Brandon Jones wins the NASCAR O’Reilly Series return to Chicagoland

JOLIET, Ill. — Brandon Jones capitalizes on a late race restart and fends off Chase Elliott to win in the Cuervo 300 as the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returned to Chicagoland Speedway.

This is his first win of the season and his eighth career O’Reilly Series win

The five-hour rain delay made the July 4 event end on July 5. Despite the date change, the fireworks were even sweeter for Jones.

For the first time since 2019 and 2020, he has back-to-back winning O’Reilly Series seasons.

Jones ran inside the top five most of the night and even led 12 laps, but the final stage break caution was when the pivotal change occurred.

He was able to vault himself into the conversation for the race win with Elliott and his teammate Taylor Gray.

Chase Elliott came down from the NASCAR Cup series to go O’Reilly Racing at Chicagoland.

He won the second stage and went onto finish second after he failed to hold off Jones on the final restart. Elliott led a race-high 78 laps in his first start of the season in the series.

Notable Results

Jesse Love found the lead three times during the event and settled for third in the end.

Brent Crews started on the front row and quickly fell towards the rear during the first stage. His team made the proper adjustments to his No. 19 Toyota as he claimed a crucial fourth place.

Austin Hill completed the top five. Justin Allgaier started just behind Hill after the NASCAR metric put them mid-pack for sixth.

Taylor Gray led the second most laps in the race, 55, and lost the lead on the penultimate restart to finish a disappointing seventh.

Sam Mayer stayed inside the top ten for the duration of the Cuervo 300 to finish eighth.

Cole Custer was another Cup Series driver entered tonight. He hovered around the top ten all night and finished ninth in his Haas Factory Team prepared SS Greenlight entry.

Connor Zilisch started the night on the pole and led wire to wire to win stage one. That’s as good as it got for the Cup Series rookie.

On the cooldown lap he lost fuel pressure which became the first of many issues that unraveled his race. A dance with the wall with a subsequent flat tire, then a further spin off of turn two for kept Zilisch down.

He wound up clawing back to tenth after his tough day and even clinched the fastest lap point for the owner’s points battle.

Below are the full results of the Cuervo 300 from Chicagoland Speedway.

Full Results

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