Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

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.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

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.”

Christopher Bell climbs from his No. 20 car after a NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland.
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.”

Posted on by Staff Report

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.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

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.

MORE: Cup Series standings

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.”

Posted on by Staff Report

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.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Chicagoland

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.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

JOLIET, Ill. — It was an astute strategy that gave Chase Briscoe the lead in the final stage of Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

It was sheer determination that kept him there in a triumphant return to the 1.5-mile intermediate speedway after a seven-year hiatus.

In the closing laps of the 19th NASCAR Cup Series race of the season, Briscoe staved off the charge of his equally determined Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Christopher Bell, to win for the first time this season, the first time at Chicagoland and the sixth time in his career.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Chicagoland

Bell’s pursuit of Briscoe fell short when his No. 20 Toyota tightened up in dirty air on the final lap, allowing Briscoe to power his No. 19 Toyota across the finish line 0.276 seconds ahead of his teammate.

With pole winner Denny Hamlin running third, Joe Gibbs Racing fashioned a 1-2-3 finish for the eighth time in organization history, most recently this season at Nashville Superspeedway. Seven Toyotas finished in the top 10—a high-water mark for the manufacturer in a Cup Series race.

“I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shops red, white and blue car, Fourth of July weekend, 250 years,” an elated Briscoe said after climbing from his car. “Man, just what an unbelievable race car. (Crew chief) James (Small) did a great job. Team did a (great) job. Honestly did not see this coming.

“I kind of felt like I was struggling in practice, in qualifying, but James and the group did a great job. Man, just so cool to get this paint scheme back in Victory Lane.”

In the fight for the win, lapped traffic helped Briscoe maintain his edge over Bell.

“I kind of got lucky having lapped cars,” Briscoe said. “I was struggling pretty bad. Christopher was certainly coming. Out of all the people to race against, I knew Christopher was going to be clean with me.

“I thought that was about as good a race as you could get. The cat-and-mouse game, and we were slipping and sliding around. Hopefully, you could see it on TV. So excited to be back in Chicagoland. Hopefully we can be back.”

SHOP: Winner gear

Bell has led 417 laps this season but has posted four runner-up finishes without a win.

“Yeah, it was a great day,” Bell said despite the obvious disappointment of finishing second. “First race with (sponsor) Saia on the Toyota. We almost went to Victory Lane. Yeah, Toyotas are fast. It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it’s just disappointing when you get beat by another monkey …

“I’m just a second-place driver. That’s what I am.”

Fourth-place finisher William Byron held the lead, with Briscoe running second, when Briscoe steered his car to pit road for his final stop on Lap 215 of 267. Byron followed suit a lap later, but the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet lost the lead in the exchange.

Briscoe held the top spot for the final 46 laps, as both Bell and Hamlin passed Byron for position in the closing laps.

“A win would have been awesome,” said Byron, who posted his fourth top-five finish of the season. “We’ve been craving that for a long time and working really hard to get there. We could kind of taste it there with a couple runs to go.

“We got jumped by the No. 19 (Briscoe) there on that last green flag pit cycle, but I just didn’t quite have the pace that last run to keep up with him, and then those other guys had fresher tires at the end.”

The final stage ran caution-free from a restart on Lap 172.

Alex Bowman ran fifth, his first top-five result since finishing third at Texas in May. Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Corey Heim and Riley Herbst completed the top 10.

MORE: In-Season Challenge hub

Advancing to the quarterfinals of the In-Season Challenge were Briscoe over Gibbs, Byron over Larson, Bowman over Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott over Michael McDowell, Hamlin over Erik Jones, Bell over Chris Buescher, Todd Gilliland over Carson Hocevar and Blaney over Shane van Gisbergen.

The race featured 28 lead changes among 13 drivers, with Byron leading 91 laps, Briscoe 51, Wallace 35 and Hamlin 30. There were seven cautions for 43 laps.

The In-Season Challenge continues in next Sunday’s Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Stage 2 recap

William Byron won Stage 2 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway, making it a sweep of the first two frames.

Chase Briscoe finished second, Denny Hamlin third, Ty Gibbs fourth and Ryan Blaney fifth. Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric and John Hunter Nemechek completed the top 10 and points earners.

MORE: Stage 2 results | Watch Byron sweep the stages

On Lap 93, just moments into the second frame after a brief repair for a pothole, Kyle Larson went for a single-car spin exiting Turn 4 while running third. He got stuck in the infield grass, and safety crews needed to pull him out, ultimately resulting in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver falling multiple laps down.

