Following a return to the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to another 1.5-mile track this Sunday, but an entirely different beast in the high-banked, drafting-style EchoPark Speedway (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
This will be the 20th points-paying race of the 2026 Cup Series season and the second trip to Georgia this year for the highly anticipated summer race in the Peach State.
In Round 3 of the In-Season Challenge, (No. 25 seed) Todd Gilliland will go head-to-head with (No. 32 seed) Alex Bowman. Chicagoland winner (No. 12 seed) Chase Briscoe will battle Georgia native (No. 4 seed) Chase Elliott.
On the other side of the bracket, (No. 2 seed) Denny Hamlin is set to face off with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate (No. 10 seed) Christopher Bell. The final matchup will be a showdown between (No. 3 seed) Ryan Blaney and (No. 11 seed) William Byron.
Thirty-eight cars are entered into this weekend’s event.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series makes its second trip to the Peach State this year for the summer race at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
This will be the 21st points-paying event of the 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season.
Team owner Jordan Anderson will get back in one of his own cars, piloting the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet. This will be Anderson’s second start of the season after finishing fourth in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series opener at Daytona International Speedway.
Jake Finch will drive the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, making his second career series start after a 17th-place result in his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut last year at Dover Motor Speedway.
Thirty-eight cars are entered into this weekend’s event.
After a two-week break, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to action Saturday afternoon for the final road-course race of the 2026 season at Lime Rock Park (1 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The event will be the 14th points-paying race of the 2026 Truck Series season. Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs won both street-course races earlier this year at St. Petersburg and Naval Base Coronado and is looking for more success turning left-and-right with a potential Lime Rock victory on the horizon.
NTT IndyCar Series driver Louis Foster is set to make his Craftsman Truck Series debut in the No. 76 Freedom Racing Enterprises Chevrolet, while Spire Motorsports will have Connecticut native Parker Kligerman wheel its No. 77 Chevrolet at the 1.53-mile road course.
ARCA Menards Series regular Thomas Annunziata will drive the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota, with road-course specialist Colin Braun making his second start of the year in the No. 25 Kaulig Racing Ram.
Thirty-three trucks are entered into this weekend’s event.
The second of five weeks of head-to-head battles has trimmed the In-Season Challenge field after Sunday night’s showdown at Chicagoland Speedway. Only eight drivers remain eligible for the $1 million prize entering this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Here’s where things stand after Round 2 at Chicagoland:
Chicagoland race winner: During the final pit cycle of the eero 400, crew chief James Small used the undercut strategy by calling Chase Briscoe’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to the pits earlier than his competitors battling up front. Briscoe cycled to the lead and sailed to his first Cup Series win of the 2026 season despite a late-race challenge from JGR teammate Christopher Bell. The Hoosier driver advanced to the third round of the In-Season Challenge over teammate Ty Gibbs, who earned a solid eighth-place finish at the 1.5-mile Joliet, Illinois, track.
Who advances to Round 3
Advancing with the 12th-seeded Briscoe to the next round are: (2) Denny Hamlin, (3) Ryan Blaney, (4) Chase Elliott, (10) Christopher Bell, (11) William Byron, (25) Todd Gilliland and (32) Alex Bowman.
When Bowman missed four Cup Series races earlier in the year while recovering from vertigo, it all but ended his hopes of making up the points deficit to earn a Chase berth this fall. However, the In-Season Challenge gives the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports driver some extra motivation, with something to fight for after the 32nd- and lowest-seeded competitor advanced to Round 3 by defeating 16th-seeded Austin Cindric at Chicagoland. Matching up against 25th-seeded Gilliland this Sunday at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, the unpredictable nature of a drafting-style track should give both Bowman and Gilliland an equal chance of advancing to the semifinal round. Both drivers may fit the bill for a “Cinderella story” in this year’s In-Season Challenge.
