NASCAR: Kyle Busch wins Enjoy Illinois 300 Cup Race

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Before a sellout crowd, polesitter Kyle Busch led the most laps in his #8 RCR Chevy and survived numerous late restarts to win the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup race at Gateway Motorsports Park and collect his 63rd NASCAR Cup Series win.

Hendrick Chevy driver Kyle Larson was 2nd at the final restart but he only got 2 tires on his last pitstop and he lost 2nd place on the final restart to Denny Hamlin’s JGR Toyota and Joey Logano’s Ford.

Logano held on for 4th ahead of the Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. followed by Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suárez, William Byron, Michael McDowell and Kevin Harvick.

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 0.517 seconds after Bubba Wallace’s broken brake rotor caused the 11th caution on Lap 236 and sent the race to overtime.

The victory was Busch’s first at the 1.25-mile track and the third in his debut season with RCR. It was a home game for his crew chief, Randall Burnett, who grew up in Fenton, Missouri, and had family in attendance on Sunday.

“That was pretty awesome,” Busch exulted after he climbed from his car. “Man, to sit on the pole, lead a lot of laps and have my guys do such a great job today was pretty phenomenal for us. Great for RCR. Just win, baby! Thanks to Team Chevy, appreciate (sponsor) 3Chi…

“We’re going to have a great time with this one. This one is pretty cool.”

Busch led five times for 121 laps, including the last 60. Neither Hamlin nor third-place finisher Joey Logano — winner of the inaugural Gateway race last year — led a single circuit.

Hamlin felt the lightning delay played against him and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team.

“Yeah, I thought we were super dialed in if it was 95 degrees like it was supposed to be, (but) with those delays, it kind of took away from the advantage I thought that we had,” Hamlin said.

“I’m proud of this whole Sport Clips Toyota team — pit crew did a phenomenal job keeping us in it and doing really good on the money stop with about 60 to go. We are going to have to wait (for) another (race) to get that 50th (win).”

Race Results

POS	CAR	DRIVER	MANUF	BEHIND	LAPS
1	8	Kyle Busch		0.000	243
2	11	Denny Hamlin		0.517	243
3	22	Joey Logano		1.161	243
4	5	Kyle Larson		1.357	243
5	19	Martin Truex Jr.		1.490	243
6	12	Ryan Blaney		1.688	243
7	99	Daniel Suarez		1.811	243
8	24	William Byron		1.910	243
9	34	Michael McDowell		2.242	243
10	4	Kevin Harvick		2.483	243
11	20	Christopher Bell		2.589	243
12	17	Chris Buescher		2.622	243
13	2	Austin Cindric		2.811	243
14	16	AJ Allmendinger		2.934	243
15	38	Todd Gilliland		3.067	243
16	31	Justin Haley		3.208	243
17	41	Ryan Preece		3.235	243
18	43	Erik Jones		3.427	243
19	10	Aric Almirola		3.463	243
20	54	Ty Gibbs #		3.686	243
21	9	Corey LaJoie		3.729	243
22	1	Ross Chastain		3.964	243
23	21	Harrison Burton		3.978	243
24	51	JJ Yeley(i)		4.247	243
25	77	Ty Dillon		4.255	243
26	48	Alex Bowman		4.400	243
27	78	BJ McLeod		4.637	243
28	6	Brad Keselowski		4.916	243
29	15	Gray Gaulding(i)		-1	242
30	23	Bubba Wallace		-7	236
31	3	Austin Dillon		-20	223
32	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		-24	219
33	42	Noah Gragson #		-46	197
34	14	Chase Briscoe		-50	193
35	45	Tyler Reddick		-69	174
36	7	Carson Hocevar(i)		-152	91

# DENOTES ROOKIE
(i) NOT ELIGIBLE FOR POINTS
(*) REQUIRED TO QUALIFY ON TIME