Briscoe holds off Bell for Chicagoland Cup Series triumph

It was 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 stayed 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.

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 0.276s 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 Shop's Red, White, and Blue car, 4th 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.”

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 173 — a far cry from the chaos of the first two stages.

The race was barely two corners old when a chain-reaction wreck sidelined star-crossed rookie Connor Zilisch. John Hunter Nemechek’s Toyota forced the Chevrolet of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. into the outside wall as the cars gained speed through Turn 2 after taking the initial green flag.

Collected were the Ford of Ryan Preece and the Chevrolet of Zilisch, which nosed hard into the inside wall, damaging the Camaro beyond repair. For the fourth time in the last seven races, Zilisch was eliminated from an event in last place, in this case 38th.

Preece lost four laps as his car was towed to the garage for new tires, but he returned to action and eventually to the lead lap under a succession of cautions. He finished 32nd.

Kyle Larson's fast car subsequently suffered its own version of rotten luck. Running third on lap 93, Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet spun sideways in Turn 4 behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron. Larson’s car slid into the infield grass and required a tow truck with a tether to pull it back to the pavement.

Larson lost two laps in the process, dooming his chances to end a 42-race drought. The spin also made Larson, who finished 34th, the loser in his In-Season Challenge matchup against Byron, who led a race-high 94 laps before fading in the late going.

Tyler Reddick soon joined the parade of the unfortunate when an errant splitter stay from another car punched a hole in the radiator of the No. 45 Toyota, forcing a caution for fluid on the track on lap 134. Reddick drove the car to the garage for a radiator change.

Having surrendered the series lead to 23XI Racing co-owner Hamlin last Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, Reddick lost 29 laps under repairs and fell 44 points behind Hamlin in the series standings.

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.

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 Briscoe leading 51 laps, Wallace 35 and Hamlin 30. There were seven cautions for 43 laps.

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

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