Matchup of the week
(No. 2) Denny Hamlin vs. (No. 10) Christopher Bell: In Round 3 of the In-Season Challenge, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Hamlin and Bell will go head-to-head at EchoPark. Both drivers finished second and third at Chicagoland, respectively, with Bell beating seventh-seeded Chris Buescher and Hamlin topping 15th-seeded Erik Jones. With the third round taking place at the Georgia drafting-style track, Bell might be the early favorite, having won at EchoPark in 2025 and earning three top-five finishes. Plus, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota will have some extra motivation to earn a breakthrough trip to Victory Lane after expressing frustration over his fourth runner-up finish this year.
On the other hand, Hamlin has not found the same level of success on superspeedways in the Next Gen era, picking up only two top 10s in nine EchoPark races since the track was reconfigured. Nevertheless, the unpredictable nature of drafting-style tracks could shift the battle between teammates in either direction, as both drivers will need a little bit of luck to prevail in this matchup.
Who’s up
William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. After getting up front and leading 94 of 267 laps, Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet showed glimpses of the team we saw last year that led 1,330 laps. In 2026, Byron has not had the same level of success, with only 136 laps led after Chicagoland. Although Byron faded to a fourth-place finish after the final pit cycle, it was good enough for the 11th-seeded driver to defeat sixth-seeded teammate Kyle Larson to advance to the third round of the In-Season Challenge. At EchoPark Speedway, Byron is set to face third-seeded Ryan Blaney.
Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Sunday night in Illinois was relatively quiet for Elliott, who earned an 11th-place finish. He also finished 15th and seventh in both stages with no laps led. Still, the No. 9 Chevrolet driver bested 29th-place finisher and 20th-seeded driver Michael McDowell to move on to the third round of the In-Season Challenge. Although the performance at Chicagoland was not super flashy, the Georgia native and fourth-seeded driver has to be excited for his matchup against 12th-seeded Chase Briscoe at his home track. Elliott is the defending summer race winner at EchoPark Speedway.
JOLIET, Ill. — William Byron led the most laps in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway and appeared on his way toward his first win of 2026.
Instead, a battle of crew chiefs’ calls to pit road allowed Chase Briscoe to leapfrog Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with 50 laps remaining, with Briscoe prevailing to a rousing victory in the eero 400 and Byron settling for fourth.
Briscoe entered the final green-flag pit cycle in second place behind Byron before crew chief James Small called the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to pit road at Lap 215. No. 24 crew chief Rudy Fugle drew Byron to pit road one lap later at Lap 216, but by then, the damage was done: Briscoe’s momentum on one-lap fresher tires caught Byron midway down the backstretch as Byron returned to the racing line. Briscoe flew by Byron’s outside and ultimately sailed to victory as Byron faded in the closing 50 laps.
“Those guys were just fast,” Byron said. “I mean, even when I was leading, they could just stay right with me, and everything had to be perfect. And ultimately, we got jumped there on the cycle, but it’s hard to know. They have the advantage of being second and being able to do that. So I don’t know. I feel like if I was perfect that last run, I could have gotten a little closer and just didn’t quite have the pace that they had. I don’t know. I think that was probably pretty maxed out for us. They just eventually got the clean air, and it was hard to defend.”
Like all strategy shot-callers, Fugle watched the laps tick away as the fuel window neared, targeting a particular lap number to hit pit road and leave with enough fuel to last until the checkered flag.
“We wanted to run a little longer, and we were right at the one-lap gap to the 19,” Fugle told NASCAR.com, “but it was probably just under. I was hoping for a faster pit stop and the best clean in and out that he could get and just missed it by a little bit. Yeah, that sucks. I don’t know how the race finishes and how we manage it otherwise, but yeah, keep gaining on the little things.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
While Fugle had to plan strategy to defend, Small and Briscoe were on offense, searching for any advantage they could find to jump past the No. 24 car.
“Every lap is just a process. OK, what are we going to do right now? What are we going to do?” Small said. “You are constantly managing the gap there, and you know what the undercut is worth. It’s like you said, a game of cat and mouse. You don’t want to go too early because you don’t want to risk burning your tires off at the end. All it can take is two or three laps’ difference. I knew we were getting close enough there and close enough to the number I had in my mind where I thought everything would work out and be safe at the end. We got to that, and thankfully he hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, either, and it gave us that opportunity. And then it just kind of started the chain of reaction with everybody else.”
