Jesse Love Wins at Gateway, and Creed Takes the Lead in the NASCAR Chase

The NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase has a new leader after the round at World Wide Technology Raceway, where two separate crashes struck several of the twelve title contenders and Jesse Love took advantage to claim his first win of the year.

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Sheldon Creed, winner the previous week at Darlington, moved into the championship lead by just three points over Justin Allgaier, who had held the top spot since the Circuit of the Americas race in late February. Carson Kvapil dropped to third, nine points behind Allgaier, while Love climbed to fourth, sixteen points off the lead. Sam Mayer and Taylor Gray finished third and fourth in the race, respectively.

Kvapil started from pole and controlled much of the one hundred eighty laps before Love found his way to the front with fifteen laps remaining, following light contact between the two cars. Love held the position to the checkered flag and crossed the line less than a second ahead of Creed, earning his fourth career win in the series and his first of the season, as well as his first triumph at the Illinois oval, where he had previously raced with results below his expectations.

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The title fight was marked by two incidents that affected several of the cars competing for the championship. The first occurred just as the opening stage of the race ended, when a chain-reaction crash at the pit entrance involved several Chevrolets and Toyotas from the lead group. Rajah Caruth's car hit Nick Sanchez's, whose car slid toward the space where Brent Crews's crew was performing its pit stop, though no crew members were injured. The red flag lasted nearly eight minutes to remove the damaged cars and clear pit road, where Corey Day's car had been trapped. Brandon Jones and Caruth, with significant damage, returned to the track much further back in the running order.

Justin Allgaier avoided that first crash but left his own pit stop with a loose wheel and had to return to the pits, dropping him to nineteenth position. He recovered steadily to ninth and reached sixth by the end of the second stage, won by Love, but right-front damage to his car during the second incident of the night cost him ground in the closing laps. He finished thirteenth and lost the championship lead he had held for months.

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That second incident occurred on lap one hundred thirty-three, when Corey Day and William Sawalich made contact again, a week after a similar episode between the two at Darlington. At Gateway, Day entered the first corner on the inside, but a push from Allgaier shifted him toward Sawalich's car. Sawalich responded on the backstretch by hitting the right side of Day's Chevrolet, which lost control, slid, and slammed hard into the inside barrier. Day was eliminated in thirty-third place. After leaving the infield medical center, he avoided referring directly to Sawalich, and the latter also did not go into details about the episode.

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The result left Day in eighth place in the championship, sixty-nine points behind Creed, with seven races still remaining in the season. Austin Hill, who had moved into the top five in the final laps, had to make an unscheduled pit stop with four laps to go and finished twenty-ninth, one lap behind the winner.

Nu Way 225 2026

Pos	Nº	driver	team	brand	time
1	#2	Jesse Love (C)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	-
2	#00	Sheldon Creed (C)	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet	+0.90s
3	#41	Sam Mayer (C)	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet	+55.78s
4	#54	Taylor Gray (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+1.67s
5	#1	Carson Kvapil (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	+2.64s
6	#99	Parker Retzlaff (C)	Viking Motorsports	Chevrolet	+4.36s
7	#19	Brent Crews # (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+7.11s
8	#8	Sammy Smith (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	+9.49s
9	#28	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing	Chevrolet	+10.17s
10	#27	Jeb Burton	Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport	Chevrolet	+10.32s
11	#88	Rajah Caruth (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	+11.81s
12	#26	Dean Thompson	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	+12.43s
13	#7	Justin Allgaier (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	+13.08s
14	#39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Chevrolet	+13.53s
15	#20	Brandon Jones (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+14.28s
16	#18	William Sawalich	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+14.63s
17	#48	Patrick Staropoli #	Big Machine Racing	Chevrolet	+14.97s
18	#92	Josh Williams	DGM Racing x JIM	Chevrolet	+16.13s
19	#44	Brennan Poole	Alpha Prime Racing	Ford	+17.18s
20	#31	Blaine Perkins	Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport	Chevrolet	+17.47s
21	#91	Mason Maggio	DGM Racing x JIM	Chevrolet	+19.05s
22	#96	Anthony Alfredo	Viking Motorsports	Chevrolet	+19.86s
23	#32	Jordan Anderson	Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport	Chevrolet	+21.76s
24	#02	Ryan Ellis	Young's Motorsports	Chevrolet	+21.93s
25	#0	Myatt Snider	SS GreenLight Racing	Chevrolet	+27.82s
26	#07	Josh Bilicki	SS GreenLight Racing	Chevrolet	+31.80s
27	#55	Joey Gase	Joey Gase Motorsports	Ford	+32.49s
28	#42	Brad Perez	Young's Motorsports	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
29	#21	Austin Hill (C)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
30	#45	Lavar Scott #	Alpha Prime Racing	Ford	+1 vuelta
31	#51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	+12 vueltas
32	#53	Austin J Hill	Joey Gase Motorsports	Chevrolet	+27 vueltas
33	#17	Corey Day (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	+47 vueltas
34	#87	Nick Sanchez	Peterson Racing Group	Chevrolet	+132 vueltas
35	#24	Harrison Burton	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	+132 vueltas
36	#47	Dawson Cram	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	+180 vueltas