\nVenue: World Wide Technology Raceway \u2014 Madison, Ill.
\nDate and time:\u00a0Sunday, Sept. 7; 3 p.m. ET
\nTV: USA Network
\nStreaming: Fubo (Stream Free Now!<\/a>)
\nWatching in person? Get tickets on StubHub<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Darlington may still reign as the track too tough to tame, but Chase Briscoe came pretty close last weekend. He led 309 of 367 laps in a second straight Southern 500 win, locking into the Round of 12 and reshaping a season that began with modest rookie-year expectations at Joe Gibbs Racing. He entered as the third-most likely JGR title threat. He left Darlington as the one driver to beat.<\/p>\n
His JGR teammates remain relevant. Denny Hamlin is plus-43 above the cut after seventh place and owns back-to-back runners-up at Gateway. Despite cooling after an early-season surge, Christopher Bell has three wins before Mexico and a 9.0 average finish in three Gateway starts, including 80 laps led last year.<\/p>\n
Penske\u2019s historical footprint here is obvious. Joey Logano won the 2022 debut, and Austin Cindric stole 2024 when Ryan Blaney ran dry. Although he arrives on an 84-race drought, Kyle Busch remains a credible spoiler at Gateway: runner-up in 2022, pole and win in 2023 with 121 laps led, and top-10 pace in 2024 before a crash with Kyle Larson. The flat corners and heavy braking reward restarts and race craft, strengths that still travel.<\/p>\n
Hendrick Motorsports arrives searching after Darlington, where Chase Elliott\u2019s 17th was the team\u2019s best. Two races remain in the Round of 16. Darlington scattered points and confidence; Gateway will sort out who rebounds and who sinks toward Bristol with work to do.<\/p>\n
Updated NASCAR future odds<\/p>\n
Ticketing and streaming links in this article are provided by partners of\u00a0The Athletic. Restrictions may apply.\u00a0The Athletic\u00a0maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.<\/p>\n
(Photo of Chase Briscoe: Jared C. Tilton \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sep 5, 2025<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Round two of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs shifts to the Midwest this weekend for the Enjoy Illinois…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82,6452],"class_list":["post-121561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports","tag-sports-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}