To fall short of victory was disappointing for Byron and Co., but having contending speed was a certain step forward. Sandwiched around a double dose of road courses on the Cup Series slate, the No. 24 team displayed an apparent gain of speed on larger, intermediate ovals, evidenced by a third-place effort at Pocono Raceway before leading a race-high and season-best 94 laps Sunday at Chicagoland.
“I think we’re starting to gain,” Byron said. “I think, honestly, it makes a lot more sense now the way the car feels. And now in the last two oval races, we’ve had a shot to win. Here and Pocono, we’ve been top four, so yeah, we’ve just gotta keep inching up on it and hopefully find a little bit.”
After its fourth top five of the season, that momentum is felt throughout the No. 24 team, particularly with a stretch of diverse ovals standing between now and The Chase over the next seven weeks.
“I think since Dover, we’ve been making small gains,” Fugle said. “And the results haven’t always shown it — or hardly ever shown it until recently — but we’ve just got to keep our heads on straight and keep making small gains, and we’ll get where we need to be by the time the playoffs start.”
For the first time since 2022, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is returning to New Hampshire’s Claremont Motorsports Park this Friday night for the running of the Clash at Claremont (8:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing).
The Clash at Claremont marks just the fourth time the Modified Tour will race at the track in Claremont, New Hampshire. The 0.333-mile asphalt oval first welcomed the series during the Tour’s inaugural season in 1985, when NASCAR Hall of Famer Richie Evans bested Jimmy Spencer to secure the victory.
Claremont didn’t host the Modified Tour again until 2007, when James Civali outlasted Matt Hirschman to earn one of his four series triumphs. The series returned again in 2022, when Jon McKennedy collected the only victory of his championship campaign. The series was scheduled to race at Claremont in 2023, but bad weather forced track and series officials to cancel the event.
Tickets to the Clash at Claremont at Claremont Motorsports Park are available here. Below is everything you need to know about the eighth race of the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Claremont Motorsports Park will welcome back the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour for the first time since 2022 this Friday night. (Photo: Rachel O’Driscoll/NASCAR)
Clash at Claremont at Claremont Motorsports Park
There is something to be said for momentum in racing. After a rough start to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, Matt Hirschman finally has some.
The pilot of the No. 60 PeeDee Motorsports Modified collected his first victory of the season last Wednesday in the Firecracker 150 at Seekonk Speedway. In addition to a much-needed positivity boost, the triumph gives Hirschman an early edge in JDV Productions’ Whelen Midsummer Championship miniseries.
The three-race miniseries, which continues at Claremont Motorsports Park this Friday and wraps up at Monadnock Speedway on July 25, will pay $5,000 to the champion. Hirschman has a chance to earn an additional $10,000 bonus if he were to sweep all three races.
Hirschman is no stranger to Claremont Motorsports Park. He’s won races at the track as far back as 2008 and should be a contender to win again Friday. However, he’s not the only expected entry with ample experience at Claremont.
Jon McKennedy, already a two-time winner this season with the Modified Tour, is the most recent series winner at the 0.333-mile asphalt oval. His victory, which came during his 2022 championship campaign, saw him lead 137 of 150 laps on his way to victory. He’ll be a serious contender when the green flag waves Friday night.
Stephen Kopcik continues to lead the Modified Tour standings as the series nears the halfway point of the season. He holds a 10-point advantage on defending series champion Austin Beers entering Friday’s event. Of the two, only Beers has competed in a Modified Tour event at Claremont previously.
Other notable entrants for Friday’s race include Patrick Emerling, Eric Goodale, Tyler Rypkema and Teddy Hodgdon, among others.
The complete entry list for Friday’s Clash at Claremont will be available later this week.
Claremont Motorsports Park has previously hosted the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour three times. (Photo: Rachel O’Driscoll/NASCAR)
SCHEDULE: Friday, July 10: Practice from 3:30 – 4:10 p.m. ET … Final practice from 4:20 to 4:50 p.m. ET … American Racer Pole Award qualifying at 6:05 p.m. ET … Start of the Clash at Claremont at 8:45 p.m. ET (150 Laps / 49.95 Miles)
QUALIFYING: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the Clash at Claremont 150 is limited to 28 starters including Provisional Positions.
