Kyle Larson is back in victory lane.
Larson broke a 51-race winless streak by winning the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup Series race on Sept. 13 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The race took nearly four hours to complete after 18 cautions and a pair of red-flag stoppages for clean up.
Here are the winners and losers from the NASCAR Gateway race this week.
NASCAR Gateway winners and losers
Winner: Kyle Larson
Finally.
Kyle Larson's 51-race winless streak ended at Gateway, with fresher tires aiding his cause in the final 50 laps.
Larson got off sequence with the rest of the field with about 80 laps to go, staying out while the majority made a stop for tires.
The No. 5 then made a stop while the rest
of the field stayed out, forcing Larson to drive through the field in what was a chaotic event.
He did so, driving inside the top 10 before the final stop and taking four tires with 21 laps to go.
His chief rival for the win was Joey Logano, who took two tires. That advantage helped with several restarts in the final 15 laps.
Larson grabbed the lead for good with six laps to go, then held on during two final OT restarts to claim the win.
Larson leaves Gateway second in points, nine points behind leader Denny Hamlin. And he doesn't have to answer any winless streak questions anymore.
A tribute to Finn Bowman
Alex Bowman pushed Larson on the final overtime restart, helping his Hendrick teammate to the win and earning a second-place finish, his best this season.
But Bowman was emotional for reasons beyond the race track.
Bowman was in tears during his post-race interview with USA Network, speaking about his dog Finn, who passed away two days ago.
Bowman raced at Gateway this weekend with Finn on his mind and heart.
"It was a really hard weekend just to get on a plane and be here," Bowman said after this race. "....Yeah, life is hard sometimes. I lost my best friend."
"I suck (at Gateway), so obviously I had some help."
It has been an emotional 2026 season for Bowman, including his bout with vertigo in the spring and the announcement of his retirement following the 2027 season. That continued this weekend in Illinois.
Rest easy, Finn.
Loser: Chase Elliott
In a race where a lot of negative things happened to a lot of drivers, Chase Elliott's result may have been most impactful to the long-term.
Elliott had a brake rotor failure on Lap 214, inadvertently collecting Chase Briscoe in an incident through Turn 1. Both drivers hit the wall hard, with their days ending right then. Elliott finished in 31st.
Both Briscoe and Elliott were running in the top 10, with the No. 9 Chevrolet moving up via a tire advantage in the final 30 laps.
Elliott had to string together a consistent run through the fall to contend for the championship given the No. 9 car's recent form, and he would have been around 65 points off of the lead with a top-10 run at Gateway. Instead, Elliott heads to Bristol next weekend with 93 points to make up with eight races to go.
Loser: Chase Briscoe's championship chance
Briscoe, finishing 32nd, dropped three spots in the points standings after the race-ending incident not of his doing on Lap 214.
Briscoe was in a few incidents throughout the day, including a three-car crash that included Bubba Wallace and William Byron.
Still, Briscoe was poised to earn a top-10 finish before Elliott's brakes failure ended his day.
Briscoe goes into Bristol with a 59-point gap to make up behind Hamlin in the points standings. It's not an insurmountable gap, but Briscoe has a lot of work to do.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: NASCAR Gateway winners, losers as Kyle Larson gets back in victory lane
