Racing Insights is back with NASCAR Insights stats focused on the entire Round of 8 tracks. By looking at performances on similar tracks, Racing Insights has come up with ratings for each driver in speed, long-run speed, passing, defense and restarts to see who’s set up well for the upcoming semifinal-round races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway.
What we’ve done in the chart below is total up those numbers and order the drivers from lowest to highest (with the lowest being the best or the most likely to do well in this round). Six of the eight title-eligible drivers rank the highest. While Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe rank the lowest of their playoff counterparts.
Briscoe ranks 14th among the entire field for the Round of 8 ratings, but take that with a grain of salt as the four-year Cup veteran has turned into one of the best drivers in the field since the second half of the season. Las Vegas, Martinsville and Talladega were all early-year tracks and since the spring race at Kansas, Briscoe and the No. 19 team have gone on a tear with a pair of victories, six Busch Light Pole Awards and top-10 finishes in five of the six playoff races so far.
On the flip side is Ryan Blaney, who ranks first in speed, long-run speed and passing for the next three tracks. It would come as no surprise if Blaney were to pull off the impressive feat of his Team Penske teammate, Joey Logano, to sweep an entire round (2015, Charlotte, Kansas, Talladega). Blaney is a three-time winner at Talladega and has won the last two playoff elimination races at Martinsville. Speaking of Logano, he ranks first in defense for this round and is pretty consistent among the pack as he ranks top 10 in every category — most notably, fifth in long-run speed.
The playoff drivers are tightly packed together, meaning it will take perfect execution to reach the Championship 4. The biggest differentials among the Round of 8 are restarts, all coming from JGR drivers as Briscoe (12th), Hamlin (13th) and Christopher Bell (15th). Besides that, you can throw a blanket over everyone else and there’s no telling who could break through and punch their ticket to Phoenix.
Check out the full list to see what jumps out at you that could be interesting for the Round of 8:
It might be maddening to be the often unwittingly agonizing center of attention every week, but Denny Hamlin at least has a sense of humor about it.
“I am that guy again,” the Joe Gibbs Racing star said with a chuckle in opening the latest episode of his “Actions Detrimental” podcast. “Three weeks in a row. Some I asked for it, some I did not. But this is three weeks in a row we definitely have been part of the story while finishing 12th, second and 23rd.”
For those who might have forgotten (which seems implausible if you watched one lap during the second round), here are the recent recurring turns by Hamlin as NASCAR’s leading man in the Cup Series Playoffs:
At New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he spun Ty Gibbs during a fierce battle in midpack, sparking nonstop debates about teammate etiquette and family ties.
At Kansas Speedway, he chose to fight tooth and nail for the lead on the last lap against Bubba Wallace (whose 23XI Racing Toyota is co-owned by Hamlin), opening the door for both cars losing at the checkered flag to Chase Elliott (and effectively eliminating Wallace from reaching the next round).
At the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, Hamlin’s last-lap pass on Ross Chastain kept three-time Cup champion Joey Logano in the playoffs (and also led to a perplexed Hamlin getting clobbered in the final corner as Chastain made a desperate move to stay in the championship fight).
After the race, an agitated Hamlin animatedly questioned team members about why they had failed to inform him about Chastain’s points scenario and playoff outlook.
Maybe they just presumed their driver would omnisciently know that the narrative had revolved around him for the third consecutive week.
No driver in 12 seasons of the elimination playoffs has had a larger impact on a single round — and especially in determining which rivals advanced — than the clout commanded by Hamlin in the Round of 12 this year.
“And you know what sucks about all of it? I’ve gotten no DAP points for all of this,” he said sardonically on his podcast.
Logano has been the runaway leader in the Driver Ambassador Program, the first-year program known as DAP, that financially rewards stars for spreading the gospel of NASCAR.
But if there were a lifetime achievement award for media impressions, Hamlin would be an automatic finalist … if not the presumptive favorite among active drivers.
For years, the lightning rod of the Cup Series was Kyle Busch, who often overshadowed Hamlin with everything he did and said over 15 seasons and two championships at JGR. In three seasons since moving to Richard Childress Racing and more than two years without a victory, Busch now exists mostly on the periphery.