The race returned to green-flag conditions on Lap 99 and headed into the longest run of the night, as teams began peeling toward pit road for service. But on Lap 131, Tyler Reddick reportedly ran over a splitter stay from another car in his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, which destroyed his radiator. Fluid began spewing out of his car, forcing a caution as he went behind the wall for repairs.

Reddick fell several laps down, and it marked a significant issue for the fourth time in the last five races for the five-time 2026 winner. He led the series by as many as 129 points after Watkins Glen, but with a power steering issue last weekend at Sonoma, Hamlin took the points lead for the first time all year.

Hamlin had pitted just before the yellow, along with the likes of William Byron, Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe and Bubba Wallace. Other contenders like Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell needed to pit as track crews cleaned the racing surface.

Stage 2 ended with a 22-lap green-flag run.

Stage 1 recap

William Byron won Stage 1 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway in an 80-lap segment that featured a pair of renewed rivalries.

Kyle Larson finished second, followed by Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe. Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Denny Hamlin, Ty Gibbs and Tyler Reddick completed the top 10.

MORE: Stage 1 results | Watch Byron capture Stage 1 dub

On the opening lap, Ryan Preece went spinning off Turn 2 after contact from Erik Jones following a stackup. Preece slid in front of rookie Connor Zilisch, who veered left down the backstretch to avoid the crash, but lost control and nosed into the inside wall. The crash marked Zilisch’s seventh DNF of the season and his fifth over the last seven races. He earned a top 10 last weekend at Sonoma Raceway — the 19-year-old’s first in Cup competition. He was evaluated and released from the infield care center.

Meanwhile, Preece fell multiple laps down for repairs, losing crucial points as the No. 60 RFK Racing driver entered Sunday 15th in the standings, 13 markers above the provisional Chase cutline.

On Lap 32, Zane Smith bumped Carson Hocevar in Turns 1 and 2, resulting in both drivers contacting the outside wall and causing the second yellow of the evening. Both drivers made their 100th Cup starts on Sunday and faced off in Round 1 of the In-Season Challenge last weekend. They have history, too, dating back to an incident at Iowa Speedway last summer.

For the third caution of the race, Austin Hill crashed in between Turns 3 and 4 after contact from Shane van Gisbergen on Lap 48 — an incident Hill believed was intentional. At both Pocono Raceway on June 14 and Naval Base Coronado on June 21, the drivers were involved in crashes together, with the latter coming during a battle for the lead.

During the caution, Hamlin had a slow pit stop and dropped outside the top 20, but clawed back for stage points. Of note, Cindric stayed out during that yellow and held on with older tires to earn seven key points in his postseason quest.

Note: Inspection was completed in the Cup Series garage with no issues, confirming Briscoe as the Chicagoland winner. The Nos. 11 and 48 will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for teardown inspection. 

Posted on by Zack Albert

JOLIET, Ill. — Austin Hill could only shrug his shoulders after contact from Shane van Gisbergen sidelined him early in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.

“I’m sure y’all have seen the replay,” Hill said, “so if I have to explain it, people probably need to get glasses.”

Questions about corrective lenses aside, his Richard Childress Racing team had the view that the consequential bump that knocked Hill from Sunday’s eero 400 was intentional, causing terminal damage to his No. 33 Chevrolet after hard rear-end contact with the outside retaining wall.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Chicagoland 

Hill was out after completing 47 of a scheduled 267 laps, saddled with a 37th-place result and his second DNF in three weeks. Before heading to pit road and eventually the garage, Hill showed his displeasure by sideswiping van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet under caution.

“I was entering the corner normal,” Hill said. “Everyone blocks everybody’s air off, right? That’s the way these Cup cars are. I was just going down to block his air off, and from my standpoint, it just looked like he sped up. So, who knows?”

Van Gisbergen – who continued after the contact to a 25th-place finish — chuckled as he discounted the notion that his contact was retaliation, pointing out Hill’s role in their run-in while also apologizing for the outcome.

“I was shooting for the bottom, trying to get clean air,” van Gisbergen said post-race. “I was so tight, and he just chopped my nose and got in the wall. So, sorry about that. Sorry to his guys, they’re always nice people, and it happens.”

