Kyle Larson survived 18 caution periods and a late race battle with Joey Logano to win the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway and break a 51-race winless streak.
The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion led a combined 176 of a planned 240 laps of the second round of The Chase, but a record number of yellow flags pushed it to double overtime and 247 laps before it was all said and done.
Logano was leading with 18 laps to go, but after three quick caution periods, found himself taking the final restart from the second row behind Hendrick Motorsports drivers Larson and Alex Bowman and alongside their teammate William Byron.
Larson had the freshest tires and was able to pull away, while Bowman came home second ahead of Logano, Byron and Ross Chastain.
“I haven’t doubted myself, I haven’t doubted our team, maybe myself at times, but never my team,” Larson said. “No better time to have a great day than today.”
The win moved Larson up five spots in The Chase standings to second, just 9 points behind Denny Hamlin, who finished ninth. Last week’s winner Christopher Bell ended up with a disappointing 19th-place finish, after getting caught up in a wreck, but it was enough to keep him third in the standings and very much in contention for the championship, 18 points shy of Hamlin.