TIRE ALLOTMENT: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eight (8) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by NASCAR Officials, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series Director. Four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. All qualifying tires must remain in impound until released by NASCAR Officials. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice tires during the event. The tire change rule is zero (0) tires, any position.
RE-DRAW PROCEDURE: The fastest qualifier will spin the wheel to determine the number of drivers that will re-draw for their starting positions: 4, 6, 8 or 10 positions will re-draw. Once the fastest qualifier spins the wheel, NASCAR will have the various buckets ready to immediately start the re-draw procedure. Driver will re-draw in their qualifying order after qualifying has been completed (1 through 10, or however many are applicable). The pole position and/or any bonus point(s), if applicable, will be awarded to the fastest qualifier and will be the pole of record. If, due to adverse conditions, qualifying is canceled, the field will be set in accordance with the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Rule Book. The re-draw procedure will still take place regardless of how the field is set.
JOLIET, Ill. — Managing expectations is something relatively new for Chase Briscoe. Even before Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the rejuvenated Chicagoland Speedway, he spoke about how his three-victory season last year — his first with Joe Gibbs Racing — had made him conditioned to winning, a luxury he hasn’t had for big swaths of his journeyman NASCAR career.
Going winless through the first half of this season “has really burned me up,” he said Saturday, on the eve of Sunday’s first Cup Series go here in seven years. That feeling was new, too.
So it says something about the 31-year-old driver’s expectations when the celebration he unleashed Sunday night at Chicagoland was premeditated, something he’d thought of springing on spectators last season in a nod to his outdoorsman roots and his Bass Pro Shops sponsor. After a smoky frontstretch burnout, he stood on the roof of his No. 19 Toyota, cast an imaginary fishing rod and reeled in this triumph.
As far as Cup Series victories go for Chase Briscoe, this one was a lunker, scratching the win column and providing a boost — both in points and morale — back toward the Chase postseason. He called driving a patriotic paint scheme to victory on July 4th weekend “the most American I’ll ever feel in my life,” but in the context of the season as a whole, the moment provided a statement about his championship bona fides and his capabilities after an uncharacteristically slow start to the 2026 campaign.
“There’s been a couple that have kind of slipped away I feel like this year,” Briscoe said. “Then when your teammates are winning, it makes it worse as a competitor, because you know they have every equal opportunity that you have, and they’re performing better. So, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of pressure to go and run good. It goes in ups and flows.”
There was plenty of special to spread around in this latest up. Crew chief James Small was all smiles, savoring a moment when his No. 19 team’s potential was realized. A rocky start to the year with crashes or mechanical breakages in three of the first four races had left Briscoe and Co. 33rd in the early Cup Series standings. Sunday marked a 25-spot rise in the 15 races since.
Small’s role was crucial, and when he opted to bring Briscoe to pit road before fellow contender William Byron for his final green-flag stop, that move helped the team leapfrog an especially strong No. 24 Chevrolet, providing him an advantage that he’d keep to the end. He also spurred his driver on with pep and encouragement on the No. 19 radio, even with Christopher Bell — an equally hungry JGR teammate — chasing him down the stretch.
“We’ve had pace all year, it’s just been very yo-yo,” Small said from the side of the Victory Lane stage. “We’ve had incidents or mechanical failures, and we just needed clean races, and that has been the key since Pocono — just trying to have clean races, execute, put ourselves in position to win and just try to accumulate the points. And we knew if we could keep our car up front all night, we’d always have a chance, and tonight proved that.”
Helping sweeten the celebration, Sunday was Small’s 43rd birthday, and he marked it with a win for the first time. “This is a world’s first, and also the birthday of America, my first one as a U.S. citizen,” the Australian-born Small said, “so it’s been a great weekend.”
