Brandon Jones Beats Chase Elliott on the Final Lap to Win O'Reilly Series Race at Chicagoland
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Race Recap - what happened in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race, and what it means going forward. This is the second-tier series, not Cup, but Saturday night's finish at Chicagoland did not know the difference.
The Short Version
Brandon Jones won the rain-delayed Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, passing Chase Elliott on the final lap of a green-white-checkered finish. It was Jones' first win of the 2026 season and the eighth of his O'Reilly Auto Parts Series career, his first since September 2025. The race also marked the O'Reilly Series' return to Chicagoland for the first time since 2019. Jones held off Elliott by 0.171 seconds after the two ran side by side into Turns 1 and 2 on the last restart, with Jones taking control in Turn 3.
Race Summary
A rain delay of more than four hours pushed the start well into Saturday night, and with Friday practice washed out, there was no qualifying. Connor Zilisch took the pole on metrics and backed it up by leading Stage 1 wire to wire, beating Jesse Love to the stripe. Chase Elliott took over from there, winning Stage 2 on his way to a race-high 78 laps led. Taylor Gray also spent long stretches out front, leading 55 laps in the #54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Jones, by contrast, started off the pace and worked forward all night, leading only 12 laps total, but all four of those stints came late, and the last one was the only one that mattered.
Key Moments and Turning Points
The race needed seven cautions to sort itself out. Justin Allgaier lost track position early when his team was flagged for a pit-road uniform violation, sending him to a rear-of-field restart around Lap 100. At Lap 165, rookie Brent Crews made contact with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate William Sawalich, spinning Sawalich through the infield grass at close to 170 mph. Crews owned the mistake afterward, calling it a lesson learned at speed. The biggest moment came late: a caution with a handful of laps left set up a green-white-checkered finish, and Jones used the restart to run down Elliott. Elliott chose the outside lane, didn't get the push he needed, and admitted afterward the top groove put him in a bad spot into Turn 3. Jones took the bottom, cleared him, and blocked the preferred lane the rest of the way to the checkered flag.
Pit Strategy and Race Strategy Breakdown
Zilisch had the fastest car for a long stretch of the night and still finished 10th, which tells the strategy story on its own. He ran out of fuel coming out of Stage 1, cut a tire after brushing the wall, and spun again on Lap 156. Each time, his team got him back out on the lead lap, and he still posted the fastest lap of the race. Taylor Gray led the most laps of anyone not named Elliott but slipped to 7th by the finish, a sign that raw speed in the middle of the race did not translate into track position once the final cautions reshuffled the field. Jones' team took the opposite approach: stay patient, avoid the incidents that caught Sawalich and Zilisch, and have the car ready for one restart. It worked. Starting 29th and working forward all night without forcing anything is exactly how you have a car left to use in overtime.
Stats and Fun Facts
Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing had a strong night across the board, with Jones winning, Brent Crews finishing 4th, and Taylor Gray finishing 7th. JR Motorsports quietly extended a streak that deserves more attention than it gets: with Elliott running 2nd, the team has now put at least one car in the top 10 in 77 consecutive races, closing in on RFK Racing's series record of 79 straight, set from 2008 to 2010.
Who's Hot, Who's Not
Hot: Brandon Jones ended a win drought that stretched back to last September, and he did it the hard way, working from 29th to the front and then beating one of the best restarters in the sport for the win. Justin Allgaier had a rough moment on pit road but still leads the O'Reilly Series standings by 195 points over Jesse Love, which says more about his season than one penalty does. JR Motorsports, even without a win Saturday, keeps building a top-10 streak that is now within two races of the record.
Not: Connor Zilisch had the car to beat all night and has almost nothing to show for it, a fuel issue, wall contact, and a spin adding up to a quiet 10th. William Sawalich is running out of room in the standings, sitting well back with only four races left before the O'Reilly Series playoff field locks in, and Saturday's contact with a teammate did not help his cause.
Elliott ran the race as a non-points entry, since he splits his schedule between Cup and select O'Reilly Series starts as a JR Motorsports co-owner, so his runner-up finish does not move him in the standings even though it was the fastest car for most of the night. Was his top-lane call on the final restart the wrong read, or did Jones simply have the stronger restart? Tell us your take in the comments.
The Bottom Line
Chicagoland's return to the O'Reilly Series schedule delivered exactly the kind of finish a track coming back after seven years off needed. Jones' win was not built on speed all night, it was built on staying out of trouble and having a car left when it counted, and that is a formula that travels well. With the playoff field starting to take shape and only a handful of races left to lock it in, expect the racing at the front to get sharper, not calmer.
Riding with a driver in the O'Reilly Series playoff fight, or still picking your horse for the stretch run? Browse the full latest gear collection for the drivers and teams in this one, and if you want a shirt waiting every time your driver hits victory lane, check out our win-shirt subscription fan club. New race recaps run every week.