Childress, the NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner, said through the No. 33 radio communications that van Gisbergen’s nudge “was just payback for California,” referring to the crash that Hill caused at the Naval Base Coronado street race in San Diego two weeks ago. On a restart that weekend, Hill slid into SVG teammate Connor Zilisch while battling for the lead, sparking a multicar crash that eliminated both Trackhouse drivers and threw a wrench into van Gisbergen’s postseason hopes. Additionally, a week earlier at Pocono Raceway, both Hill and SVG were involved in a crash exiting Turn 3 after Hill inadvertently slid up from the bottom racing groove.

Hill, who’s in the No. 33 Chevrolet for the seventh consecutive week after the death of Kyle Busch, was evaluated and released from the infield care center. After his medical check, Hill said, “I have no idea,” when asked if the contact was retaliation for San Diego.

He was pessimistic about having a productive post-race conversation with his rival. “I don’t know how much I’m gonna get out of him,” Hill said.

Van Gisbergen also had low expectations.

“I’ll talk to him,” van Gisbergen said, “but he just grunts.”

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series head to Chicagoland Speedway for stock-car racing’s return to Joliet, Illinois. Bookmark this page for everything you need throughout Chicagoland race weekend — including qualifying orders, practice speeds, race results and more.

RELATED: Full weekend schedule | TV listings

NASCAR Cup Series

Race day: Sunday at 6 p.m. ET on TNT Sports. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Twelve sets for the weekend (eight new sets for the race, one set for qualifying that transfers to the race, and three sets for practice).

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

Race day: Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Seven sets for the weekend (four new sets for the race, one set for qualifying that transfers to the race, and two sets for practice).

Note: Practice on Friday was canceled and will take place on Saturday in lieu of qualifying. The starting lineup will be set per the NASCAR Rule Book. 

Entry List
Qualifying Order (CANCELED)
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

Posted on by Zack Albert

JOLIET, Ill. — One week ago, Taylor Gray’s sputtering No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota sat helplessly out of fuel at Sonoma Raceway, and teammate Brandon Jones obliged with a push to help him across the finish line. Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway, there was more contact, but at far higher speeds and with late-race stakes.

Though Gray’s No. 54 bore some of Jones’ neon yellow paint on his logo-scrubbed left-front Goodyear tire, the hard racing in an event that Jones eventually won wasn’t his undoing. A smidge of wheelspin on a late restart and what Gray called a lack of aggression to block NASCAR Cup Series regular Chase Elliott’s charge shuffled him back in the order, and seventh place was the best he could muster.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Chicagoland

Gray still rallied to a solid gain in the still-simmering showdown for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase, moving up one spot in the standings and providing him with slightly better footing in a bubble battle with JGR teammates Brent Crews and William Sawalich. The 21-year-old driver, now in his second full season of O’Reilly competition, now sits 11th on the provisional 12-driver grid, and he improved from a 20-point margin above the elimination line to a plus-52 cushion.

The positives were there, but after leading 55 of the 201 laps — second only to Elliott’s race-best 78 — so was a measure of remorse.

“I mean, the points are great, but I just want to win, man,” Gray said after Saturday’s Cuervo 300. “That’s what I come here to do: to win races, and I want to win races for these guys that work really hard throughout the week and throughout the weekend. Feel like I kind of took one away from us there.”

Gray overcame a deficit from the start, taking the green flag in 25th after qualifying was a washout. He still managed to land in the points at the end of both stages, padding his stature in the standings and regaining some of the ground he lost at Sonoma, where a nearly assured top five evaporated within sight of the finish for a 29th-place result.

Some of the final-stage restarts went his way, and others didn’t, but veteran crew chief Jason Ratcliff was quick to remind him post-race on the No. 54 team radio about the big-picture progress.

“All in all, a great day and he drove a race that deservingly he should have won, but it’s not over till it’s over,” Ratcliff told NASCAR.com. “So I know he’s disappointed, but a lot of good takeaways. Pit crew did a good job, the race car’s good, all the guys did a great job building the car, and he drove an awesome race. So yeah, you leave here with a little bit of a bitter taste in your mouth, but something you can build on, some momentum. Really, the last month and a half has been really solid. We’ve been capable of winning a couple races in the last four. Just gotta keep plugging away. That’s part of it.”

Ratcliff is in his second season atop the pit box for Gray’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series efforts, and the list of drivers he’s worked with in his long career includes a host of NASCAR Hall of Famers or likely future inductees — Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth and Christopher Bell among them. Ratcliff says he’s been impressed with what Gray has shown him so far, noting his on-track poise and off-track diligence.

MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings

Gray has converted for a pair of wins in their time together — a redemptive victory at Martinsville Speedway in last season’s penultimate race and a triumph this spring at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile venue with Chicagoland similarities. Ratcliff says he sees more in Gray’s future.