Hamlin has emerged as NASCAR’s main character — even without capturing a championship. Even when running a nondescript 15th at the end of a playoff cut race in which he was already locked into the next round.
Remarkably, Hamlin somehow gets thrust into the spotlight and often when he’s done little to deserve it (such as at the Roval).
Amid all the front-facing drama in his life, there is also a tremendous amount happening off the track.
Hamlin has added a third child to his family this season. He is wrestling with the health challenges faced by his father (whom he has alluded to multiple times in post-race interviews). Between race cars and podcast tapings, he seems to be in front of a camera on the daily.
And looming over this omnipresence is the fact that we already know when the curtain will drop on the Denny Hamlin Show (at least as a driver).
He has signed what he expects to be his final contract through the 2027 season and playfully has noted he knows exactly how many points races are left in his Cup career (the counter currently stands at 76).
For many drivers, that might be a detriment. For Hamlin, it’s a net positive. When the stakes are high, he usually thrives amid chaos.
It’s a quality that he shares with his NASCAR business partner. Michael Jordan is an NBA legend known as perhaps the most mentally tough pro athlete in history. In “The Last Dance” documentary series, Jordan and his Chicago Bulls were the NBA’s main characters during their run of six championships.
A title is virtually the only way that Hamlin hasn’t been the center of attention in NASCAR.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs Round of 8 begins with Saturday’s Focused Health 302 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and if the current run of races is any indication, it may well come down to who can beat championship leader Connor Zilisch, a 10-race winner who has simply dominated the season.
The 19-year-old Zilisch has either won or finished runner-up in 10 of the last 12 series races — eight victories and a pair of runner-up finishes. Although he came to NASCAR with a road-racing pedigree (with class wins in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Rolex 24 at Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring), the driver of the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet has won convincingly on ovals of various sizes and certainly shows up in Las Vegas as an odds-on favorite.
Zilisch starts the Round of 8 with a dominating 57-point advantage on the field atop the championship standings.
He will, however, start this playoff round with very legitimate competition from his own JR Motorsports teammate, reigning series champion Justin Allgaier, who won the March race at Las Vegas by a second over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola. Zilisch finished ninth in his debut at the track.
Allgaier and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill are the only current series drivers to ever win at Las Vegas. Allgaier comes into this impactful playoff round 24 points above the cutoff line with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones and Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer four points and two points — respectively — to the good heading into the Vegas 200-lapper.
RCR’s Jesse Love (minus-2), JRM teammates Sammy Smith (minus-7) and Carson Kvapil (minus-11) and Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed (minus-13) round out the playoff eight in a much tighter contest for the final two championship positions beyond Zilisch and Allgaier.
Practice and Kennametal Pole Qualifying for the race is at 2 p.m. Saturday (The CW App). Kvapil won the pole position this spring and Mayer started on pole in this race last fall. Cup Series regular AJ Allmendinger is the defending race winner.
“Joey Logano has advanced another round in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.”
Those words are music to the ears of the No. 22 team, including crew chief Paul Wolfe — whose gamble to have Logano pit for newer tires than high-leverage rival Ross Chastain with 11 laps remaining on Sunday at the Roval paid huge dividends. But judging from the boos raining down during Logano’s post-race interview, many fans weren’t exactly thrilled with the result.
And it certainly wasn’t what the other seven drivers in the Round of 8 wanted to hear.
In fact, Logano is just about the last competitor they’re eager to take on, given his status as defending Cup Series champion — and winner of two of the past three Cup titles — with the track where he’s the winningest active driver (Phoenix Raceway) looming as the championship site again on Nov. 2.
So Chastain would have done the rest of the field a huge favor by knocking Logano out of contention. (And he almost did, crossing the finish line backward in true ‘Melon Man’ style.) But he didn’t, and now Logano is in the hunt again for career championship No. 4, which would tie him with Jeff Gordon for the fourth-most in Cup Series history.
