Alex Bowman wins rain-shortened Chicago Street Race to punch ticket to NASCAR playoffs

Alex Bowman is back in the NASCAR playoffs.

The 31-year-old driver for Hendrick Motorsports snapped an 80-race winless streak on Sunday in downtown Chicago, taking the lead before the final stage and holding off the field to return to victory lane for the first time in two years.

Sunday’s Grant Park 165 — marking the second straight year the Cup Series took to the streets of downtown Chicago — was red-flagged for 1 hour, 43 minutes due to rain after starting late on wet-weather tires. A clock was implemented with a cutoff time of 9:20 p.m. ET, but the advertised distance hadn’t been completed by then, so NASCAR had the leader take the white flag on the next drive by.

That leader turned out to be Bowman.

Bowman got to the lead early in the final stage, and Tyler Reddick charged toward him over the final laps. But the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy held off Reddick.

“I broke my back, had a brain injury, and we’ve kind of sucked ever since,” Bowman said. “You start to second-guess if you’re ever going to get a chance to win a race again. Last one we won, we didn’t really get to celebrate.

“We’re going to drink so much damn bourbon tonight, it’s going to be a bad deal. I’m probably going to wake up naked on the bathroom floor again. That’s just part of this deal sometimes.”

After wrecks involving favorites Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Larson, Sunday’s race became wide-open as the clock neared its finish. Joey Hand, the 45-year-old part-time Cup driver for RFK Racing, took Stage 2 and collected the first stage win of his career, ultimately finishing the rain-shortened race in fourth.

Reddick came in second, Ty Gibbs third and Michael McDowell fifth.

NASCAR returns to Chicago

While rain came later in the day during Sunday’s Cup race, NASCAR made its mark all over downtown Chicago for the second straight year.

Former Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte gave the command to fire the engines on Sunday, and Hockey Hall of Famer and Chicago Blackhawks legend Chris Chelios said the most famous words in motorsports before Saturday’s Xfinity Series race.

The Chainsmokers performed on Saturday night, and Keith Urban took the stage on Sunday afternoon. The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, spoke at the driver’s meeting and expressed his enthusiasm for NASCAR being in the city.

Mayor Johnson even wore a fire suit on pit road:

“Sirius,” the theme song of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls during the 1990s, played while drivers were introduced.

SVG wrecks after winning Xfinity, opening stage of Cup

Shane van Gisbergen, the winner of the inaugural Chicago Street Race, couldn’t complete a trifecta of wins there.

A day after charging through the field over the final laps to win the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, the New Zealand-born driver entered Sunday’s Cup Series race as the favorite.

SVG started fifth on Sunday and won Stage 1, working around the cars of Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell and Reddick to get to the lead. He wrecked after making heavy contact with the wall on Lap 26 after Chase Briscoe got into the tire barrier.

“Just gutting,” van Gisbergen told reporters outside the infield care center. “Of course I’m disappointed. We had a really amazing Camaro there. Kaulig and Trackhouse gave us a great car. We were able to lead, and I felt like I was driving well within myself. So, yeah, it’s a shame to be out so early and it’s a shame we couldn’t have a proper crack at it at the end.”

On Saturday, van Gisbergen battled with the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Larson early before overtaking Ty Gibbs with two laps left. It marked van Gisbergen’s third Xfinity win this season after securing checkered flags in back-to-back weeks at Portland and Sonoma.

NASCAR’s current Next Gen car is designed to make both left and right turns, like the sports cars that van Gisbergen is accustomed to from Supercars in Australia and New Zealand. He was fast again in the Cup Series race on Sunday in the No. 16 Chevy — but his day ended early.

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