“I mean, he’s obviously got the talent to win,” Ratcliff said. “He’s got a couple wins under his belt now at two different styles of race tracks and a lot more opportunities that just slipped away from him, which happens when you’re … not a rookie, but a sophomore or whatever you want to call it. So he’s doing the right things, he’s preparing right, he’s coming to the race track and learning every week. He’s doing all the same things that all the great drivers I’ve worked with in the past are doing, and is producing on the race track. We were hoping at this point we would have a couple more wins under our belt at this point in the season, so we’ve had a couple hiccups along the way, but all in all, it’s still been very successful here, and we’ve got a lot of races ahead of us, and I think that he’ll win a couple more before the season’s out.”

The races both before and after his Kansas win in April have been a mixed lot. In the last 10 races, Gray has finished outside the top 25 five times — including a pair of consecutive DNFs after crashes sidelined him from contention at Dover Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Three top-10 outcomes — including Saturday night’s at Chicagoland — in the last five events have helped offset those issues, though Ratcliff admitted how the Sonoma setback still stings. Just four races remain until the 12-driver Chase field is set, and Ratcliff hopes more days like Saturday will make the difference.

“I mean, we’re our own worst enemy when it comes to the points. We’ve beat ourselves more than we’ve been beat,” Ratcliff said. “Like last week, we gave up 20-some points just not being smart. It just comes down to math, and we just missed it on our fuel deal. So we just have to do a better job of capitalizing when opportunities present themselves and points won’t be a problem. But it was good to have a good finish under our belt today after last week, when we gave some up. So to come out of here, it’d have been great to win it, but we’re doing what we need to do. We’re coming out here and being competitive, we’re getting stage points, we’re running up front, and we keep doing that, it should take care of itself.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

JOLIET, Ill. — Stealing the lead from Chase Elliott on the final restart, Brandon Jones celebrated NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway with a dramatic victory in Saturday night’s rain-delayed Cuervo 300.

In the first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race to require overtime this season, Jones’ No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota stayed side-by-side with Elliott’s No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet through the first two corners on the decisive Lap 200 restart.

Jones took control in Turn 3 on the white-flag lap. Elliott made a determined run at the top of the track on the final circuit, but Jones blocked the lane and crossed the finish line 0.171 seconds ahead of the 2020 Cup Series champion.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Chicagoland

“It’s been an up-and-down year,” Jones said after climbing from his car. “We had some success early on. We’ve been in a little rut the last couple weeks, so it’s just nice to do it like we did today. We had to earn that one.”

The victory was Jones’ first at Chicagoland (which hosted its first race since 2019), his first of the 2026 season and the eighth of his career, and he achieved it by outrunning an elite Cup Series driver.

“I think it says a lot about how resilient we are and how hard we’re working out there,” Jones said. “Chase made it really difficult on me. He’s one of the best in the sport. We were on old tires, and that was a blast, sliding around and dueling it out like that.”

Elliott chose the top lane for the final restart and didn’t get the push he needed from third-place finisher Jesse Love, the culprit being well-worn tires.

“I don’t think that was why we lost by any means,” Elliott said. “I know he was planning on giving me a good push … We ended up kind of having the momentum going the wrong way into Turn 3. I tried to drive in way hard and got myself super tight.

“Credit to Brandon. He did a good job. He had a good restart, stayed side-by-side through 1 and 2 and had the momentum going his way into Turn 3. I got myself in a bad spot and paid the price.”

Austin Hill finished fifth behind Love and rookie Brent Crews.

For JGR teammates Crews and Taylor Gray, the race was eminently productive in the battle for positions in the postseason Chase. Gray led 55 laps — second only to Elliott’s 78 — and ended the evening seventh in the race and 11th in the standings with a 52-point cushion above the current Chase cutline.

Crews is 12th, the final Chase-eligible position, with a 44-point margin over teammate William Sawalich, the first driver below the current cutoff.

But Sawalich was seething after contact from Crews’ front bumper sent him spinning through the infield grass on Lap 165 of a planned 200 to cause the fifth of seven cautions. Sawalich finished 29th and faces an uphill battle with only four races left before The Chase field is set.

With qualifying canceled in favor of practice after rain wiped out O’Reilly Auto Parts Series practice on Friday, Connor Zilisch started on the pole via the NASCAR Rule Book after a rain delay of more than four hours. He led the first stage wire-to-wire, finishing 4.935 seconds ahead of second-place Love.

