NASCAR Chicago street race winners and losers: Alex Bowman ends streak on another rainy day

Two years of Chicago street races and NASCAR is still waiting on a dry Cup race.

Rain was the big storyline for the second straight year. It hurt the best street race drivers in the race in Kyle Larson and Shane van Gisbergen.

Alex Bowman ended an 80-race winless drought after staying on the course on wet tires while others raced on slicks. He beat Tyler Reddick and Joey Hand.

Here are our winners and losers from Sunday's Chicago street race.

Winners

Alex Bowman

Bowman snapped 80-race winless streak, holding off Tyler Reddick. He is the last of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers to win a race this season, joining William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

Ty Gibbs

Give Gibbs credit. He can navigate a road course. Gibbs finished third and raced near the front for a good portion of the race. This third-place finish came after finishing third in Austin, Texas at COTA. He qualified second both road races.

Joey Hand

Who is Joey Hand? Right? Hand finished fourth for RFK Racing and won the second stage. He was brought in specifically for the Chicago street race. It was his first Cup start since 2022. Hand a road racer, has been helping Ford with its Gen-7 road race development.

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Losers

Kyle Larson and Shane van Gisbergen

Larson and van Gisbergen were the race favorites for Sunday. They finished 39th and 40th — the last two spots, respectively. van Gisbergen, who won the 2023 Chicago street race, was taken out by Chase Briscoe before the race was red flagged because of rain. Larson missed a turned and went almost windshield deep into a tire barrier. So much for a showdown between two of the top road-course drivers in the Cup Series.

NASCAR

Maybe this is simply bad luck. Two straight years the Chicago street race has been ran on wet conditions. Sure, NASCAR can't control the weather. But they need to find a way to run it earlier so if it does rain, there is a time buffer to get the race in. As cool as a NASCAR street race is, there is only one shot. There is no coming back Monday to finish it if its rained out.

Tyler Reddick

Give Reddick credit in that he knows how close he's been to winning the past two weeks. Last week he was upset with not being able to top Joey Logano at Nashville. This week, he finished second and had a chance to run down Bowman for first, but turned a corner short and brushed against the wall, ruining his chance to catch Bowman. In reality, if he hits his turns he probably wins.