Trying to drive from Chicago to Denver straight-through is both extremely dangerous and counter-productive.

That's 1000 miles, which is far far too much to do safely in one sitting, even with multiple drivers. Real world travel time, that's a minimum of 18-20 hours. By the end of your trip, it is quite likely you would be as dangerous as a drunk driver, because your body simply can't maintain the level of alertness needed to safely operate a car for that amount of time.

But the problems go well beyond the safety concerns. If you absolutely had to be in Denver in one day, there could be a discussion about ways to make the trip safely. The problem is, your trip doesn't end in Denver. Doing that kind of drive is extremely exhausting, and has long terms effects.

Simply put, after doing 1000 miles of driving, you'd be in no condition at all to enjoy any aspect of a roadtrip for several days. In fact, you'd really have no business even trying to drive for the next day or two. You really do need a few day to recover from pushing yourself that hard. Think of it as the difference between a sprint and a marathon. If you ran as hard as you could and as fast as you could for the first mile of a 10k race, you might get to that point first, but there's no way you'd ever make it even near the finish line. But if you go at a solid steady pace for the entire distance, you can get to the end with few problems. It's basically the same here, if you try to sprint to Denver, you'll be a mess long before your race is complete. It is much better to stick to the solid rule of thumb, that 600 miles is about the max you should try to do on even long haul days of a roadtrip. That's at least 10-12 hours in a car, which is plenty, and for comparison sake, that's also about the limit allowed by law for professional drivers.