Under caution, however, Zilisch’s No. 1 JRM Chevrolet ran out of fuel and had to be pushed to pit road. Zilisch restarted Stage 2 in 26th place and climbed to ninth by the end of the stage on Lap 90.

Elliott was first off pit road during the first stage break and held the top spot through the end of Stage 2.

Zilisch’s rotten luck continued after the break. He cut a tire after contact with the outside wall and started from the back once again, only to spin on Lap 156 and repeat the process. For a third time, he climbed through the field to finish 10th.

Justin Allgaier, Zilisch’s JRM teammate, had a similarly adventurous night. Allgaier started 17th and charged to fourth by the end of Stage 2. But a safety violation on pit road for an improperly uniformed crew member sent him to the rear for a restart at Lap 100.

Allgaier rallied to finish sixth and leaves Chicagoland with a 195-point series lead over second-place Love.

MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings

Behind Allgaier and Gray, Sam Mayer, Cole Custer and Zilisch completed the top 10. With Elliott, Allgaier and Zilisch in the top 10, JRM extended its streak of placing at least one car in the top 10 to 77 consecutive races, two short of RFK Racing’s series record, set from 2008 through 2010.

The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series moves to EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta for next Saturday’s Focused Health 250 (7 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Note: Inspection was completed in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage, confirming Jones as the Chicagoland winner. The Nos. 0 and 54 each had one lug nut not safe and secure, resulting in a loss of pit selection at EchoPark. Additionally, the Nos. 54, 88 and 99 will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for teardown inspection. 

Posted on by Staff Report

After spending the last three years racing on the streets of downtown Chicago, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Chicagoland Speedway in nearby Joliet for the first time since 2019.

With this serving as the first race for the Next Gen car at Chicagoland, expect drivers to face challenges from the track’s aged and bumpy nature while navigating multiple grooves from the bottom to ripping the fence. Several drivers need a strong showing at a crucial point in Sunday’s eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), as just eight regular-season races remain.

RELATED: Starting lineup | Saturday recap

With no on-track action at Chicagoland in the last seven years, could experience at the 1.5-mile Illinois track be key to reaching Victory Lane? Here’s a look at other drivers to keep an eye on, as well as the full projected results for Sunday’s Cup Series race.

DRIVERS TO WATCH

KYLE LARSON: With his winless streak reaching 42 races entering Chicagoland, this feels like the perfect opportunity for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to return to Victory Lane. The defending Cup Series champion has led laps in the last 12 of 13 races on 1.5-mile tracks. Larson is also riding some momentum lately, with five top-five finishes in the last six Cup Series races. After qualifying second for Sunday’s race, look for Larson to contend for the win.

TYLER REDDICK: Only 21 Cup Series drivers have made a start at the premier level at Chicagoland. Reddick, however, is not one of them. The 23XI Racing driver last competed at the 1.5-mile Illinois track in 2019 in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, finishing ninth. Despite not having Chicagoland Cup Series experience, don’t expect that to slow Reddick down. The driver of the No. 45 Toyota has five top 10s in the last six races on 1.5-mile tracks. He also has an average running position of 5.16 on these tracks this year, ranking second behind polesitter and bossman Denny Hamlin. Reddick qualified 13th for the eero 400, but paced 10-, 15-, 20- and 25-lap averages in practice. Expect the No. 45 Toyota to be a factor on Sunday.

RYAN BLANEY: After six consecutive top 10s, Blaney comes to Joliet on a summer heater. The Team Penske driver very well could pick up his seventh straight top-10 finish on Sunday. He has two top 10s at Chicagoland in four career Cup Series starts, and his average finish of 9.8 here is his best among all 1.5-mile tracks. Rolling off the grid in 14th, the No. 12 Ford should lead the charge again for the Captain’s organization.

MORE: Chicagoland photos | What to Watch: Chicagoland

FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR EERO 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports)

FINISHCAR NUMBERDRIVER
111Denny Hamlin
25Kyle Larson
39Chase Elliott
424William Byron
512Ryan Blaney
617Chris Buescher
745Tyler Reddick
823Bubba Wallace
96Brad Keselowski
1054Ty Gibbs
1120Christopher Bell
1219Chase Briscoe
1367Corey Heim
147Daniel Suárez
1543Erik Jones
1648Alex Bowman
1760Ryan Preece
1877Carson Hocevar
1916AJ Allmendinger
201Ross Chastain
2147Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
223Austin Dillon
232Austin Cindric
2438Zane Smith
2571Michael McDowell
2622Joey Logano
2742John Hunter Nemechek
2833Austin Hill
2935Riley Herbst
3097Shane van Gisbergen
3110Ty Dillon
3234Todd Gilliland
3388Connor Zilisch
344Noah Gragson
3521Josh Berry
3641Cole Custer
3751Cody Ware
3844JJ Yeley
Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

JOLIET, Ill. — Christopher Bell has gotten his left wrist out of a cast and into a splint ahead of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.