The good news for Joey’s rivals is that he starts the Round of 8 from a position of weakness. He ranks last among the active playoff drivers in the standings, sitting 24 points below the cutline and 10 points below Chase Briscoe, the next-lowest ranked Round of 8 driver. According to our NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs forecast model, which uses projected Driver Ratings to simulate the rest of the schedule 10,000 times and tracks who advances, there’s just a 26.2 percent chance we see Logano back in the Championship 4 for the third time in four years.
What’s driving such low odds for such a feared driver? One of the problems is that, outside of winning one of the next three races, the paths for Joey to advance are fairly narrow. While a win would — by definition — send Logano to the next round, there aren’t many other scenarios that carry high odds of advancing, according to our simulations:
Barring a win, a trio of top 10s would give a 72 percent chance of advancing … but that only happened in 4 percent of the simulations, so it’s a big ask for something that’s not even a surefire Championship 4 ticket. Meanwhile, if he simply has two top 10s, the advancement odds drop to 29 percent. And although consistency over the next three races is a good thing unto itself, a high floor can only get him so far: Three finishes in the teens or better (again without a win) would only produce a 35 percent chance of moving on, and simply avoiding any truly bad finishes only carries an 18 percent chance. (And if he only scores a single top 10 or less, you can pretty much forget about him making the Championship 4.)
So while we’re not saying Joey is in “must-win” territory to start the Round of 8, he’s not far from it, either.
The good news, however, is that Logano is heading to a series of tracks where he’s as good as just about anyone. Among all places where he’s run at least five career Cup races, Las Vegas (100.8) and Martinsville (96.8) rank 1-2 for him in career Driver Rating. He ranks fourth among active full-time drivers at the latter track — trailing just Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney — and second only to Kyle Larson at the former, where he’s won four times.
In other words, a win to punch Logano’s Championship 4 ticket is hardly off the table, even if the odds for any winning driver (save for SVG at a road course) are never all that high. And the other factor working in his favor? Like it or not, Logano is legitimately a clutch driver in the playoffs.
In his 12 seasons as a playoff driver, only twice (2019 and 2023) did Logano have a lower Adjusted Points+ index and/or Driver Rating while actively pursuing the championship than he did during that year’s regular season. And on average, he’s posted an Adjusted Points+ index 32 points higher and a Driver Rating 5.2 points higher while active in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. Among drivers with at least 20 races while actively in the championship hunt in the current playoff format (since 2014), Logano is one of only seven with an average Driver Rating in the triple digits (100.2) and his 208 mark ranks second only to Kevin Harvick (211) in Adjusted Points+ index over that same sample.
In other words, Logano is perennially a good regular-season driver who dials up his greatness in the races that matter most. And with three of those coming up — at some of his best tracks — we should all be on the lookout for more of Joey’s patented late-season heroics. Sure, his odds for another title might be long at the moment, but he has spoiled our playoff prognosticating and made us all look silly before.
That’s why the other drivers were not-so-secretly hoping his title chances would be officially buried last week: They know that as long as the No. 22 Ford is still alive in the playoffs, he’s always going to be a threat to snatch the trophy away in the end.
Austin Beers is doing everything he can not to think about the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title.
Each day he goes to work and tries to forget the fact that, at 22, he’s two races away from winning a championship in NASCAR’s oldest division.
“Everybody is going to ask. All my friends are going to tell me not to mess it up,” Beers said. “One race at a time. That’s what we’ve been doing all year. Just focus on the next one and don’t worry about something you can’t control right now.”
The driver of the No. 64 KLM Motorsports Modified for Mike and Maggie Murphy has enjoyed a spectacular 2025 season. He leads the series in almost every major statistical category, including top fives, top 10s, laps completed, average qualifying position and average finish position.
“I wouldn’t be racing the Tour if not for Mike and Maggie and that whole family,” said Beers. “They gave me this huge opportunity, and I’ll forever be in debt to them. I want to deliver this championship to Mike. All those years where they’ve struggled; they’ve had rough years and haven’t had much success.
“I just want to show them with hard work and dedication, we’re going to get it done for them.”
Two wins and no finishes outside the top 10 have helped Austin Beers stay at the top of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings this season. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)
Beers sits atop the Modified Tour standings by 13 points ahead of Justin Bonsignore going into Saturday’s World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (8:15 p.m. ET on FloRacing and The NASCAR Channel).
