It’s a home game for the NASCAR industry as all three premier series take center stage this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series kicks off the action Friday night, followed by the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series on Saturday and the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday. Charlotte is the first of five straight tripleheaders to end the 2026 season as The Chase presented by Mobil 1 reaches crunch time. This weekend also marks the first time since 2017 that the fall festivities in the Queen City are on the 1.5-mile oval, rather than on the track’s Roval configuration. Bookmark this page and return often for your race-week essentials, from qualifying orders, pit stalls, results and more.
THOMPSON, Conn. — As Patrick Emerling walked into The Raceway bar and restaurant at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on Saturday night, everyone inside stood up and began to cheer.
In Emerling’s arms was something he’d spent the last 16 years dreaming about holding: the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship trophy.
The 34-year-old from Orchard Park, New York had finally achieved the one goal he’d set for himself when he began racing sportsman modifieds when he was 16. The road was long and often bumpy, but in the end, he reached his destination.
“When I first started in this series, I feel like I struggled a lot as a driver,” Emerling said. “I would have never thought that 16-year-old me first getting into sportsman modifieds or 13- or 14-year-old go kart me, I would have never thought that this would’ve ever happened.”
(Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
Emerling’s evolution from a raw rookie to NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion took time. He made his series debut as an 18-year-old in 2011, earning just one top-five finish in 16 races.
Quitting after that one season would have been easy; it would’ve saved him time, money and heartache.
Instead, Emerling persevered. He continued with the Modified Tour because he had a dream. It wasn’t going to be easy, but Emerling had the time and the patience necessary to accomplish the goal.
“I didn’t start winning races, right? In a modified, I started by not running good consistently to learning and figuring it out,” Emerling said. “Like even when I first started, these top fives were tough.”
Emerling didn’t win his first Modified Tour race until 2017, seven years after he made his debut. He wouldn’t see Victory Lane with the series again until 2021, a year that saw him win three times and narrowly miss out on the championship.
For the two years that followed, Emerling raced part-time. Then, in 2024, he was offered the opportunity to drive for a new team owned by Rich Gautreau and led by championship-winning crew chief Dale Hedquist.
“When this team started, Dale is the one that for whatever reason, we were talking one day. He didn’t know me much, but I was his driver,” Emerling said. “He chose me to drive the Fleetworks No. 1 car. He told Rich that Pat needs to be in the car. The rest is history. I owe him everything.”
(Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
Hedquist, who previously won the Modified Tour championship as crew chief for Jon McKennedy in 2022, saw something in Emerling that perhaps Emerling hadn’t yet seen in himself.
He knew that if he assembled the right team of people and gave Emerling the right tools, then Emerling could not only win races, but also championships.
“This has always been a dream of his. It’s been a dream of his dad’s,” Hedquist said. “We’ve had some lengthy conversations about this. Pat really wanted to get a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. He’s won in every form of racing he’s ever been in, but until you get the ring and you hold that black trophy up, it doesn’t hit the same.
“It’s the most prestigious racing in the country. The hardest racing in the country.”
Hedquist built the team around Emerling. Every crew member that joined the No. 1 team is as dedicated as the next. They’ve put in the hours at the shop, the hours on the road and the hours at the track.
They all had one dream, and they were either going to succeed or fail together.
(Photo: Kostas Lymperopoulos/NASCAR)
“I’ve done this before with Jonathan (McKennedy) in 2022, but this one is more special because of the people that are around it,” Hedquist said. “Pat and his dad and all the guys that we assembled, these guys stuck this team out when we first started it. We didn’t really have a direction, we didn’t know where we were going, and this core group of guys stayed with me.”
As the team began to gel, the results began to come. Emerling won three races in 2024 and two in 2025 and had become a serious championship contender.
This year, a new partnership with USNEPower and David Miller, who took over ownership of the No. 1 team, pushed the team to the next level.
Emerling won five times this season, and entering the finale, he had scored enough points to simply start the race and win the championship.
The hard work finally paid off.
“This is absolutely what we all strive to do,” said Miller. “Coming as a 10-year-old to watch modifieds with my father, I always had visions of driving or being involved in a team. So, to be involved in a team at this level is beyond the vision I had as a kid. These guys are really special, and to let me be a part of it is phenomenal.
“Patrick and Dale are very similar. They’re very calm. They’re very calculated. They don’t really waste motion. They know what it’s going to take, and they work toward that objective, whether it’s in preparation or during the race. You listen to them on the radio, they’re never frazzled. They just know what needs to be done, and they’re going to get it done.”
And that’s exactly what Emerling and Hedquist did this year. They got things done.
(Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
The five wins for Emerling are a career high for a single season. He had more top fives and top 10s than any driver this year and led more laps than anyone on his way to the championship.
He did that against what he considers some of the best race-car drivers not just in the Northeast, but in the entire country.
“This is the most competitive short-track series in the country,” Emerling said. “This is pure racing right here. This is everyone having identical equipment and hard work and driving ability is what wins these races.”
Emerling paused a moment while he watched Hedquist stand on the bar and poor whiskey into the mouths of crew members.
Then he smiled.
“We finally did it,” Emerling said. “I’m just happy to be here. I’m happy to be driving the USNEPower No. 1. We’re going to enjoy it for now but try to come back next year and do the same thing.”
THOMPSON, Conn. — To cap off his Rookie of the Year campaign on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Teddy Hodgdon IV decided to play a minor spoiler on Patrick Emerling’s coronation as the 2026 champion.
Hodgdon relentlessly chased Emerling during the second half of Saturday’s World Series of Asphalt 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park. With 33 laps remaining, Hodgdon found his way around the 2026 champion to score his second victory of the year during the season finale.
The rookie closes the 2026 #NWMT season with a dub.
Teddy Hodgdon takes the checkered flag at @ThompsonSpdwy! https://t.co/e0fyU9vPsf
Besting the driver who won the Modified Tour title was a perfect note for Hodgdon to end his maiden full-time season with the series. With victories at prestigious tracks like Thompson and Stafford Motor Speedway to his name, Hodgdon is excited for what 2027 is going to bring.
“It was super similar to Stafford,” Hodgdon said. “We qualified OK, much better than Stafford, but I didn’t expect this thing to run green to checkered to be honest. Our car stayed the same, and everyone else kind of fell off. I just wanted to keep it respectful and clean the best I could because I know [Emerling was] fighting for a championship.
Hodgdon, who started ninth, had to be patient during the opening laps of the World Series 150. After gradually working his way through the field, Hodgdon watched as Emerling worked over polesitter Paulie Hartwig III.
Emerling initially held steady up front once he got around Hartwig, but a valiant defensive effort on Hodgdon ultimately came up short. By overtaking Emerling, Hodgdon became the fifth different driver to score multiple victories on the 2026 season, matching Stephen Kopcik and Matt Hirschman’s total with two.
Leading the way in the wins category this season was Emerling, who found Victory Lane on five different occasions as part of his dominant championship run. Emerling also tallied a season-high 11 top fives and led more laps than any other competitor, adding to that total at Thompson on Saturday evening.
Emerling, who has been part of the Modified Tour in some capacity since 2011, was relieved to finally join the long, prestigious list of drivers who have a title in the series.
The secret behind Emerling reaching that milestone was the cohesion he has built with his core team since they first came together in 2024.
“It’s really special,” Emerling said. “This USNE Power No. 1 team didn’t miss a beat all year. I’m speechless. I’ve been running Modifieds for quite a while, and we came pretty darn close a couple of times. We just had a little bit of tough luck for a few years, but finally we were able to get a season to go, for the most part, the way it should.”
While Emerling heads into the offseason atop the Modified Tour pedestal for the first time, Hodgdon is ready to figure out how he can improve upon his Rookie of the Year campaign.
Aside from the penultimate race of the year at Riverhead Raceway, Hodgdon never finished outside the top five in three of the last four races. Consistency was a hallmark of Hodgdon’s rookie season, but building upon everything that worked for him this year will be crucial if he wants to keep challenging Emerling and the elites of the Modified Tour.
“[We’re] a small, hometown team from Danbury,” Hodgdon said. “There’s a lot of big boys out there, so to come out here on the Modified Tour and become Rookie of the Year with all these guys is special. There’s a limited amount of names that can hold that honor, and I’m glad to be one of them.”
Hirschman ended 2026 with a runner-up finish between Hodgdon and Emerling. Mike Christopher Jr. came home in fourth, with Matt Swanson rounding out the top five.
The rest of the top 10 consisted of Eric Goodale, Austin Beers, Chase Dowling, Kopcik and Andrew Molleur.
Track: Charlotte Motor Speedway Location: Concord, North Carolina Track length: 1.5 miles When: 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,233,037 Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles Stages: 80 | 165 | 267 Sunday’s starting lineup| Pit stall assignments
Balancing championship defense with offensive mentality
CONCORD, N.C. — In all three national series, the No. 1 seed entering The Chase presented by Mobil 1 has lost the top spot.
