Kyle Larson, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, is back in the hunt, folks. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet had gone 51 races without a win, but that all changed in Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Larson, who led the race three times for 80 laps, took the lead for good on a surprising pass of Joey Logano, the dominant driver of the race, with 20 laps to go. Try as they might, nobody could seriously challenge Larson the rest of the way.
Not even in an overtime finish.
“No better time to have a great day than today,” Larson stated enthusiastically after the win. “So, proud of it. And feel like we got our swagger back a little bit.”
With the win, Larson moved from sixth to second in the Chase standings, and he sits just six points behind Denny Hamlin, the series point leader, with eight races left in the Chase.
It was a major day for Larson and Hendrick Motorsports, which has struggled mightily over the last few months. And for Larson, this gets him mentally set to Chase a third Cup Series title.
Alex Bowman was able to get by Logano for the runner-up spot in the overtime finish, which capped off an emotional week for the Hendrick Motorsports driver on a high note. Bowman, who suffered the passing of his beloved dog, Finn, this week, was emotional following the race.
“Yeah, I’m super happy for Kyle, and just, a really hard weekend just to get on the plane and be here,” Bowman said, fighting back tears. “Just had a little extra help today. Yeah, ready to go home. But proud of everybody on this Ally 48 team for helping me through the weekend. Yeah, life is hard sometimes. Yeah, I lost my best friend. So, I’m ready to go home.”
Logano would finish third on a day that he led a race-high 96 laps from the pole. But in the end, he just didn’t have enough to hold off Larson in the closing laps.
William Byron, who was last in the Chase Grid heading into the weekend thanks to a blown engine in Darlington, was able to rebound from an early-race crash to finish fourth. On a day that a lot of the Chase field suffered issues, Byron was able to slice his way to 12th in the championship standings.
Ross Chastain collected a hard-fought fifth-place finish, while Austin Dillon was sixth, and Connor Zilisch finally scored his first career Cup Series top-10 finish with a seventh-place effort.
Chase contenders Carson Hocevar, Denny Hamlin, and Austin Cindric rounded out the remainder of the top-10 finishers in the race.
Ryan Blaney was the first Chase driver to suffer catastrophic issues, as he had a brake rotor explode on Lap 155, which ended his previously decent day.
On Lap 214, Chase Elliott also suffered an exploded rotor. As Elliott skidded into the outside wall, he collected Chase Briscoe, another Chase contender.
In all, 10 of the 16 Chase drivers finished outside the top-10 at Gateway, and nine of the 16 were outside of the top-15 when the checkered flag fell.