His championship lead arrives in large part thanks to wins at Lancaster Motorplex and, last Saturday, Riverhead Raceway. The win at Riverhead last weekend was a huge shot in the arm for Beers following what he considered disappointing ninth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
There are several reasons why the victory at Riverhead was significant. First and perhaps most important, it added six points to Beers’ lead over Bonsignore in the standings.
If that weren’t enough, Beers won the race by passing Bonsignore, who leads all drivers with 12 Modified Tour wins at the track.
“We kind of struggled for speed in practice, and it showed in qualifying, as well,” Beers recalled. “I kind of got lucky there with the (redraw) wheel for the first time. Usually, the wheel sends me back some spots, but I went plus six before the green and got to start up front. That’s a big help there.
“I wanted to get the lead early and get a bonus point and maybe try to lead the most laps if our car could contend for it. I got up front and the car was just working really good and got through the center really well.”
While the win was vindicating for Beers and team, it was only a small step toward the larger goal of winning the Modified Tour championship.
“We’ve still got work to do,” Beers said bluntly. “We’re happy, but we’ve still got stuff we need to do.”
The next challenge Beers faces comes Saturday at Thompson, another track where Bonsignore has the statistical advantage.
Austin Beers has secured victories this season at Lancaster Motorplex and Riverhead Raceway as he purses the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. (Photo: Bryan Bennett/NASCAR)
In 48 starts at Thompson, Bonsignore has won 14 times. That ranks him second on the all-time Modified Tour win list at the 0.625-mile oval behind only NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time Modified Tour champion Mike Stefanik.
While Beers has never won at Thompson, he does have one thing going for him. In the two races this year at Thompson, he’s beaten Bonsignore both times.
“Obviously Justin and that whole No. 51 team, they are the best in the business. Everyone is hunting them,” Beers said. “Like I said, we’ve still got work to do. We’re going into Thompson this week. That’s obviously another track that he’s really, really good at.
“We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing and keep showing up with our confidence and good speed in the race car.”
His confidence may be high after winning last weekend at Riverhead, but Beers knows there is still work to be done. It’s why he hasn’t allowed himself to think about what winning the Modified Tour championship would mean.
His friends, however, won’t let him forget.
“I’ve got some good friends; they try to rile me up and get me thinking about it,” Beers said. “But they’re also my biggest supporters.”
THOMPSON, Conn. — Officials with Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park announced today a revised schedule for the 63rd annual Sunoco World Series of Speedway Racing.
Due to an unfavorable weather forecast predicted for Sunday, officials have moved the Sunday portion of the original schedule into one massive Super Saturday of racing.
The Friday portion of the weekend will stay as originally scheduled while Super Saturday will now feature 10 exciting divisions of racing, culminating with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour feature to cap off the historic day.
“With the impeding forecast, we tried to make sure everyone would have time to alter plans to get to the speedway,” said ACT managing partner Cris Michaud. “We thought this was a nice way to end off the season with one big mega day of racing. We certainly didn’t want to cancel or eliminate any divisions.”
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour World Series 150 is scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m. ET Saturday evening. Fans can watch the event live on FloRacing and The NASCAR Channel.
Pit gates open at 7 a.m. Saturday with practice from 9 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.. Racing begins promptly at 12:30 p.m.
Pit Area Ticket Pricing will now be $40 for Friday, $60 for Saturday, and a 2-day bracelet will be $90. Kids Pit Tickets will be $25 for Friday, $35 for Saturday, and $50 for a 2-day. Adult Grandstand pricing will be $25 for Friday, $55 for Saturday, and $75 for a 2-day, while kids 6-12 will be $10 Friday and $20 Saturday.
For more information about the American-Canadian Tour, contact the ACT offices at (802) 244-6963, [email protected], or visit www.acttour.com. You can also get updates on Facebook and Twitter at @ACTTour.
For technical information concerning all PASS divisions, and for media or marketing questions, please contact [email protected] or visit www.proallstarsseries.com. Don’t forget to “Like” the Pro All Stars Series on Facebook or follow on Twitter @PASSSLM14 to keep up with breaking news as it happens.
