![\"Lettermark\"](\"https:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/autoweek\/static\/images\/logos\/lettermark.de67f45.svg?primary=%2523000\")
<\/p>\nKyle Larson broke a 51-race winless streak in a race that ended in double overtime and decimated the Chase field with a record 18 caution periods at World Wide Technology Raceway.<\/p>\n
Only four of the 16 Chase drivers didn\u2019t have a pit road issue or were involved in a crash in Sunday\u2019s Enjoy Illinois 300 at the 1.25-mile track. They were Larson, third-place finisher Joey Logano who was the top lap-leader setting the pace four times for 96 laps, 10th-place finisher Austin Cindric, and 17th-place finisher Ryan Preece. The multiple problems for the Chase contenders meant only three drivers didn\u2019t change their positions in the standings. Denny Hamlin maintained the lead, Ty Gibbs stayed sixth, and Bubba Wallace remained 10th.<\/p>\n
Larson, who led three times for 80 laps in the 247-lap race, finished 0.333-second ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman while William Byron placed fourth. That gave Hendrick Motorsports three of the top four finishers for the first time this year. It was Larson\u2019s third top five and fourth top 10 in the last five races and allowed him to jump from seventh to second in the standings, a mere nine points behind leader Hamlin.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex Bowman, can\u2019t ask for a better teammate than him,\u201d a happy Larson said. \u201cGave me the pushes I needed to get clear. Want to dedicate this win to him. His dog just passed away a couple days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the lengthy winless streak Larson said he maybe doubted himself at times, but he never doubted his team\u2019s return to victory lane.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo better time to have a great day than today,\u201d Larson said Sunday after claiming his 33rd career victory. \u201cFeel like we got our swagger back a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second-place finish for Bowman was his best performance this year, his first top five since Chicagoland Speedway and just his fourth top-five this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas a really hard weekend just to get on the plane and be here,\u201d Bowman said as he teared up during his post-race interview. \u201cReady to go home. Proud of everybody on this Ally 48 team for helping me through the weekend. Life is hard sometimes. I lost my best friend, so just ready to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowman was referring to his dog Finn, who died a few days ago. In a social media post, he noted \u201cyou only get a dog like Finn once in a lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suck here, so clearly I had some help,\u201d Bowman said about his second-place finish. \u201cYou just never want to see your best friend suffer. Unfortunately, the end was pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byron\u2019s fourth-place finish was his first top five since early July at Chicagoland Speedway.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust kind of a grind-it-out day,\u201d said Byron, who was involved in a six-car accident on lap 141. \u201cHad a lot of nose damage when the 23 (Wallace) spun, (I) got into him. Looked like I still had a hole in the nose at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byron called the finish that allowed him to move up to 15th in the standings \u201ca good shot in the arm.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Larson broke a 51-race winless streak in a race that ended in double overtime and decimated the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,310016,784,237154,1642,634,310015,273948,82,183339],"class_list":["post-895161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-487f4a07-1af5-4d72-bb48-d691f98760c5","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-larson-breaks-51-race-nascar-winless-streak","tag-sponsored-false","tag-sports","tag-subsection-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895161","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=895161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}