Race Central : NASCAR Race Schedule & Results

• Sunday, July 6th, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Van Gisbergen Owns Chicago Streets Again with Weekend NASCAR Sweep

Once again, Shane van Gisbergen asserted his superiority on the streets of Chicago, and in doing so, he matched a major NASCAR milestone.

In winning the Grant Park 165 on the Chicago Street Course, the New Zealander completed a weekend sweep of the NASCAR Xfinity and NASCAR Cup races, both from the pole position.

Taking the checkered flag under caution, after Cody Ware plowed into the Turn 6 tire barrier as van Gisbergen charged through Turn 12 on the next-to-last lap, SVG matched Kyle Busch’s sweep of both races from the pole at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July of 2016. No other driver has won races in NASCAR’s top two divisions from the pole on the same weekend.

The three-time Australian Supercars champion said he was panicked at the possibility of a caution and potential overtime after Ware’s wreck, but he reached the start/finish to start the final lap before NASCAR called the caution.

“What an amazing weekend for me,” said Van Gisbergen, who drove the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet to his second Cup victory on the 2.2-mile, 12-turn circuit, his second win this season and the third of his career.

“Lucky guy to drive some great cars. I thank Trackhouse, WeatherTech Chevy and all these guys and girls here—what an amazing weekend. Thanks everyone for coming out, and hope we put on a good show.”

Ty Gibbs ran second, equaling his career-best finish at Darlington last year. Tyler Reddick restarted 15th on fresh tires with nine laps left and climbed to third before he ran out of time.

Van Gisbergen took the lead for the final time on Lap 60, moving to the inside of front-running Chase Briscoe in Turn 2, racing side-by-side with the recent Pocono winner through Turn 3 and out-braking him into Turn 4 to gain the top spot.

From that point, SVG had to survive two cautions and restarts, the first to get an ambulance across the track for a spectator medical emergency and the second for Austin Cindric’s stalled car.

After that sixth yellow, Gibbs, running second, didn’t get a strong launch on the final restart and fell a car-length behind before reaching Turn 1. SVG pulled away from the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota from that point on.

“Well, it really depends on the restart zone, because it’s right in that last corner, and the dude on the outside gets shafted every single time,” said Gibbs, who restarted on the outside approaching Turn 12.

“If you watch every one of them, the inside guy wins almost every time. He just got a good enough gap, had a good restart. I had a little bit of rear tire degradation that didn’t really help me on my launch off the corner. (He) just got a good gap and got away from me.”

For Reddick, the race was a case of déjà vu. Last year he chased race winner Alex Bowman with a faster car over the closing laps and finished second.

“We kind of ended up in a tough spot there on the penultimate restart, I guess,” Reddick said. “Some of the cars were spinning—I can’t name them all, but unfortunately we kind of just got stuck in the wrong lane where I had to check up. I got behind those cars that we were on the same tire strategy as, so we just lost a bit of time there passing those cars back.

“It’s great to finish third, but it’s for sure a bummer when you look at how much ground you made up.”

For the first time in the three years of the Chicago Street Race, weather in the form of rain didn’t play a role—but anticipation of possible thunderstorms did.

As the race neared conclusion, fog and storm clouds began to roll in from the north, but rain didn’t reach the track until after the checkered flag.

“The strategy was a bit all over the place, as we knew it would be today, racing the weather, racing cars and different (pit) stops,” Van Gisbergen said. “Stephen (Doran, crew chief) did a really good job on the box all day of just painting the picture in my head of who I was up against.

“We had two great pit stops. Just so stoked to get (sponsor) WeatherTech in Victory Lane for their home race.”

Michael McDowell got past SVG at the start of the race and led the first 31 laps, but he had to take his car to the DVP (damaged vehicle policy) area to repair a stuck throttle and lost 22 laps in the garage.

A massive eight-car crash on Lap 3 blocked the track between Turns 10 and 11 and forced a stoppage of 14 minutes, 42 seconds. Carson Hocevar started the melee when he clipped the inside wall in Turn 10 and crashed into the opposite wall with enough force to move the Jersey barrier.

Hocevar’s No. 77 Chevrolet turned sideways, and the cars of Brad Keselowski, Daniel Suarez, Todd Gilliland, Will Brown and Riley Herbst piled into the wreck. Only Herbst and Suarez were able to continue.

“I didn’t see it until the last second,” Keselowski said. “I slowed down, and I actually felt I was going to get stopped, and then I just kind of got ran over from behind. It’s just a narrow street course, and sometimes there’s nowhere to go.”