For general Thompson Speedway inquiries, call (860) 923-2280, email [email protected], or visit www.thompsonspeedway.com. You can follow Thompson Speedway on Facebook and Instagram at @ThompsonSpeedway or on Twitter at @ThompsonSpdwy.
Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval in the rearview and Sunday’s South Point 400 up next (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
1. As Round of 8 begins, does a championship favorite remain?
As NASCAR’s semifinal round roars to life at Las Vegas, the championship chase tightens with no clear favorite emerging from an evenly matched field of heavyweights. Every lap, pit stop and restart matters in this unpredictable sprint to the title, which could wind up in anybody’s hands from here.
The Round of 8 is set, and one thing remains clear: this thing’s wide open.
Sure, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney begins the week as the technical “favorite” at 4-1 odds according to DraftKings as of Tuesday night, but based on current data and recent results, this championship race offers no straightforward frontrunner. In fact, seven of the eight remaining drivers have previously qualified for the Championship 4, and the one that hasn’t has been the arguable MVP of the playoffs to date in Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe.
This weekend’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway marks the first potential Championship 4 berth and is historically a key indicator of who takes control of the title hunt, with several recent seasons showing that the driver who wins this race often gains momentum (not to mention prep time for Phoenix) that propels them to a title. More on that later, but if one of the remaining eight visits Victory Lane on Sunday, we likely have our man.
But even that becomes a challenge to predict — when looking at the stats for the eight remaining contenders at Vegas, there’s clear parity among the group, with all of them capable of winning Sunday. Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson leads all drivers with 690 career laps led at the track and owns three wins there in the last four years. He also tops the 2025 playoffs with 73 total stage points, a reflection of consistent competitiveness that could help him advance on points alone. Teammate William Byron boasts five consecutive top-10 finishes at Las Vegas, the longest active streak at the track, and has won there in the not-too-distant past; a crucial detail given the importance of Sunday for a No. 24 group looking for its mojo. JGR driver Denny Hamlin, the top seed entering this round — with the smallest gap in history for a Round of 8 No. 1 seed — has been consistently fast at Vegas the past half-decade, but has struggled on 1.5-mile tracks this season, posting a 20.33 average finish (second-worst among playoff drivers).
Other contenders like JGR’s Christopher Bell and Hendrick driver Chase Elliott have proven their excellence at Vegas sporadically, but have shown mixed results across all Round of 8 tracks at times. Blaney and Joey Logano, while seasoned champions, have displayed inconsistencies on the 1.5-milers this season — despite the No. 12 Ford seemingly having speed each weekend elsewhere — and Logano’s 24-point deficit entering the round is the largest in Round of 8 history, illustrating the steep hill he faces. (… even if nobody in the garage was happy to have him in the Round of 8 except Roger Penske.)
Looking beyond past performances, the projected points cutline to reach the Championship 4 hovers around 4,133 points, with drivers needing to average nearly 38 points per race over the final four events. Historically, drivers who advance have averaged between 35 and 38 points per race during this round, underscoring the high level of consistent performance required. It’s going to take excellence, and all eight are capable of it. Notably, no driver has advanced via points with finishes worse than 25th in any Round of 8 race, emphasizing the importance of staying out of trouble. (Obviously, this is paramount at Talladega, in particular.)
Manufacturer and team dynamics also impact the balance of the championship race. Toyota leads in laps led and stage wins this season but remains winless on the six 1.5-mile tracks raced so far, including Vegas. It’s hard to see the victory Sunday not going to a playoff driver, though, with Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske all fielding multiple drivers with strong Vegas and 1.5-mile track histories overall, spreading the favorite potential across all three teams and manufacturers come Sunday night.
Taking all this into account, it’s clear that no driver stands out as the runaway man to beat coming into this round. Looking just at a driver like Larson, he holds strong statistical advantages, especially at Vegas and on intermediate tracks. And when they’ve been on, the No. 5 group has perhaps been in a class of its own this year. But this season has included moments of somewhat sloppy issues and variable finishes amid a rocky-at-times season, and Talladega could very well be their undoing if they’re caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every driver remaining has a similar story, with reasons that showcase both their excellence and weaknesses, and until somebody locks into Phoenix with a win, every contender remains well within striking distance to upset expectations.