Denny Hamlin, Justin Allgaier and Layne Riggs have each surrendered their points leads during The Chase and have ground to make up if they hope to hoist championship trophies at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Current points leaders Sheldon Creed (O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) and Kaden Honeycutt (Craftsman Truck Series) have each failed to build healthy gaps in their championship leads in their respective series’ most recent events. Honeycutt lost 20 points in his Truck Series lead to Riggs in the closing laps of Friday night’s Chase race at Charlotte after sliding up into the wall and being passed for the lead and win by the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports driver.
Those reversals offer a cautionary note for Cup points leader Kyle Larson, who enters Sunday’s Bank of America 400, the first fall race at Charlotte on the 1.5-mile oval layout since 2017, with a 40-point advantage over Hamlin after a blistering start to The Chase.
Ryan Blaney, who sits fifth in The Chase, compared the pressure of defending a points lead to a recent college football game between two of the country’s best teams.
“WhenOhioState (No. 1 ranked at the time)playedTexasearlythisyear,I’mabigBuckeyefan, theygotup,theykindofstartedplayingalittlesafe,andTexascameback,” Blaney said. “Whenyoustarthavingthatleadandtryingtokeepit,youcanmaybeshiftyourmindsettowhereguysthatarechasing, it’slike, ‘obviouslytheycan’taffordamistakeeither.’ There’s that pressure there of like, ‘we can’t bleed anymore.’ It’s just a different mindset of like, ‘oh, we have opportunity to go catch this person.’ But I’d much rather have that weight on my shoulders of leading it and just trying to maintain it than having to chase.”
With qualifying washed out due to inclement weather Saturday, two-time Cup champ Larson will lead the field to green Sunday and hold the advantageous first pit stall at Charlotte. He said bluntly that any pressure of being the points leader is a manufactured talking point and there’s no reason to change course regardless of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team’s situation.
Larson has breezed through the first half of the 2026 Cup Series Chase with a whopping average finish of 2.2. He joins a rarefied group of drivers who have blitzed through a five-race stretch during any iteration of the Cup Series postseason, which first debuted in 2004.
The two-time series titleholder joined a crop of drivers who have finished no worse than second in the points standings after race No. 36.
DRIVER
AVERAGE FINISH
YEAR
RACES
WINS DURING STRETCH
Jimmie Johnson
1.8
2006
Charlotte —> Phoenix
1
Martin Truex Jr.
1.8
2017
Kansas —> Homestead
2
Carl Edwards
2.0
2008
Martinsville —> Homestead
3
Jimmie Johnson
2.0
2004
Charlotte —> Darlington
4
Jimmie Johnson
2.2
2004
Martinsville —> Homestead
3
Jimmie Johnson
2.2
2007
Martinsville —> Homestead
4
Kyle Larson
2.2
2026
Darlington —> Las Vegas
2
Speed reads
Race-day essentials:
• Charlotte hub: Weekend information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more • Sunday Setup: Crew chiefs face unknowns after Saturday washout | Read more • Paint Scheme Preview: Home-cooked designs for Charlotte | View gallery • Neil Paine: Make-or-break moment looms for Denny Hamlin | Read more • NASCAR Classics: Rewind with video-vault replays from Charlotte | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Briscoe bolts forward in the latest Top 16 | This week’s ranks
CONCORD, N.C. — For the fourth time in six races, rain washed away practice and qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series – this time, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Unfavorable forecasts provided ample opportunity for crew chiefs to be ready for yet another starting lineup set by the metric ahead of Sunday’s Bank of America 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Bubba Wallace will take the green flag from eighth place Sunday, matching his finishing result of last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he earned his career-best 15th top 10 of the season. The No. 23 team at 23XI Racing has been steady through The Chase presented by Mobil 1, garnering four top 10s in five races and sitting 10th in the standings. But with no practice and qualifying on Saturday due to inclement weather, all crew chief Charles Denike has to lean on is the work he and his team put into setting up their No. 23 Toyota at Airspeed, their race shop just 20 minutes west of the speedway.
At Spire Motorsports, Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 team rank 11th in points, the second-best Chevrolet behind points leader Kyle Larson. Hocevar has had excellent runs on the Charlotte oval in recent years, but trouble has thwarted those efforts, most notably through an engine failure in the 2025 Coca-Cola 600. Despite the lack of results to show for their speed, crew chief Luke Lambert is optimistic about returning to the facility’s 1.5-mile oval instead of the combination road-course/oval that is known as the Roval.
The Next Gen car has never been utilized on the Charlotte oval for a fall race or a Charlotte oval race scheduled for less than 600 miles. How crew chiefs call Sunday’s race must be different than the approach they bring into May’s Coca-Cola 600.
