O’REILLY: Dawson Cram and Mike Harmon’s first run with Team Stange ends with engine trouble
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
PHOTO: Dawson Cram, @dawsoncram41
Dawson Cram picked up the 6th last-place finish of his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career in Saturday’s Cuervo 300 at the Chicagoland Speedway when his #47 Slab Hard Chevrolet lost the engine after 35 of 201 laps.
The finish, which came in Cram’s 50th series start, was his second of the season and first since Texas, eight races ago. In the O’Reilly series rankings, it was the 17th for the #47, the 294th from engine issues, and the 694th for Chevrolet. Across NASCAR’s top three series, it was the 59th for the #47, the 1,167th from the engine, and the 2,050th for Chevrolet.
With the finish, Cram now leads the 2026 LASTCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Championship, taking the spot from Kyle Sieg.
When Cram was last featured here, his ride with Mike Harmon Racing had just joined forces with Joey Gase Motorsports with Scott Osteen. This kept Cram in Harmon’s black Chevrolet, which now carried Gase’s #35 in the Harmon team’s font, plus the Gase team’s logo on both bumpers. In the 11 races run in 2026 leading to the union’s debut in Texas, Gase’s #35 failed to qualify four times, nearly matching Harmon’s three. The pair of Harmon and Gase have made every race since, including rare road course starts for the Harmon team in Watkins Glen, plus the even more rare west coast races in San Diego and Sonoma. For those races, Cram drove Harmon’s road course car, the Verinext-sponsored car Devin Jones attempted to race in the 2023 return to the Charlotte “Roval.” The team’s hauler even carried a backup car for those races, a bright green Chevrolet from the Gase team.
For this week, Cram and Harmon prepared a car as part of a different joint effort with Team Stange Racing. Owned by businessman John Stange, Jr., this effort has been trying to work its way into NASCAR since 2012, when Stange bought Larry Clement’s ARCA team. In 2019, Stange funded Oriol Servia’s Schmidt Peterson Motorsport entry into the Indianapolis 500, where he finished 22nd. Then in 2022, they planned to enter the Cup Series race at Road America with Brazilian driver Tarso Marques piloting a #79 Ford sponsored by cryptocurrency Dignity Gold. This didn’t happen, nor were they successful in entering cars in both the O’Reilly or Truck Series, so they shifted focus to the Brazilian GT Sprint Race Series, a touring car division that has since been bought by NASCAR.
It may have been surprising, then, that Stange’s name came up once more this week, joining forces with Harmon, but Stange cites Chicago as his team’s base of operations. The team would again change car numbers, bringing back the #47 that Harmon had once used when he fielded two O’Reilly cars. Prepared in the Harmon team’s shop, the car carried a red-white-and-blue scheme for the Chicagoland race set to be run on the Fourth of July.
The crew would wear new uniforms beating a series of sponsors Stange brought aboard, including cryptocurrency REMI (Rare Earth Mineral Investments) Token, paint company EnduraTread, and Slabhard, a company that makes special floor coatings. However, according to Team Stange’s Facebook page, the team was notified two days before the race that the team was required to obtain special insurance to protect NASCAR, the team, and driver when a cryptocurrency joins as sponsor. Unable to arrange this in tie, the REMI Token logos were removed and Slabhard expanded its presence, becoming the listed primary sponsor for the team.
Cram was one of the 38 drivers entered for as many starting spots for the first NASCAR national series race at Chicagoland since 2019. He was to be the third driver to take time in qualifying, which was cancelled along with Friday practice due to the first in a series of torrential downpours. Assured the 36th starting spot for the race, Cram participated in Saturday’s rescheduled practice, where he again ranked 36th with a best lap of 32.864 seconds (164.314mph).
