the No. 78 Chevrolet for the latter, and the battle for the 40th and final spot in the race will likely come down to those two drivers.
Still, one small, unexpected issue could derail any one of these five teams in Saturday's qualifying session.
Tune in to TNT Sports this Sunday, July 6 at 2:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the Grant Park 165 from the Chicago Street Course.