That victory will likely crown a new favorite, but until then, the Round of 8 is a wide-open contest defined by a tightly packed field, narrow point margins, historic unpredictability and the demanding nature of the playoff tracks yet to come.
Credit: Racing Insights (ST = short track; SS = drafting track; MH = 1.5-mile track)
2. Will the field be able to keep Team Penske out of title contention at Phoenix?
Here they come again. Two drivers, strong stats and a track record of playoff success put Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano in a commanding position to open the Round of 8. Challengers beware, as the fight to keep them out of Phoenix begins.
Ah, but just because there is not one driver that’s a favorite to win it all, that doesn’t mean everybody isn’t tracking down a certain team.
Team Penske’s near-certainty to push at least one driver into the Championship 4 is at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now because, as Logano so eloquently put it, they’re “still alive, baby!”
Blaney enters this round ranked second in the standings, but only six points above the cutoff. He won the opener in the last round at New Hampshire and boasts a strong track record at Las Vegas, with 10 top-10 finishes in 18 starts and top fives in six of them. He also has had the benefit of two extra weeks of prep for this particular race that nobody else had, already knowing he was in this round with two races to go in the Round of 12.
It probably also did not hurt that Kansas, also a 1.5-mile track, was almost like a test session for Vegas.
“Yeah, you know, after we won New Hampshire, people asked me, ‘Did anything change?’ And I think the only thing that changed is we looked at Vegas a little bit earlier than what we normally would have,” Blaney said over the weekend at Charlotte. “But still, our main focus has been Kansas, and then the Roval and then your full attention on Vegas the next week. I think we learned a lot from Kansas that has helped us at Vegas. … I feel like our cars have been pretty good there. I thought we learned a lot in Kansas, even though I thought (the) best I was gonna run was like seventh behind a handful of those guys. I thought we learned a little bit moving forward, and hopefully we can put a good weekend together there.”
Joey Logano, a four-time winner at Las Vegas, can rely heavily on his playoff experience, in a format he has mastered better than anyone. His Vegas record includes an average finish of 9.8 over 24 starts (his best at any 1.5-mile track), including pivotal triumphs during the 2022 and 2024 playoffs that, as we laid out above, established him as the favorite for Phoenix. He later delivered a pair of titles in those races.
Team Penske’s historic playoff success can be quantified further. From 2017-24, Penske had at least one driver in the Championship 4 in eight of 10 seasons, with a record of four out of the past five campaigns, including three straight titles. It’s just a championship organization through and through, and no matter how things are shaping up throughout the year, they’re almost always there when it matters.
“Yeah, nothing surprises me with that group,” Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. “I mean, they’re professionals and they’re really good at what they do. If they’re not fast, they strategize their way, or Joey defends his way to a good finish. They were really quick at New Hampshire. I think they qualified first there and finished in the top five, so yeah, I’m not surprised that they’re still around. Honestly, there’s about 12-plus cars that can run well every week and then there’s about eight of us that can win any given week. So yeah, I’m not really surprised that they’re still in the mix, but I was surprised; I was impressed at the Roval with how they strategized their way through that race without much pace.”
The presence of two capable drivers with such proven track records in the round that determines the championship field makes it statistically likely that at least one will secure the remaining spot, if not both, as was the case last year.
Yet, their success is hardly assured.
Their fellow Round of 8 competitors are from the sport’s other powerhouses in Hendrick and Joe Gibbs Racing, and each has drivers with comparable performance metrics and recent momentum, especially at these tracks. However, considering the historic reliability, pit crew excellence and current statistical (and perhaps psychological) edge, the odds favor Penske pulling at least one driver through — but which one?
Steve Letarte, Todd Gordon and Mamba Smith give an “eye test” on Kyle Larson and discuss whether other title contenders should fear the No. 5 team.