Charlie Ramirez | for NASCAR Digital Media
The moment was also a cherished one for Lee Cunningham, the No. 19’s veteran rear-tire changer and an Illinois native hailing from the township of Leaf River (population 432), some 80 miles northwest of the track. Cunningham motioned toward the Turn 1 side of the main grandstands to show where he sat as a teenager for Chicagoland’s first Cup Series race in 2001. In the years since he joined the NASCAR grind, he’s been on crews that have won multiple times here — including one where he caught some slime shrapnel from a Nickelodeon-themed Victory Lane for one of Martin Truex Jr.’s wins here nearly a decade ago.
As the team’s last pit stop approached Sunday, Cunningham admitted to some anxiety in the anticipation of their final service. The veteran presence, though, came through. The No. 19 crew members were careful not to tip their hands to other teams about their strategy, waiting until the last possible moment to position themselves on the pit wall.
The longing that Briscoe had for a return to winning ways? Cunningham says it was shared among the steady over-the-wall group.
“I mean, no matter how many races you win, you always want to win another one, right” Cunningham said, “and to win it with this group of guys, we’ve had a new guy come into the picture the last couple years, and it always seems to take us a little while to jell, so it’s kind of nice to get the win today, and now we get to look forward to the playoffs. We’re on a roll, we’re climbing in points. There for a while, we were way back in points, so as a team it just really kind of solidifies … like, we knew what we were capable of, but it kind of shows everybody else now.”
Sunday showed Briscoe that the path to a potential first Cup Series championship is a difficult-but-viable one, a journey that would be made more feasible if the wins were to accumulate. Toyota mates Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick still hold a significant advantage in the standings with seven races remaining before the 16-driver Chase field is locked, but the points premium on winning in this year’s new-look format provides an avenue.
A day before Sunday’s 400-miler, Briscoe hinted that he might have to channel his inner Tony Stewart, referencing both his former employer and a NASCAR Hall of Famer who famously went on an all-timer postseason tear to score his third Cup championship in 2011.
“I definitely think it’s it’s possible,” Briscoe said in Saturday’s preliminaries. “It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have to go win races, but yeah, I think we’re more than capable of doing that.”
Sunday night, with a soundtrack of Chicago blues blaring in Victory Lane’s background, Briscoe showed he can still reel it in.
JOLIET, Ill. — For the fourth time this year, Christopher Bell finished one spot short of his first win of the season.
Bell reeled in Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe in the closing laps but ultimately couldn’t pass the No. 19 car and finished second, rebounding from mid-race contact on pit road to earn his second straight top-five finish.
On the surface, there was plenty to be happy with, especially with Bell earning such a strong result while actively recovering from a fractured left wrist. Instead, Bell climbed dejectedly from his No. 20 Toyota, walked to his right-front fender to assess the damage and returned to his driver-side door, slamming the side of the car in frustration with his healthy hand.
“I don’t know. It was a great race for us, great track, great car,” Bell said seconds later. “I don’t know. I don’t know what else to say.”
Bell’s disappointment overshadowed any positives from Sunday’s comeback in a race where he at one point fell far behind the leaders. His post-race demeanor was reminiscent of his Nashville Superspeedway runner-up on May 31, where he blamed himself for not beating Briscoe and fellow JGR driver Denny Hamlin in the final lap.
“It’s just disappointing to continue to lose races,” Bell said. “We’ve lost them every way possible, and … I’m just not good enough, man. Just not good enough. Our cars are amazing. I have the fastest car a lot. Toyota is great, and I’m not winning the races. Just not good enough right now.”
Being close offered him no solace. Bell closed to Briscoe’s bumper with five laps to go, but a mixture of lapped traffic and elite defense from Briscoe and spotter Drew Herring kept Bell from making the winning pass.
“Him and Drew do really good at blocking, and the game was on the line,” Bell said. “The race was on the line, and he knew that. I knew that, and yeah, I didn’t get it done.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Briscoe admitted he was glad it was Bell who was in pursuit because he knew he could trust Bell to race him cleanly. But he also knew Bell would make him earn it.
“It was super close. He about won the race in (Turns) 3 and 4 with like two or three to go,” Briscoe said. “We caught a lapped car, and we were going to have to run the top because the lapped car was going to the bottom, and I kind of ran a little too high and he almost — I mean, he was so close to getting my left-rear. And if he gets to my left-rear, he instantly wins the race. But I was able to just barely squirt in front of him. And then the lapped cars is what made it — he was gonna catch me, I think, either way, but the lapped cars really just made it happen way faster.
