JOLIET, Ill. – Chase Briscoe parked his red, white and blue Bass Pro Shops Toyota in victory lane on Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway with fireworks going off for the Fourth of July weekend.
It doesn’t get more American than that.
Briscoe battled his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christoper as the laps closed. They treated a sellout crowd to a game of cat and mouse, with Briscoe scoring his first win of the season.
“I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shops, red, white and blue car,” Briscoe said. “Just so cool to get this paint scheme back in victory lane.”
Briscoe led 51 of 267 laps, scoring 70 points with an ill-handled race car on Friday and Saturday.
“What an unbelievable weekend,” Briscoe said. “Honestly did not see this coming. I feel like I was struggling to practice and qualifying, but James and the group did a great job.”
As icing on the cake, Briscoe earned a win on the birthday of James Small — Briscoe’s crew chief. Bell brought his car home second, and Denny Hamlin finished at the tail of a JGR train in third.
“Toyotas are fast,” Bell said. “It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it's just disappointing whenever you get beat by another monkey.”
Bell battled from three seconds back of the lead to Briscoe’s back bumper with two to go. Briscoe blocked Bell in turn one, which caused Bell to get tight and lose ground on corner exit.
Bell candidly voiced his frustration about the first turn.
“Just a second-place driver, man,” Bell said.
The scoring pylon reflected a game of NASCAR 06: Total Team Control with Toyota Racing placing seven entries inside the top 10 for the first time in history.
Hamlin’s organization, 23XI Racing, put three of its four Toyotas in the top 10 with Bubba Wallace, Corey Heim and Riley Herbst. Tyler Reddick finished 36th after oil pump issues during Stage 2.
“The 45 just continues to bleed out here with some bad luck stuff going on,” Hamlin said.
The four-time winner this season capitalized on Tyler Reddick’s early oil pump issue to extend his series points lead up to 44. Hamlin paced the pack for 30 laps but fell back in Stage 2.
“I felt in control, but probably got real lazy on some restarts and things like that,” Hamlin said. “I just pushed it too far into the wall there a few laps ago, and I had to settle for third.”
William Byron led a race-high 93 laps and swept the stages, putting up his best overall points day of 2026. Byron remains winless with seven races remaining before the Chase begins.
“We really maximized what we could do,” Byron said. “If I had clean air, I would have been able to control a little better, but those guys still had some pace on us.”
With 20 stage points, Byron nearly matched his total from the past seven races combined. This result proved to be what the team needs going into the next stretch of the schedule.
“A win would have been awesome,” Byron said. “We've been craving that for a long time and working super hard to get there, and you could kind of taste it there with a couple runs to go.”