CHICAGO, Ill. – Alex Bowman snapped an 80-race winless streak by winning the Grant Park 165 on wet tires at the Chicago Street Race.

Due to limited visibility with darkness looming, NASCAR was forced to add a time limit to Sunday’s street course race in downtown Chicago. While the leaders opted for slick Goodyear tires in the final 20 minutes of the race prior to the end of Stage 2, Bowman and others catapulted to the front of the field after choosing to stay on wet tires.

As the laps ticked away, drivers who were on slick tires made significant progress as they sliced through the field. On the final restart with 4 minutes 30 seconds remaining, Tyler Reddick made his way to second place behind Bowman, but while in pursuit, the 23XI Racing driver clipped an inside wall on the last lap and lost the opportunity to challenge for the win.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Bowman held on to capture his first win since March 2022 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Sunday’s victory marked the eighth of his career and the first since he fractured a vertebra in an Iowa sprint car crash. With the win, Bowman will now compete in the 2024 NASCAR Playoffs.

Bowman said, “Man, I broke my back, had a brain injury, and we’ve kind of sucked ever since, and I didn’t — 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.”

Reddick held on to finish second after the mishap on the final lap. Following the race, he was bummed about making the mistake and coming up just short of a victory in consecutive weekends. Reddick has now finishes inside of the top-five in four of the last seven races.

“We were catching Alex by a large margin there, and — I don’t know, that puzzles me,” Reddick said. “I clearly just screwed up. Trying to stay in the dry groove and I had more than enough of dry groove, as I’m seeing right behind you. I cut the wheel a little too hard.

“Just not focused enough, I guess. I knew I was going to get to him. I knew the earlier I could get to him the more options I was going to have. It was going to get a little bit more slick off line beyond Turn 8.”

Ty Gibbs finished third. He was another driver who pitted for slick tires towards the end of Stage 2. He was running in second prior to the final pit stop. Gibbs made his way through the field quickly, but he just didn’t have enough time to chase down Bowman and challenge him. Gibbs is still winless on the season, but he’s currently well above the NASCAR Playoffs cutline.

“Yeah, it was, but it made it fun because we had to work our way through, and everybody then just followed and put rain tires on — dry tires on,” Gibbs said about pit strategy. “I feel like if everybody put dry tires on with the way the conditions were, it would have been a crapshoot.

“I’m kind of glad that half put rain tires on, but at the same time I wish the 48 took drys so we could catch him. But whatever, congrats to them.”

Joey Hand and Michael McDowell finished fourth and fifth respectively. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished sixth, followed by Todd Gilliland, William Byron, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.

Shane van Gisbergen won Stage 1. He was one of the favorites heading into the race; however, he was taken out on Lap 26, when he was clipped by Chase Briscoe who couldn’t stop heading into Turn 6. The red flag was displayed for 1 hour 26 minutes and 1 second due to clean up and torrential rainfall.

“I don’t know, I just sort of turned in; it looked pretty good and then just got smacked by someone,” van Gisbergen said. “It’s gutting. The No. 16 Wendy’s Saucy Nuggs Camaro was really good. We were in the lead for a lot of that race. I felt good taking off in the rain, so that sucks. It’s an unfortunate mistake by him. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. But yeah, when he just clipped me, there wasn’t anything I could do.”

Hand won Stage 2 after Christopher Bell, Gibbs and the other top-running drivers pitted for slick tires.

There were nine lead changes among six drivers. Gibbs led a race high of 17 laps. Bell led 14 laps, but he was taken out in a crash late in the race while trying to rebound from pit strategy.

The caution flag flew on five occasions for 19 laps.

Kyle Larson crashed out, but he currently leads the point standings by 11 points over Elliott.

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Pocono Raceway on Sunday, July 14 for The Great American Getaway 400 Presented by VisitPA.com. Live coverage will broadcast on USA at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Christopher Vargas/TheFourthTurn.com