Fight for No. 2 seed ratchets at New Hampshire as The Chase nears

LOUDON, N.H. -- While Denny Hamlin is pulling away with the points lead in the NASCAR Cup Series, the battle for second has tightened significantly. With just two races remaining in the Cup Series' regular season, Ryan Blaney enters New Hampshire Motor Speedway with the next-best spot in the points shakedown, 115 points behind Hamlin. But just 23 points separate Blaney from fourth-place Tyler Reddick, a three-man battle featuring Ty Gibbs square in the middle. The Chase fires up in two weeks, starting with Sunday's Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and every higher seed matters as points reset for the 10-race journey to the Bill France Cup. MORE: New Hampshire hub | Cup standings Blaney, the defending Loudon winner, has two victories on the board this season and has led significant laps in each of the last two weeks at Iowa Speedway (129 laps led) and Richmond Raceway (88). But regardless of his notable speed and time spent out front, the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford is still watching the standings in hopes of clinching that No. 2 seed in The Chase. The second seed starts with a 10-point advantage over third place and 15 over fourth. "I look at the points once or twice a week, usually the night after the race to see where everyone's at, and then I kind of remind myself where everyone's at before the weekend comes," Blaney said Saturday. "They don't consume my whole race, but I notice where those guys are running just because we are in the fight with those guys for the second spot. But it doesn't change our race. We won't strategize our race around the 45 (Reddick) or the 54 (Gibbs). We strategize to try to win the race, and then the points stuff take care of themselves. But yeah, you do know that and we do know from second to fourth is is a decent chunk of points. So yeah, that's kind of goal number one outside of winning the race the next two weeks, try to stay ahead of those two guys." Twelve points behind No. 12, Gibbs won his second race of 2026 two weeks ago at Iowa, reinforcing his newfound position as a mainstay in NASCAR's top five, where he's placed his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in points since the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend. With great speed comes great responsibility, though. That means avoiding any unforced errors. "Well, I can't speed on pit road," Gibbs said with a smile, harkening back to costly penalties at both North Wilkesboro and Richmond in the last four races. "That's the number one thing, and then just putting races together, and yeah, hopefully go out and have a shot to win this one." To be in contention for a high Chase seed is new territory for Gibbs this late in the season. The 2026 campaign has easily been a breakout year for the 23-year-old, already eclipsing career highs in top fives (10) and top 10s (15) this season, improving his average finish by a whopping six positions from 17.9 in 2025 to 11.7 in 2026. "Yeah, it's been a great season for me," Gibbs said. "You know, it's a big uprise for us from the last year so it's been a lot of fun. And yeah, I'm just glad that you know we can finally show our speed off and it's been a lot of fun this year too, so just hoping to go win some more races and put it all together." No one has started a Cup Series season hotter than Reddick, who began the year with a rousing Daytona 500 win that kicked off a span of three straight victories and five in the year's first nine races. His summer took a downward turn starting at Michigan International Speedway in May, though, dotting his results sheet with seven finishes of 25th or worse in the last 10 races. But after a midweek visit from 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan, Reddick and the No. 45 team rallied from a 32nd-place qualifying effort at Richmond to finish 11th last weekend. That result may not sound like much, but after a spin in practice and a poor time trial, Reddick conceded it was a "big deal." He now enters Sunday's race at New Hampshire 11 points behind Gibbs for third. "The race didn't get going good for us," Reddick said. "We didn't go anywhere, and just for us to grind out like like we did and get the result, pass cars, drive to the front almost every single time, that's kind of the stuff we were looking for out of it. Yeah, the result at the end of the day would have been great, but how we dealt with all the setbacks throughout the day kind of felt like the beginning of the year in that sense. We just didn't let anything faze us." And if the No. 45 team can rekindle its early-season magic, that could spell danger for the rest of The Chase championship hopefuls -- with optimism bolstered by a New Hampshire pole qualifying effort Saturday afternoon. "If we finish the year the way we started, we'll be just fine," Reddick said. "Yeah, just get back to scoring stage points, qualifying good. We can just stack some of those races in a row. If we can do that here and then go do what we normally do at the speedways at Daytona, we should be in a really good spot for that."