Chase Elliott had them exactly where he wanted them on Saturday night in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland Speedway. And he still didn’t come away with the victory. That honor belonged to Brandon Jones, who out-muscled Elliott in an overtime finish to claim his first victory of the season.
Race Results: Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland
“I had to earn that one. I hadn’t had an exciting one like that in a long time,” Jones said after scoring his race win.
On the final restart of the evening, Elliott, who fired off from the outside lane, looked to have a good initial surge. But it appeared as he was going up through the gears that he maybe had a slight amount of tire spin, which allowed Jones to gain an advantage as they barreled toward Turn 1.
After battling down the backstretch, Jones was able to carry enough speed in Turns 3 and 4 to clear Elliott on the exit of Turn 4. Elliott would continue to apply pressure to Jones over the final lap of the race, but Jones wouldn’t waver as he crossed the finish line ahead of Elliott by a margin of 0.171 seconds.
Jones, who scored his first career win at Kansas Speedway in 2019, has had a knack for overcoming the odds against NASCAR Cup Series champions in the closing laps to win races in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series ranks.
In 2020, Jones blasted past Kyle Busch with 20 laps remaining to score a win at Phoenix Raceway. In 2022, he defeated Elliott to win at Darlington Raceway, and now he has a second statement win over Elliott this time around at Chicagoland Speedway, a track that had lain dormant for seven years before Saturday night’s event.
“I think it says a lot about how resilient we are, and how hard we’re working on this,” Jones said of topping Elliott on Saturday night. “Chase made it really difficult on me. He’s one of the best in the sport, right? So, I knew he was going to be difficult.”
Jones, who had worked his way as high as fourth in the championship standings earlier this season, hopes that this win can spark a turnaround for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team, which had fallen to eighth in the standings prior to Saturday’s race.
“It’s been an up-and-down year. We’ve had some success early on, but we’ve been in a little rut the last couple of weeks. So, it’s nice to do it like we did it today,” Jones said. “We had to earn that one.”
Elliott said in an effort to try to regain the advantage on Jones, coming to one lap to go, he made a grave error in Turn 3, which allowed Jones to gain full possession of the race lead.
“Ended up kind of having momentum going the wrong way into Turn 3. And I tried to drive in really hard and got myself super tight. Super bummed about that, honestly,” Elliott said.
Jesse Love would come home with a solid third-place finish, while Brent Crews, Jones’ 18-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, was fourth.
Austin Hill, Love’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, had another solid outing with a fifth-place result on Saturday night.
Justin Allgaier, Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Cole Custer, and Conno Zilisch rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Zilisch rebounded from a myriad of issues, including running out of gas during the Stage break caution after Stage 1, a cut tire, and a spin later in the race, to finish 10th.
With four races remaining until the Chase for the Championship begins, Justin Allgaier maintains a 195-point advantage over Jesse Love for the regular-season championship.
Crews is the final driver inside the top-12 of the standings, and he holds a 44-point advantage over William Sawalich, the first driver on the outside looking in.
Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Focused Health 250 at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday, July 11. That race will be televised on The CW with coverage set to kick off at 7:00 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of that event.