The lingering outcome of his June 7 crash at Michigan International Speedway has led to discomfort rather than pain as his fractured wrist continues to heal.

“The pain level has been low ever since the beginning, but I would say my ability to drive the car is the same as what it has been,” Bell said Saturday at Chicagoland. “I just keep using the word clunky. Like, I just can’t be quick and precise with the wheel, with — I had a cast on my arm, and now I’ve got the splint, but my mobility is the same. So hopefully I can gain movement of my left wrist here shortly, and I’ll be back to normal.”

MORE: Chicagoland schedule | Starting lineup

His June results reflected the recent abnormality Bell and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team have had to navigate. The Michigan wreck triggered a three-week stretch of poor results: 31st at Michigan, 26th at Pocono Raceway and 39th (last) at Naval Base Coronado after rookie Brent Crews substituted mid-race and suffered an engine failure.

That, in part, is what made last week’s fifth-place effort at Sonoma Raceway so much sweeter for Bell, racking up a whopping 50 points in the process that jumped him two spots to 10th in the Cup Series points standings and further away from the 16th-place cutline to make The Chase in eight weeks’ time.

“I mean I’m super proud of it, and I’m proud of my team for persevering,” Bell said. “Obviously, this has been a trying time with us, and it was depressing after Michigan and then Pocono and San Diego seeing those points slip away and us get closer to the cutline. So it was rewarding to get a lot of points and have a great solid finish, and we’re looking forward to what’s next. There’s no reason that we can’t have another great points day here at Chicagoland.”

Christopher Bell stands next to his car at Chicagoland.
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Those hopes took another step forward after Saturday’s qualifying session as Bell wheeled the No. 20 Toyota to a sixth-place starting position for Sunday’s eero 400 (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bell said he can’t overstate how rough the surface of Chicagoland’s worn asphalt is. That hasn’t been a hindrance to his wrist in his attack through either Friday’s 50-minute practice or Saturday’s qualifying session, but it will impact how he and his competitors approach Sunday’s race.

“Denny (Hamlin, Bell’s JGR teammate) did the tire test, and he was kind of debriefing with us and telling us what his thought process was,” Bell said. “And we knew it was going to be rough, but then I went out there Run 1, Lap 1, and I’m like, holy smokes. Nothing will do it justice for you guys, how rough it is inside these race cars. And what we found out over the course of the Next Gen car, is it does really well on smooth tracks, but the bumps and the rough race tracks are very hard and challenging for the crew chiefs. It’s challenging for the drivers because you need that thing as low as you can get it, but the bumps will affect that. So it’s going to be a very challenging race.”

MORE: Crew chiefs Gayle, Fugle preview Chicagoland bumps

With the 2026 campaign halfway complete, Bell is simply looking to finish where he knows his cars have potential to take the checkered flag. He was second at both Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway, but what preceded Charlotte was a five-race spell of finishes 17th or worse. What followed Nashville was his Michigan downturn — where he crashed while battling for second.

The team’s ceiling is winning races and contending for a championship. Its floor? Finishing outside the top 20.

“Oh boy, we have them both covered right now,” Bell said. “It seems like the lowest of lows and the highest of highs are our capability every single weekend. That’s our weakness right now. We need to elevate our floor, and once we do that, we’ll be in good shape.”

As for Bell’s wrist, healing appears to be on schedule.

“The goal was to be out of the cast for Chicago, and I don’t have a cast on my arm anymore, so that’s really good,” he said. “But honestly, the cast, the splint … I can wear a normal fire suit, which is nice, and I can wear it close to my normal glove, which is nicer, but my mobility of my wrist is still the same as it would be in a cast.

“It’s just gonna be (until) whenever I can race with freedom and not have my wrist taped up and locked down. I was hopeful that that would be North Wilkesboro, and I think it’ll either be Wilkesboro or Indy, but Atlanta, I think we’re gonna take a step backwards and go back to a cast for Atlanta, just with the nature of the beast there and make sure that I have the maximum protection that I can have.”