Charlotte also marks the third intermediate track NASCAR visits in a row, the final in a consecutive stretch of 1.5-mile tracks after Kansas Speedway on Sept. 27 and Las Vegas on Oct. 4. There are “a few things” that teams learned at those two tracks that carry over to Charlotte, but not a ton.
CONCORD, N.C. — With just five races remaining in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, Daniel Suárez is on pace to record the best average finish of his 10-year career.
Suárez, in his first campaign piloting the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, holds an average finish of 15.3, highlighted by his triumph in the crown jewel Coca-Cola 600 in May. This year’s mark is nearly a full position better than his previous best average finish of 16.2, which he set in 2017 with Joe Gibbs Racing.
As a career year draws to a close, Suárez has yet to make his plans official for the 2027 Cup Series season, but a report from The Athletic on Friday stated the Monterrey, Mexico, native will return to Spire next year.
When asked about his future with the organization Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Suárez said: “We’restillworkingonit.We’reprettyclose,butwe’restillworkingonthat.”
Sunday’s Chase race presented by Mobil 1 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) marks the first time the Cup Series has raced on the Charlotte oval in the fall since 2017. Suárez is also the most recent Cup Series winner on the Charlotte oval.
The Bank of America 400 comes on the heels of Kyle Busch’s Celebration of Life held Friday evening at the track. Thousands of fans packed the frontstretch grandstands as Busch’s friends, family and former teammates reflected on Busch as a driver, owner, father and husband.
Suárez, an alum of Kyle Busch Motorsports, spoke on stage alongside Christopher Bell and Noah Gragson to reminisce about the stern but fair feedback Busch gave them as an owner when they competed in the Truck Series. Once Suárez moved to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Joe Gibbs Racing, he spoke with Busch weekly on the phone, receiving advice and mentorship about upcoming tracks on the schedule.
At the end of the celebration of life, Suárez watched Busch’s son Brexton perform an emotional burnout in his father’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, which Kyle last drove at Dover Motor Speedway before his sudden death on May 21. Once the burnout was completed, Brexton climbed out of the car, was handed a checkered flag from his younger sister, Lennix, and gave the crowd a bow to remember.
“Ican’tevenimaginewhatwasgoingthroughhismind,” Suárez said. “He was actually doing a burnout in his father’s last Cup ride. Last nightwasveryspecialfortheBuschfamily.”
Suárez’s Coke 600 victory came in the first Cup race following Busch’s death, just three days later.
While the emotion was still raw that Memorial Day weekend, it made Charlotte Motor Speedway even more special for Suárez, who refers to the 1.5-mile oval as his home track.
“I mean this race track to me has always meant a lot just because it’s home, right?” Suárez said. “I don’t get to race in Mexico, so this is home for me. And 90% of the time, I always have family here. My mom is here this weekend, so it’s always special. This is one of my favorite races of the year just because I get to spend time with family.”
Suárez isn’t mathematically eliminated from winning the Cup Series championship, but his odds are far-fetched, sitting 14th in points — 195 markers behind championship leader Kyle Larson.
The Chase hasn’t gone according to plan for Suárez and the No. 7 team, with a best finish of 14th three times — all in the last three races. But Suárez said there’s still plenty to accomplish before the checkered flag waves at Homestead-Miami Speedway next month.
“We have goals, but it’s not a number,” Suárez said. “Most people will think that a goal has to be a number. For us, the goal is to maximize our potential. If we have a 10th-place car, finish 10th or better. If we have a top-five car, finish top five or better. So that’s the goal wherever that takes us, and continue to push yourself to be better.”
If Denny Hamlin needs encouragement after a lackluster start to the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1, he needs to look no further than his own performance in the regular season.
After falling 129 points behind fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick — who drives for the 23XI Racing team he co-owns with Michael Jordan — Hamlin won three straight races in June, overtook Reddick and earned top seeding in The Chase.
Over the first five Chase races, Hamlin has lost the 25-point edge he had to start the postseason — and then some. Currently second in the standings, Hamlin trails Chase leader Kyle Larson by 40 points entering Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Hamlin’s bid for a first series title, however, is far from a lost cause.
“We know it can be done,” Hamlin said. “It’s a 10-race season. We got a little head start to that, but it’s a 10-race season. What happened in the first (26 races) doesn’t matter when we come down to these playoffs.
“Anything is possible, and if we go win, we’ll take care of the rest.”
A late-Chase surge wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2007, Jimmie Johnson won four of the last five Chase races to snatch the title from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon. Four years later, Tony Stewart won three of the last four events to catch Carl Edwards and win the series championship in a tiebreaker.
