World Wide Technology Raceway

• 1.25-mile egg
• Midwest date
• Cup newcomer

Booth notes

Gateway sat across the river from St. Louis for years as a Truck and IndyCar house before Cup finally showed up in 2022. The 1.25-mile egg is not a cookie-cutter 1.5 — one end sweeps, the other pinches, and the place drives more like a big short track than Kansas. Joey Logano won the first one. Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, and Denny Hamlin followed. Kyle Larson closed the book on a double-overtime Enjoy Illinois 300 in Sept. 2026 — his first Cup win of the season, the 33rd of his career, and the first Chase race ever run at this track. Mountain clocks: Sunday afternoon green.

Cup now has five points races here (2022–2026). Kyle Larson won the first Chase race at Gateway — double overtime, his first 2026 Cup win and 33rd career.

1. 012026

   Kyle Larson · #5

   Enjoy Illinois 300

2. 022025

   Denny Hamlin · #11

   Enjoy Illinois 300

3. 032024

   Austin Cindric · #2

   Enjoy Illinois 300

4. 042023

   Kyle Busch · #8

   Enjoy Illinois 300

5. 052022

   Joey Logano · #22

   Enjoy Illinois 300 presented by TicketSmarter

Fun facts

• Cup debuted here in 2022, taking a date that had been a second Pocono race.

• Five Cup races, five different winners. Nobody has gone back-to-back — yet.

• Madison, Illinois, not Missouri. The grandstands look at St. Louis across the Mississippi.

• The egg is tighter than a 1.5-mile intermediate and meaner than the length suggests.

• Larson’s 2026 win went double overtime — the first Chase race at Gateway. CHECKERED.