Enjoy Illinois 300 Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. – Surprise and elation were the watchwords for Team Penske driver Austin Cindric, who won Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at the expense of teammate Ryan Blaney. The race was Blaney’s to win—until the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion ran out of fuel on the next-to-last lap and handed the lead to his teammate. Cindric charged past Blaney at the start/finish line and completed the checkered-flag lap as Blaney rolled agonizingly slowly to a 24th-place result. The victoryRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. — Kyle Busch collected his 63rd NASCAR Cup Series victory on Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway, but the driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet had to work hard for the first-place money. Busch, the pole winner, survived five restarts in the last 40 laps of the Enjoy Illinois 300 and beat Denny Hamlin to the finish line by .517 seconds after Bubba Wallace’s broken brake rotor caused the 11th caution on Lap 236 and sent the race toRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. — Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at World Wide Technology Raceway broke a long dry spell for two-time series champion Kyle Busch. Rocketing around the 1.25-mile irregularly shaped speedway in 32.802 seconds (137.187 mph), Busch won his first Cup pole position since Nov. 10, 2019, when he was first on the grid at Phoenix Raceway. Earning his first Busch Light Pole Award for Richard Childress Racing, Busch edged Monday’s Coca-Cola 600 winner Ryan Blaney for the top starting spot by .008Read More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the second year in a row, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to the banks of the Mississippi River to take on World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway for Sunday’s running of the Enjoy Illinois 300. Located just across the river from St. Louis, the 1.25-mile oval resembles the layout of Darlington Raceway from overhead, with different radius corners on either end of the track. Turns 1-2 are also banked differently than Turns 3-4, providing a unique challenge for the drivers to tackle. The massive demandRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor When the NASCAR Cup Series takes the green next Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Chase Elliott will not be a part of the field after he was handed a one-race suspension on Tuesday. The penalty comes a day after he and Denny Hamlin had a run-in on lap 185 of the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in which Elliott’s No. 9 Chevrolet bounced off the Turn 4 wall and then drove down the track into the right-rear quarter panel of Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill. – In front of packed grandstands at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Joey Logano beat Kyle Busch in an intense overtime battle, and Ross Chastain ate a gigantic piece of humble pie. After a brake rotor failure sent Kevin Harvick’s Ford rocketing into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 236 of a scheduled 240 in Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300, Busch, as the leader, picked the outside lane. Logano lined up beside Busch to the inside, with teammate Ryan Blaney behind him. Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MADISON, Ill.—On a track similar to the one that gave him his first NASCAR Cup Series victory, Chase Briscoe achieved another career first—a Cup Series pole position.  In the final round of time trials on Saturday, Briscoe sped around 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in 32.544 seconds (138.274 mph) to earn the top starting position for Sunday’s inaugural Enjoy Illinois 300 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Even though he had a slight bobble on his money lap,Read More