NASCAR Enjoy Illinois 300 takeaways: Kyle Larson returns to victory lane with double-OT win at Gateway

Most impressively, Larson outlasted Logano, who has arguably become the driver to beat on these types of layouts and appeared to be for much of the race after winning the pole on Saturday.

Instead, Larson backed up his strong showing in the Southern 500 at Darlington when he nearly won the Chase opener, only to come up short after a late strategy call. One week later, he proved that was just a preview with his first win at Gateway and the 33rd of his career, moving to within nine points of Denny Hamlin for the championship lead.

Several Chase drivers encounter trouble

While Sunday's race was a battle of attrition the entire day, the first significant issue among the title contenders came when Ryan Blaney suffered a brake failure entering Turn 1 on Lap 155.

A similar issue took place for Chase Elliott with 27 laps to go when he lost control entering Turn 1 and took fellow title contender Chase Briscoe with him into the outside wall.

Moments later, Bubba Wallace, Darlington winner Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick were all involved in a multi-car crash with non-Chase driver Josh Berry, one that briefly sent Reddick airborne down the backstretch.

Those were just a few of the stoppages in the race, but they each highlighted the chaos that drivers encountered all day. From Blaney losing valuable points at a track he was expected to contend for the win at to Elliott and Briscoe losing out on potential top-10 runs and Bell getting denied back-to-back wins to begin the Chase, it was a race full of missed opportunities.

Strong runs for non-Chase drivers

Perhaps lost in the chaos of Sunday's race just outside of St. Louis was the competitive outings from the non-Chase drivers. From Bowman (second), Ross Chastain (fifth), Austin Dillon (sixth) and rookie Connor Zilisch (seventh), it was the type of run that has been missing for the majority of the season for each of them.

Even Brad Keselowski, who came into the weekend following a run-in with Carson Hocevar at Darlington, led 55 laps before fading to 12th. On a day the title contenders ran into trouble, the door opened for others to step up and put together much-needed performances.

Chaotic start sets the stage for wild race

The opening stage of Sunday's 300-mile race was just 45 laps in length, but it was anything but straightforward with four cautions in the first 28 laps and a lot of strategy moves.

Even Chase drivers Reddick and Daniel Suarez were not immune to the calamity as they made contact on just the third lap of the race. As a result of the rash of early cautions, several drivers hit pit road and cycled to the front for the start of Stage 2, completely mixing up the running order in a race that featured little rhythm.