Chase Briscoe celebrated July 4th weekend in an appropriate way.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver held off his teammate Christopher Bell on Sunday to win the first NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway since 2019 in a special red, white and blue Bass Pro Shops-sponsored car.
William Byron swept the first two stages and was looking good until the final round of pit stops, when Briscoe cycled in front of him and went on to lead the final 46 laps of the 267-lap race.
Byron held on to second until there was 10 laps to go and was passed by Bell, who had fresher tires and proceeded to close the gap on Briscoe. Bell got within a car length with three laps to go, but got a little loose in the draft on the final lap, which allowed Briscoe to open the gap and take his first checkered flag of the season. It was winless Bell’s fourth runner-up finish this year.
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“Out of all the people that were going to catch me, I was glad it was him just because I knew he was going to race me super clean, obviously,” Briscoe said. “Yeah, it was a lot of fun, for sure.”
“Yeah, I feel like that’s the most American I’ll ever feel in my life, winning in the red, white, and blue, Bass Pro Shop scheme, 4th of July weekend. 250 years of America. The only thing I thing that would have made it more American was to win on July 4th instead of July 5th.” Briscoe drives a Toyota, but the Camry his car is based on is built in Kentucky.
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Denny Hamlin got by Byron at the end to make it a 1-2-3 finish for Joe Gibbs racing, with 2019 Chicagoland winner Alex Bowman finishing fifth. Hamlin’s result extended his lead in the season standings from 2 to 44 points over Tyler Reddick, who finished 30 laps down in 36th after a lengthy pit stop to repair a punctured radiator.
