NASCAR returned to Chicagoland Speedway and it was like meeting an exuberant old friend.
Drivers had their hands full with the worn-out racetrack in their first race at the 1.5-mile oval since 2019.
Chase Briscoe emerged victorious in Joliet. He led the final 46 laps as he captured his first win of the year.
Here are my takeaways:
1. Briscoe Scores First Win Of Season
Chase Briscoe got his first win of the season at Chicagoland.
Briscoe snapped a 20-race winless streak in a year when he had three finishes of 36th or worse in the first four races.
He also has had two second-place finishes, including one the previous week on the Sonoma Raceway road course.
“I honestly did not see this coming,” Briscoe said in his interview on the race broadcast. “I kind of felt like I was struggling in practice, in qualifying, but … the group did a great job.”
2. Reddick Spiral Continues
Will Tyler Reddick find his hot hand again?
Tyler Reddick continues to slide and he is now 44 points behind Denny Hamlin in the race for the regular-season title.
Reddick had a piece of debris puncture his radiator or oil cooler, which required more than 20 laps to fix. He finished 36th.
There are seven races left in the regular season and Reddick is now trying to catch his team co-owner.
“Obviously, the 45 [of Reddick] just continues to bleed out here with some bad luck stuff going on or some mechanicals,” Hamlin said on the TNT post-race show.
“Once we get that figured out, we’ll race it out.”
3. Bell Comes Up Short … Again
Christopher Bell was the bridesmaid yet again.
Christopher Bell finished second for the third time in the last seven races and for the fourth time this year.
For a driver with 13 career victories, Bell is obviously getting a little frustrated, as his winless streak has extended to 26 races. Even if he’s racing with a broken wrist, he believes Chicagoland was a race that slipped away.
“I’m just a second-place driver,” Bell said during his television interview. “That’s what I am.”
4. NASCAR Could Issue Penalties
Shane van Gisbergen’s contact could have been retaliation from San Diego.
NASCAR might be busy reviewing a couple of incidents that happened early in the race, as the league will need to determine whether to issue any penalties for intentional contact.
Zane Smith turned Carson Hocevar; Shane van Gisbergen turned Austin Hill.
The SVG contact with Hill looked like retaliation for a wreck caused by Hill that took SVG out of the race at Naval Base Coronado. SVG denied to The Athletic that it was intentional but Hill chopped his nose. The Smith-Hocevar incident was a little less clear.
NASCAR has not yet penalized any drivers for those incidents. But the league could issue penalties later this week.
4 ½. What’s Next: Atlanta
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Atlanta next weekend. It’s a 1.5-mile track and has enough banking that it races like a drafting track so NASCAR needs to limit horsepower there.
Tyler Reddick won the race at Atlanta last February, while Chase Elliott won there last summer.