4. Is the key to a title winning the Round of 8 opener?
Several champions of the last decade started their run with a statement win in the Round of 8 opener. While it’s not “necessary,” it sure doesn’t hurt. If recent history holds, the path to hoisting the Cup may just begin with crossing the line first out in the desert. (Credit: Racing Insights)
Season
Track
Race Winner
Championship Finish
2014
Martinsville
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
8th
2015
Martinsville
Jeff Gordon
3rd
2016
Martinsville
Jimmie Johnson
Won title
2017
Martinsville
Kyle Busch
2nd
2018
Martinsville
Joey Logano
Won title
2019
Martinsville
Martin Truex Jr.
2nd
2020
Kansas
Joey Logano
3rd
2021
Texas
Kyle Larson
Won title
2022
Las Vegas
Joey Logano
Won title
2023
Las Vegas
Kyle Larson
2nd
2024
Las Vegas
Joey Logano
Won title
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
NASCAR competition officials announced Wednesday that the target horsepower for Cup Series events at road courses and oval tracks less than 1.5 miles in length will increase to 750 in the 2026 season.
NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell revealed the news on this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download podcast. The horsepower figure will be an increase from the baseline 670 in the current rules configuration for NASCAR’s top division.
The move comes amid growing demand from drivers, the industry and fans for a power boost to the Next Gen race car platform, which debuted in the Cup Series in 2022. The increase is expected to place a greater premium on drivers’ throttle control, while also incentivizing tire management and creating more passing opportunities with varying on- and off-throttle times.
“I would say, like any other change that we are considering to the cars, we listen to the fans a lot,” said John Probst, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “We listen to the drivers. We have stakeholders in the broadcast, OEM (manufacturers) and team competition and team business folks, so there’s always no shortage of feedback that we get. Our fans are very passionate, they provide very candid feedback, so that all is very important to us.”
Tracks with 750 horsepower in 2026
Road courses
Circuit of The Americas, Watkins Glen, San Diego, Sonoma, Charlotte Roval.
Ovals
Bowman Gray Stadium, Phoenix, Darlington, Martinsville, Bristol, Dover, Nashville, North Wilkesboro, Iowa, Richmond, New Hampshire, World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Officials indicated that a complete rules configuration and competition update briefing for 2026 would come in the offseason.
In the last two seasons, NASCAR officials have worked with Goodyear officials to improve the racing, producing softer tires that promote wear and creating more chances for pit-strategy options, tire management and passing opportunities to come into play. Wednesday’s announcement promises to add a new wrinkle to that trend, with more power also contributing to advanced tire falloff.
“I am definitely Team Horsepower,” said RFK Racing driver/co-owner Brad Keselowski, hinting two weeks ago about the increase in an appearance on the Stacking Pennies podcast.
Introducing that higher horsepower number has prompted close communication among NASCAR officials, engine builders and manufacturers in a series of weekly meetings this year. Five of the first eight races on the 2026 Cup Series schedule will use the new 750-horsepower package, providing an early test for its performance and perhaps a glimpse at expanding to larger ovals — superspeedway-style tracks excluded.
“That gives us an opportunity to sample some of the short tracks, road courses early in the season, get a look at the engines after we’ve raced them at the new power level,” Probst said. “If that all looks good, I would not rule out looking at increasing that horsepower at the mile and a halfs and above. It’s just something that we kind of want to crawl, walk, run with this, and so this is the start, looking at the increased power at the short tracks. If that looks well, and I’m not committing to this today, but we will consider expanding the use of that as we go forward.
“Now, some of the best racing we have right now is at our intermediate tracks, so it’s a scenario we’ll tread very lightly to make sure that we don’t upset something. It is a package. It’s the downforce, it’s the drag, it’s the power, it’s the tire wear, all together that’s creating those good shows. So don’t want to just change one for the sake of changing it and then find out later that we did something bad there and hurt the on-track product. So we’ll proceed with caution.”
Probst said NASCAR officials, engine builders and teams arrived at the 750-horsepower figure as a happy medium. Implementation will take place by using a larger tapered spacer on top of the engine’s intake manifold, improving engine airflow and power. Achieving an even higher horsepower number would potentially compromise reliability and would require more development and cost.
