RICK WARE RACING
Enjoy Illinois 300
Date: June 2, 2024
Event: Enjoy Illinois 300 (Round 15 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois (near St. Louis)
Layout: 1.25-mile oval
Format: 240 laps, broken into three stages (45 laps/95 laps/100 laps)
Race Winner: Austin Cindric of Team Penske (Ford)
Stage 1 Winner: Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
RWR Race Finish:
● Justin Haley (Started 21st, Finished 9th/ Running, completed 240 of 240 laps)
● Cody Ware (Started 34th, Finished 33rd/ Running, completed 240 of 240 laps)
RWR Points:
● Justin Haley (31st with 205 points)
● Cody Ware (39 with 17 points)
Haley Notes:
● Haley earned his second top-10 and fifth top-20 of the season and his first top-10 in three career NASCAR Cup Series starts at WWTR.
● Haley matched his best finish of the season – ninth, first earned May 12 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. It is his second top-10 in the last three points-paying races and matched the best result on a non-superspeedway-type track for RWR.
● Haley’s ninth-place finish bettered his previous best finish at WWTR – 14th, earned in June 2022.
● The result is a new team-best for RWR at WWTR. The previous best was 24th, earned in June 2023 by J.J. Yeley.
Ware Notes:
● This was Ware’s second start of the season.
● Ware’s 33rd-place finish bettered his previous best finish at WWTR – 35th, earned in June 2022.
Race Notes:
● Austin Cindric won the Enjoy Illinois 300 to score his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his first at Gateway. His margin of victory over second-place Denny Hamlin was 3.844 seconds.
● This was Ford’s 730th all-time NASCAR Cup Series victory and its second of the season.
● This was Ford’s second NASCAR Cup Series win at Gateway. Joey Logano won the track’s inaugural race for the Blue Oval in 2022.
● There were five caution periods for a total of 32 laps.
● Twenty-four of the 36 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Hamlin remains the championship leader after Gateway with a 21-point advantage over second-place Kyle Larson.
Sound Bites:
“It was a really good race for the MotoRad 51 team. I’m really proud of the strategy that the Rick Ware Racing team brought. It was a fast competitive car, and we were able to stay with it all day and make positive adjustments. When the final stage started, we really started picking up speed and had a lot of pace in the car. We had some good strategy and ran out of fuel right there at the line, but still got a top-10 and now we’ve got solid momentum going to Sonoma.”– Justin Haley, driver of the No. 51 MotoRad Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“It was a tough day for the No. 15 team. I didn’t start off great for us but once I got settled in, we had really good pace. We were running top-10 speeds by the end of the race. I felt like it was good overall improvement for me, for only my second race this year. It’s been encouraging to see how much the organization is improving and building. We’ll keep working and learning.” – Cody Ware, driver of the No. 15 Jacob Construction Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Save Mart 350k on Sunday, June 9 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
