In the first NASCAR Overtime of the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series campaign, Brandon Jones took the fight to NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott to win the Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland Speedway.
The Atlanta, Georgia-native picked up his first victory of the season, and the eighth of his career in NASCAR’s second-tier series – four of which have come at mile-and-a-half racetracks of Kansas, and now, Chicagoland.
After NASCAR’s Performance Metric relegated the driver of the No. 20 Menards Toyota GR Supra to a starting spot outside the top-25, in 29th, Jones drove through the pack to pace the field for 12 laps and position himself perfectly to take advantage of the race’s final restart, which happened with just two laps to go.
Jones managed to remain inside of Elliott, driving the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, on the restart and cleared him off of Turn 2, getting himself away from the NASCAR Cup Series driver and driving to the victory by 0.171 seconds.
“I had to earn that one,” Jones told Kim Coon on the front straightaway. “I haven’t had an exciting one like that in a long time. […] It’s been an up-and-down year; we’ve had some success early on, it’s been a little bit rough the last couple of weeks, so it’s just nice to do it like we did today; we had to earn that one.”
Jones is the first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series winner at the Joliet, Illinois racetrack in seven years, a race that was won by full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Cole Custer. Jones was in the field that day, driving the JGR No. 19, and finished fourth.
Elliott had to settle for second place in his first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series start of 2026. His last two runner-up results in the series have come at the hands of Brandon Jones. Jesse Love was the quickest driver in Saturday’s practice session and paced the field for five laps, but came home third despite a bold four-wide move on the penultimate restart of the event.
Brent Crews continued to aid his journey towards qualifying for “The Chase” with a fourth-place result in the No. 19 Toyota GR Supra. Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier finished fifth and sixth.
Taylor Gray looked to be one of the dominant drivers of the event and had a chance to race against Elliott until the No. 54 was part of a four-wide situation on the restart that saw the Operation 300 Toyota GR Supra slip back outside the top five. Gray finished seventh.
Sam Mayer, Cole Custer, and Connor Zilisch completed the top-10.
Zilisch was the polesitter of Saturday’s 300-miler and absolutely smoked the field in the opening stage of the race, but ran out of fuel under caution. The NASCAR Cup Series rookie then returned to the top-10 before blowing a tire, and repeated the process again before spinning in Turn 2. Somehow, the driver of the No. 1 rebounded to P10.
Justin Allgaier leaves Chicagoland with a 195-point lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series point standings over Jesse Love, with Corey Day, Sheldon Creed, and Austin Hill inside the top-five.
Next for the series is a trip to EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Georgia (the home racetrack of winner Brandon Jones). Coverage of the event will be Friday, July 11 at 6:30 PM ET on The CW.
