By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service

LAKEVILLE, CT (July 12, 2026) – Popular veteran Grant Enfinger took the lead on a late race restart and held off a hard-charging Landen Lewis to make his first visit to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Victory Lane in more than a season – earning his first career road course win Saturday afternoon in the LiUNA 150 at Connecticut’s historic Lime Rock Park.

Enfinger, who lined up alongside Gio Ruggiero for a restart with three laps remaining, got the jump at the green flag and then held off Lewis – who was racing for his first career series win. It was a fittingly exhilarating way to close out the race which included an 18-minute red flag and thrilling door-to-door competition particularly in the closing laps.

Enfinger’s No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet crossed the line only a slight .483-second ahead of the Niece Motorsports driver Lewis.

“I feel like we had some things play into our hand,’’ Enfinger said, noting of the day’s strongest cars, “I don’t think we had anything for the 11 [Honeycutt] or the 34 [Scott Riggs] straight up.”

Of the final restart, Enfinger said he was enthused to get the edge out front on then-leader Gio Ruggiero at the drop of the green. He had considered taking the preferable position outside but opted to start alongside Guggiero on the front row and honorably vie for the lead that way. This marks his 13th career win.

“I wanted to beat him straight up on the outside,’’ Enfinger added. “A lot went into that decision but I didn’t want to go in there and purposefully take him out of the way for the win. I feel like we beat him on the launch. And I think we had a better car.

“Just an amazing job with this Chevrolet. … I think this is only my second top 10 at a road course. We have had road course trucks this year, but I think today we were a solid top five truck and the seas parted and the good Lord blessed us today and we were able to come home for a win.’’

Championship contender Kaden Honeycutt claimed third place after an absolutely amazing drive back up through the field. The TRICON Garage Toyota driver had dropped to 24th position with 28 laps to go after being involved in a multi-car accident late in the race.

Popular driver and television analyst Parker Kligerman – a part-owner of Lime Rock Park – finished fourth in the Spire Motorsports No. 77 Chevrolet. Christian Eckes was fifth in the No. 91 McAnally Hilgemann Chevrolet.

Honeycutt’s finish to the day came after he won Stage 2 and kept polesitter, and the series championship points leader Riggs honest for the majority of the race. Riggs led the first 34 laps with one or the other leading through the opening 62 laps of the 100-lap event. Riggs won Stage 1 and Honeycutt won Stage 2.

And then the chaos set in. Four caution flags – and the red flag – came out in the closing 40 laps.

Varying pit strategies shook up the front of the field, relegating Riggs and Honeycutt to play catch-up following the Stage 2 break at Lap 60. The two who have dominated the championship standings for the last two months collided while trying to race through the field.

The damage to Riggs’ No. 34 Front Row Chevrolet proved to be too much for him to contend up front. His 48 laps out front was the most on the afternoon, but he ended up 23rd, the first driver a lap down.

He retained the championship lead, however, and is now 44 points up on Honeycutt with four races remaining to settle the regular season championship. They officially clinched a spot in the Chase today.

Enfinger’s victory was crucial in that it moved him inside the championship top 10 that will ultimately advance to the Chase. He’s now ninth in points, 25 points up on 10th place Tyler Ankrum. Stewart Friesen and Jake Garcia are tied, 17 points behind Ankrum.

Daniel Hemric, Andres Perez De Lara, Tanner Grey, Friesen and Colin Braun – an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series full-timer – rounded out the top 10 Saturday.

Thomas Annunziata, who ran up front all day after winning the ARCA Menards Series race at Lime Rock on Friday, ended up sidelined in the most dramatic incident of the day. He pulled off track with his No. 1 truck in flames while running second with 22 laps to go. Annunziata climbed out his No. 1 truck quickly and bent over to catch his breath next to a track wall. He was transported to a local area medical facility for further evaluation. He finished 29th.

The NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series returns to competition next week with Saturday’s Faith Fest 250 (12:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the historic North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith is the defending race winner.

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

JOLIET, IL (July 4, 2026) — Stealing the lead from Chase Elliott on the final restart, Brandon Jones celebrated NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway with a dramatic victory in Saturday night’s rain-delayed Cuervo 300.

In the first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race to require overtime this season, Jones’ No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota stayed side-by-side with Elliott’s No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet through the first two corners on the decisive Lap 200 restart.

Jones took control in Turn 3 on the white-flag lap. Elliott made a determined run at the top of the track on the final circuit, but Jones blocked the lane and crossed the finish line 0.171 seconds ahead of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion.

“It’s been an up-and-down year,” Jones said after climbing from his car. “We had some success early on. We’ve been in a little rut the last couple weeks, so it’s just nice to do it like we did today. We had to earn that one.”

The victory was Jones’ first at Chicagoland (which hosted its first race since 2019), his first of the season and the eighth of his career, and he achieved it by outrunning an elite Cup Series driver.

“I think it says a lot about how resilient we are and how hard we’re working out there,” Jones said. “Chase made it really difficult on me. He’s one of the best in the sport. We were on old tires, and that was a blast, sliding around and dueling it out like that.”

Elliott chose the top lane for the final restart and didn’t get the push he needed from third-place finisher Jesse Love, the culprit being well-worn tires.