Securing the 38th and final starting spot was J.J. Yeley, who rejoined RSS Racing to drive the team’s part-time #38, which last ran at Pocono, and which was last fielded as a Ford in Yeley’s most recent series start in Nashville. Again, Yeley’s car ran with limited sponsorship on a mostly black paint scheme, though associate backing signed from Pit Crew BBQ, KK’s Diecast, and LMM. Also joining the effort was LASTCAR reader and aspiring racer Colby Evans (@StartAndParkCar on Twitter). There were originally no drivers reported to the back of the field, but NASCAR directed 34th-place starter Lavar Scott to drop to the back for unapproved adjustments on his #45 Sunoco Chevrolet.
When the green flag dropped, the last spot fell to Tyler Tomassi, who climbed aboard the #53 F&F Chevrolet for Joey Gase Motorsports. At the end of Lap 1, he was 5.792 seconds back of the lead, battling alongside teammate Joey Gase in the #55 JT Concrete Chevrolet. By Lap 2, Tomassi had already fallen over ten seconds back of the lead, and on Lap 4 was told by his team to focus on arcing his car into the corner. On Lap 10, Tomassi radioed “the vibration’s back and it’s pretty bad,” which occurred halfway down each straightaway. The team believed this was from the drivetrain, and had Tomassi report on the oil pressure, which was holding at 50. On Lap 20, he was first to lose a lap, followed by Gase on Lap 23.
On Lap 27, Tomassi’s crew discussed a possible trip to the garage. The driver reported the car’s condition hadn’t changed, and the oil pressure was still good. He was running in last place until Lap 36, when the position fell to Cram. The #47 made it to pit road on Lap 34, where the crew raised the hood. This dropped him from 36th to 37th behind Gase, then 38th behind Tomassi. He remained on pit road until Lap 41, when he pulled behind the wall seven laps down. Pitted at Stall 26, just three stalls behind the starting line, Cram’s last completed lap was shown at 217.329 seconds, or just over 3 minutes, 30 seconds.
A moment later, 35th-place running Josh Bilicki, who was losing spots through the first stage, made a pit stop in his #07 Granum x Creekside Outdoors Chevrolet. Bilicki remained on pit road until the end of Stage 1, returning to the track three laps down in 37th. Tomassi, now 35th, was directly in front of leader Connor Zilisch when Stage 1 ended, narrowly avoiding losing a second lap. Teammate Gase lost a second lap in 36th, and just 27 drivers remained on the lead lap after Jeb Burton earned the Lucky Dog.
Cram didn’t return to the track in Stage 2, and was soon joined by Yeley, who pulled his #38 behind the wall on Lap 59. Running just one lap down in 34th at the time, Yeley promptly fell to 37th, scored 20 laps ahead of Cram. And on Lap 64, NASCAR declared both Cram and Yeley out of the race. For Yeley, it was the fifth straight DNF for the #38 team, dating back to when RSS first fielded their Ford in Dover. Bilicki came home 36th with Gase in 34th. Between them in 35th came Jeremy Clements, who lost a left-rear wheel on his #51 Sky Fund Aviation Chevrolet, putting him two laps down at the checkered flag.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This marked the first last-place finish for the #47 in an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race since April 8, 2022, when Brennan Poole’s run in Harmon’s #47 Save22.vet Chevrolet ended with clutch issues at the start in Martinsville. The number had never before finished last in an O’Reilly race at Chicagoland.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
38) #47-Dawson Cram / 35 laps / engine
37) #38-J.J. Yeley / 55 laps / power steering
36) #07-Josh Bilicki / 196 laps / running
35) #51-Jeremy Clements / 198 laps / running
34) #55-Joey Gase / 198 laps / running
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES OWNER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) RSS Racing (3)
2nd) DGM Racing x JIM, Joey Gase Motorsports with Scott Osteen, Young’s Motorsports (2)
2nd) AM Racing, Big Machine Racing, Haas Factory Team, Hendrick Motorsports, Hettinger Racing, JR Motorsports, Mike Harmon Racing, Sam Hunt Racing, SS-Green Light Racing, Viking Motorsports (1)
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES MANUFACTURER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (14)
2nd) Ford (4)
3rd) Toyota (1)
2026 LASTCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES DRIVER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
