What Happened?
Chase Briscoe got his first win of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season after defending his lead in the closing laps from his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell.
Denny Hamlin finished third to complete a JGR 1-2-3 finish with the Hendrick Motorsports duo of William Byron and Alex Bowman rounding out the top five.
Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Corey Heim, and Riley Herbst finished in the sixth through 10th positions.
What Really Happened?
The Toyotas continued their dominant 2026 season, taking seven of the top 10 spots on the leaderboard, a first for the manufacturer.
Meanwhile, Hamlin opened up his points lead over Tyler Reddick to 44 points after Reddick’s suffered a second-straight race affected by a mechanical failure.
While Briscoe broke through for his first win of the season, a couple of top finishers fell just short as they are still looking for their first victory of the campaign, including Bell and Byron.
Bell only led one lap but his car came alive on the final run, fighting back from contact he had earlier in the race on pit road with Todd Gilliland.
Byron won both stages but did not have the long run speed that the JGR Toyotas had. He still racked up 53 points during the race and led a race-high 94 laps.
However, the main storyline of the weekend was the track itself of course, as this marked the first NASCAR weekend at Chicagoland Speedway since 2019.
There were some pros and cons to the weekend that featured the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on Saturday (July 4) and the Cup race on Sunday (July 5).
The one big positive to take from both races was that the on-track product was exciting in both events.
The restarts were thrilling, and there were multiple grooves on the track for the drivers to work with. Tires made a difference on the long run with the aged surface, and we saw comers and goers as the races went on.
The first overtime restart of the NOAPS season didn’t disappoint as we saw a bit of a surprise with Brandon Jones holding off Chase Elliott to get his first win of the season.
Then, on Sunday, we saw a long green flag run end the race, which might be boring to some, but I enjoyed seeing how the pit cycle flipped the lead over from Byron to Briscoe. That was followed up with Bell and Hamlin trying to chase down Briscoe, coming up just short in the end.
Now, on to the cons, and one of them was the weather. Obviously, it isn’t Chicagoland’s fault, but it did lead to a massive problem for Sunday night’s sellout crowd.
The rain canceled O’Reilly qualifying on Friday and pushed the start of the race on Saturday all the way back to around 10:15 p.m. ET after a long rain delay.
The other big problem with the weekend was the parking issues that fans ran into for the Cup race, as long lines were seen from outside the track as fans struggled to find spots after the rains flooded some parking lots on the facility.
It reminded some fans of the inaugural Kentucky Speedway race in 2011 that had cars backed up for miles, so I hate it for the fans that missed action on track and were stuck in gridlock outside the track instead.
I still would like to see Chicagoland back on the schedule in 2027 because the racing was exciting, but there have been rumors about dropping the Joliet, Ill., track in favor of bringing back the Chicago street course.
Who Stood Out?
Heim got another top 10 in his part-time No. 67 Toyota for 23XI Racing, building off his first-career win in San Diego, while Herbst earned a top-10 finish as well, adding to Toyota’s dominance as a whole.
I also mentioned Byron’s great points night earlier, but also want to shout out the last Chicagoland winner before tonight’s race, as Bowman got his first top-five finish since Texas Motor Speedway back in early May.
Who Fell Flat?
While Byron and Bowman got top fives and Elliott just missed the top 10, Kyle Larson led laps early and looked poised to end his winless streak until he found himself around coming out of turn 4.
Larson spun and got stuck in the frontstretch grass on Lap 93, putting him multiple laps down. He never recovered, finishing 34th with a car that lost speed after the spin.
RFK Racing swept row two on the grid, but Brad Keselowski fell down the leaderboard early and was mired mid-pack for most of the night, finishing 21st.
Chris Buescher stayed up front early on, finishing sixth in the opening stage, but he lost his track position during the second stage. His pit crew did not tighten a wheel on the left side during a green flag pit stop, which forced Buescher to stop and back up into his pit box, losing a ton of time.
Buescher went on to finish 19th, and as for Ryan Preece, his night started horribly as he got spun around on the backstretch on the opening lap of the race.
Contact between John Hunter Nemechek and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. forced Preece to check up. Erik Jones then got in the back of him, spinning Preece into the path of Connor Zilisch, who spun and hit the inside wall to avoid Preece.
Preece found himself four laps down but battled back to finish only a lap down; however, he still ended up 32nd while Zilisch DNF’d and finished dead last.
Paint Scheme of the Race
There were a lot of great patriotic schemes to choose from this week, but I have always loved the PPG paint schemes, so let’s go with Austin Cindric‘s No. 2 Penske Ford this week.
Cindric had a solid night, coming home 13th while earning nine stage points and leading 18 laps during the race.
What’s Next?
Next Sunday (July 12), the NASCAR Cup Series will hold another night race as the series returns to Georgia for the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta.
It will mark the third race of the In-Season Challenge that is now down to the final eight drivers, and it will be the second race at the track this season after Reddick won there back in February.
The event will be the 20th race of the Cup season, with coverage starting at 7 p.m. ET on TNT.
Michael Bellifemini joined Frontstretch in February 2026 as a contributor. Bellifemini was born and raised in New Jersey and graduated from Seton Hall University. He called Seton Hall men's and women's basketball games for their college radio station, 89.5 FM WSOU, and continues to broadcast in the area. Outside of covering NASCAR, Bellifemini is also an avid baseball, football, basketball, and hockey fan and enjoys watching different sports leagues on a daily basis.
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