“I don’t think that was why we lost by any means,” Elliott said. “I know he was planning on giving me a good push… We ended up kind of having the momentum going the wrong way into Turn 3. I tried to drive in way hard and got myself super tight…

“Credit to Brandon. He did a good job. He had a good restart, stayed side-by-side through 1 and 2 and had the momentum going his way into Turn 3. I got myself in a bad spot and paid the price.”

Austin Hill finished fifth behind Love and rookie Brent Crews.

For JGR teammates Crews and Tayor Gray, the race was eminently productive in the battle for positions in the postseason Chase. Gray led 55 laps—second only to Elliott’s 78—and ended the evening seventh in the race and 11th in the standings with a 52-point cushion above the current Chase cut line.

Crews is 12th, the final Chase-eligible position, with a 44-point margin over teammate William Sawalich, the first driver below the current cutoff.

But Sawalich was seething after contact from Crews’ front bumper sent him spinning through the infield grass on Lap 165 of a planned 200 to cause the fifth of seven cautions. Sawalich finished 29th and faces an uphill battle with only four races left before the Chase field is set.

With qualifying canceled in favor of practice after rain wiped out O’Reilly Auto Parts Series practice on Friday, Connor Zilisch started on the pole on metrics after a rain delay of more than four hours and led the first stage wire-to-wire, finishing 4.935 seconds ahead of second-place Love.

Under caution, however, Zilisch’s No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet ran out of fuel and had to be pushed to pit road. Zilisch restarted Stage 2 in 26th place and climbed to ninth by the end of the stage on Lap 90.

Elliott was first of pit road during the first stage break and held the top spot through the end of Stage 2.

Zilisch’s rotten luck continued after the break. He cut a tire after contact with the outside wall and started from the back once again, only to spin on Lap 156 and repeat the process. For a third time, he climbed through the field to finish 10th.

Justin Allgaier, Zilisch’s JR Motorsports teammate, had a similarly adventurous night. Allgaier started 17th and charged to fourth by the end of Stage 2. But a safety violation on pit road for an improperly uniformed crew member sent him the rear for a restart on Lap 100.

Allgaier rallied to finish sixth and leaves Chicagoland with a 195-point series lead over second-place Love.

Behind Allgaier and Gray, Sam Mayer, Cole Custer and Zilisch completed the top 10. With Elliott, Allgaier and Zilisch in the top 10, JR Motorsports extended its streak of placing at least one car in the top 10 to 77 consecutive races, two short of RFK Racing’s series record, set from 2008 through 2010.

The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series moves to EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta for next Saturday’s Focused Health 250 (7 p.m. ET on CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service

LONG POND, PA (June 13. 2026) It’s been a recurring theme in the NASCAR Cup Series in recent weeks. Denny Hamlin is out front.

The veteran driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota claimed his fourth Busch Light Pole position of the season Saturday afternoon at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway and will lead the field to green in Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA (1 p.m. ET on Prime Video, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Of note, with poor weather expected later Sunday afternoon, the green flag start time (1 p.m.) has been moved up two hours earlier than its originally scheduled time.

This marks the 51st pole position of Hamlin’s career and comes as the popular veteran is attempting to win three consecutive races for the first time in his celebrated career after victories the last two weeks in Nashville and Michigan.

He was the last driver to take to the track in Saturday’s qualifying session and just nudged Hendrick Motorsports’ driver Kyle Larson from the top position in the final minutes – Hamlin’s lap of 173.250 mph around the 2.5-mile triangular-shaped Pocono track was .057-second quicker than Larson’s best.

“Certainly had the grip, this whole team just did a great job with adjustments, making it a little better from practice, I didn’t execute a very good lap there in Turn 2, but overall I thought I hit [turns] three and one pretty decent – just good enough,” Hamlin said.

He acknowledged he and the team are certainly on a hot streak at the moment with wins in the non-points paying All-Star Race four weeks ago plus the two victories in the last two weeks. The effort has helped Hamlin cut 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick’s 100-plus point advantage over him atop the standings to only 51 points heading into Pocono, a place Hamlin has won a record seven times.

“It’s certainly going well and confidence is up with these guys [on the team] that every time I enter a corner at about 200, I know they’ve built me a car that’s going to stick,” Hamlin said, acknowledging his three-in-a-row opportunity.

“This is the best shot for sure, we’ve got a little work to do on the car overnight to get it to be a race winner, but I feel like we’re in that box where we need to be and we’ll fine tune it from here.”

Starting behind Hamlin and Larson are Daniel Suarez in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and Hamlin’s JGR teammates Ty Gibbs (No. 54 Toyota) and defending race winner Chase Briscoe (No. 19 Toyota).

Chris Buescher, who won his first career NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono in 2016, qualified sixth – his No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford the first Ford on the grid. Legacy Motor Club teammates Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek will start their Toyotas seventh and eighth. Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron (No. 24 Chevrolet) and Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney (No. 12 Ford) – who also earned his first career series win at Pocono in 2017 – round out the top-10 on the grid.

Of note, 23XI Racing’s Reddick will roll of 15th and his teammate, Bubba Wallace, will start from the rear of the field after a qualifying session accident. RFK owner-driver Brad Keselowski had engine trouble in the session and will start alongside Wallace on the last row.