“But then, honestly, at the end, the last two laps, lapped cars are what saved me because it made it where he didn’t have a clean lane. Like there was always another lapped car running the bottom or running the middle, but I could just kind of block him in a sense. I had to make sure I drove it in deep enough he couldn’t get to my left-rear, then just make sure I had a somewhat decent exit, but I was, I mean, sideways and drifting on exit a lot of the time. It was a super intense battle. Out of all the people that were going to catch me, I was glad it was him just because I knew he was going to race me super clean.”
Bell’s race was nearly derailed during the Lap 49 caution. After stopping for two tires under caution, crew chief Adam Stevens released Bell from his pit stall — but Todd Gilliland was wheeling his No. 34 Ford into a nearby stall just ahead. Bell’s right front hit Gilliland’s left-rear and spun Gilliland into his stall. Bell said the result of that contact was a loss in car performance that made his car “really, really loose,” necessitating multiple pit stops to repair the damage. Stevens took the blame over the radio for not informing his driver of the oncoming Gilliland, but Bell backed his crew chief.
“I just didn’t get the information quick enough to stop in my box and not accelerate out,” Bell said. “It’s just a mistake. It’s 50-50 — I’m driving the car. He’s the one on top of the pit box. We work together, so it’s not all on him.”
Tyler Reddick went behind the wall during Stage 2 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway with a mechanical issue, throwing another wrench in his quest for the Regular Season Championship.
Running 20th on Lap 131 during a pit cycle, Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing machine suddenly went off the pace as fluid began spewing out of his Toyota. A manufacturer spokesperson said that a splitter stay from another car went through the radiator of his car and punctured the oil cooler. Fluid on the racing surface resulted in a caution.
Reddick returned to the race 30 laps down and was ultimately scored in the 36th position. He started Sunday’s race 13th and finished 10th in the opening frame before the catastrophic issue.
After leading the Cup Series by 129 points after Watkins Glen, Reddick, a five-time winner in 2026, surrendered the top spot for the first time all season last Sunday at Sonoma Raceway. He suffered a power steering issue in Wine Country and lost multiple laps before finishing 36th.
Before that, Reddick contended for the win with teammate Corey Heim at Naval Base Coronado, but cut a tire with two laps to go and finished 25th. Two weeks earlier at Michigan International Speedway, he was involved in a Lap 83 restart crash and finished 35th.
Officially, Hamlin leads the Cup Series standings by 44 points after the 23XI bossman finished third at Chicagoland. Since May 10, Reddick has scored 173 fewer points than Hamlin.
“Obviously, the 45 just continues to bleed out here with some bad luck stuff going on or some mechanicals,” Hamlin told TNT Sports. “Once we get that figured out, we’ll race it out.”
Kyle Larson spun inside the top five early in Stage 2 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway and fell multiple laps down after getting stuck in the grass.
Running in third moments after a restart, Larson lost control in a single-car incident, keeping his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports ride off the Turn 4 wall and coming to rest in the tri-oval ballfield.
But due to excess rain in the area, Larson was unable to motor out of the wet grass. Safety trucks came to his assistance and pulled Larson out of the muck with the help of a long tow strap. With four flat Goodyear tires, Larson also needed a push to begin rolling as his Chevrolet was not equipped with an air jack system to assist in similar situations. Larson limped back around the race track to pit road and suffered damage to the underbody of his machine, falling two laps down.
The two-time Cup Series champion never recovered. He took the wave around at the next caution to gain one lap back, but fell another lap down on the final laps of Stage 2. That put him in position for the free pass, but with 63 laps to go, Larson again lost a lap to the leaders and finished 34th.
Entering Sunday’s race on a streak of four consecutive top-five finishes, Larson’s winless drought now extends to 43 races, dating back to last spring at Kansas Speedway. He dropped one spot in points to sixth, 181 markers behind series leader Denny Hamlin.
