STEWART-HAAS RACING
Enjoy Illinois 300
Date: June 4, 2023
Event: Enjoy Illinois 300 presented by TicketSmarter (Round 15 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois (near St. Louis)
Layout: 1.25-mile oval
Format: 240 laps, broken into three stages (45 laps/95 laps/100 laps)
Note: Race extended three laps past its scheduled 240-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
Race Winner: Kyle Busch of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Kyle Busch of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Ryan Blaney of Team Penske (Ford)
SHR Race Finish:
● Aric Almirola (Started 24th, Finished 19th / Running, completed 243 of 243 laps)
SHR Points:
● Aric Almirola (25th with 251 points, 244 out of first)
Race Notes:
● Kyle Busch won the Enjoy Illinois 300 to score his 63rd career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his third of the season and his first at Gateway. His margin over second-place Denny Hamlin was .517 of a second.
● There were 11 caution periods for a total of 67 laps.
● Twenty-eight of the 36 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Ryan Blaney leaves Gateway as the new championship leader with a 13-point advantage over second-place William Byron.
Sound Bites:
“We battled handing issues all day and just couldn’t find it. We were loose to start the day and it felt like our car was tight on aero and loose mechanically. Our long-run speed was really all we had today and we could pass cars late in the run, but we had so many cautions in the final stage we didn’t have the chance to run those cars down. Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief) put me on offense on the last 20 laps with fresh tires and I thought we could’ve driven up to 15th, but someone missed a shift on the last restart and stacked us up and put us behind. Just one of those days. We had to battle to get all we could get.” – Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Save Mart 350k on Sunday, June 11 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.