Keselowski’s early exit made a winner of 32nd seed Ty Dillon in the In-Season Challenge. Dillon will face Bowman in next Sunday third-round event at Sonoma Raceway, after Bowman traded shot after shot with his Chicago opponent, Bubba Wallace, until Wallace spun in the closing laps to lose the head-to-head battle.

John Hunter Nemechek finished 15th, one spot ahead of Chase Elliott, to eliminate the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from the In-Season Challenge. Nemechek will face Erik Jones, who advanced when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. retired after colliding with a tire barrier.

Ryan Preece ran seventh and eliminated 30th-place finisher Noah Gragson. He’ll face Reddick, who ousted Hocevar. Gibbs prevailed over sixth-place finisher AJ Allmendinger and will race against Zane Smith at Sonoma.

Smith came home 14th and knocked out 18th-place Chris Buescher, who ran most of the race with an engine down on power.

Series leader William Byron was out of the race with a broken clutch after one lap and finished 40th. His lead in the standings over second-place Elliott shrank to 13 points.

• Saturday, June 28th, 2025
• NASCAR Wire Service - Reid Spencer

Corey Heim Crushes Lime Rock Debut, Becomes First to Win 3 Straight Truck Road Races

Corey Heim’s victory in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series’ debut at Lime Rock Park wasn’t just a case of domination. It was an eyelash away from perfection.

Heim led 99 of 100 laps at the 1.478-mile road course in bucolic Lakeville, Connecticut, to win the LiUNA! 150—his fifth victory of the season and the 16th of his career.

The only lap Heim failed to lead came on a restart with five laps left, after Matt Mills ran off course and stalled near Turn 1 on Lap 90. Layne Riggs beat Heim to the start/finish line on Lap 96 but drove hard into the first corner and stacked up the field behind him, scrambling positions two through five.

Aside from the one lap he didn’t lead, Heim’s performance was the model of consistent excellence. The driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota posted the fastest lap of the race on his second circuit (54.941 seconds), swept both stages, and posted dramatic margins over his closest pursuers in each of the first two segments.

Heim is the first driver in Truck Series history to win three-straight road-course races, having triumphed at Mid-Ohio in 2023 and Circuit of the Americas last year.

“Yeah, that was nothing short of incredible,” Heim acknowledged. “These road courses—I really look forward to them, pre-event and whatnot, and I really prepare for them, so to see all that pay off with (sponsor) Safelite, TRICON, Toyota, it’s super special.

“Obviously, the truck was so good today. I can’t complain one bit about that. A flawless day and we will take that and move forward and try and collect some wins that we should have had this year.”

Reigning series champion Ty Majeski was the beneficiary of Riggs’ aggressive charge into Turn 1 on the final restart. Majeski inherited the runner-up position and crossed the finish line 1.381 seconds behind Heim.

“Honestly, we struggled with the truck a little bit to fire off,” Majeski said. “We kept getting it better progressively each and every run. So, got it close at the end, had a shot at Corey and probably got a little over-zealous in Turn 4, hit the curb and kind of ruined my shot to make him a least a little nervous and try to force him into a mistake.

“From there, he just got too much breathing room and was kind of able to do his thing. Overall, really good day. This is the point when I want to turn our season around—going to IRP (Lucas Oil Indianapolis raceway Park), Watkins Glen and Richmond next. Three really good tracks for us, so I’m excited for this Playoff stretch.”

Rookie Giovanni Ruggiero ran third, followed by Ben Rhodes and Australian Cam Waters, as ThorSport Racing put three drivers in the top five (Majeski, Rhodes and Waters).

Riggs fell to 12th during the Turn 1 melee and finished 13th. Road course ace Jordan Taylor, who finished third in the first two stages, dropped to 20th at the finish.

Heim started from the pole and led all 35 laps in Stage 1, building an advantage of 7.065 seconds over second-place Riggs at the first green/checkered flag. Third-place Taylor, a star in the sportscar ranks, was 14.051 seconds in arrears at the first stage break.

After Lap 37, the race trucks came to pit road for a controlled stop under red-flag conditions. The restart on Lap 40 brought no changes at the front of the field. Heim cleared Riggs through the first two corners and quickly expanded his advantage over the second-place truck.

The second stage mirrored the first. Heim beat Riggs to the finish line by 7.281 seconds, with Taylor in third trailing by 14.286 seconds. The two stage wins were the 13th and 14th for Heim this season.