“If we were to increase the power from 670 horsepower to about 750 horsepower, that probably wouldn’t be much of a change for us today,” said Roush Yates Engines CEO Doug Yates, in an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio in April. “But to go back to those 900-horsepower engines, that would be quite the project and would definitely decrease the life of the engine.”
Probst said higher figures were considered, but 750 “was a number that everyone felt comfortable that they could get to without having to go and redesign any of the internal parts of the engine. Once you go above that, you start crossing into very short-mileage engines, because you’re actually pushing them harder and harder. A lot of inefficiencies come in real quick.”
Also under consideration, Probst said, was implementing the horsepower increase sooner. “We had a lot of conversations around that,” he said, acknowledging that competition officials wanted more time to test the package’s durability with load testing on engine dynamometers. Probst also said his department didn’t want to introduce that component just before the 10-race Cup Series Playoffs.
A common theme to the horsepower equation has been investment by manufacturers — both the existing ones in Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota, plus prospective automakers looking to enter the sport. “It’s not as simple as just upping the horsepower,” said O’Donnell, then the chief operating officer in the 2023 ‘State of the Sport’ address. “You better be ready for all your OEs to be on board. It better make sense for any potential new OEM and technology. It’s not just a short-term answer.”
Probst said this week that those conversations are still part of the process.
“I think that the interest from the OEMs in NASCAR right now continues to be very high,” Probst said. “We have ongoing discussions with multiple OEMs right now. I don’t want to get into specifics of where particular OEMs would be with respect to horsepower, but we regularly talk with our existing OEMs, listen to potential new OEMs, and are always trying to thread the needle of broadening our OEM base and maintaining the ones we’ve got. So it’s not trivial, but it is one that’s ongoing.”
Harrison Burton will not return to AM Racing for the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts season (currently known as the Xfinity Series), the team announced Wednesday.
Burton, who turns 24 on Thursday, returned to the Xfinity Series this year after three seasons with Wood Brothers Racing in the Cup Series. He’s earned 10 top 10s and two top fives through 29 races, wheeling the No. 25 Ford to the playoffs for the first time in the organization’s history. Burton was eliminated from championship contention last weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
“I want to thank AM Racing, Tim Self and Wade Moore for the opportunity and trust at a pivotal moment in my career after I lost my Cup seat entering 2025,” Burton shared Wednesday on X. “From Day 1, the group’s commitment and preparation helped us deliver tangible progress. So far, we have team-record top-five and top-10 results and the organization’s first trip to the Xfinity Series Playoffs. I’m proud of how we show up each week, compete at the highest level and finish strong. I’m also grateful for the people who made this possible: our crew members, engineers, office staff, partners and the fans who have our backs everywhere we race.
“This season reminded me why I love competing: the teamwork, the focus and the fight. I’m super excited about the next chapter.”
In 104 career Xfinity races, Burton owns four victories, all of which came in 2020 as he drove the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to an eighth-place finish in points. He finished eighth in points a year later with JGR before moving to Cup for the 2022 season. Burton earned his lone Cup victory to date last August at Daytona International Speedway, clinching a Cup Series Playoffs berth.
Son of former driver and current NBC Sports broadcaster Jeff Burton, Harrison made his national series debut in 2016 and additionally has 40 career Craftsman Truck Series starts.
“The organization thanks Harrison and the Burton family for their professionalism and contributions on and off the track, and wishes them continued success in Harrison’s future endeavors,” the team said in a statement. “AM Racing will share additional updates regarding 2026 driver and program plans at a later date.”
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs continue Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR, America’s No.1 motorsport, is teaming up with iconic global streetwear brand Anti Social Social Club for the first time to launch a limited release capsule collection. The collaboration champions NASCAR’s and Anti Social Social Club’s bold and distinctive styles, creating a unique crossover between the race track and fashion.
Dropping at 8 a.m. PT on Saturday, Oct. 11, during the NASCAR Playoff Weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the NASCAR x Anti Social Social Club Collection will be available for purchase online. The release features hoodies, T-shirts, jackets, hats, helmets, and other NASCAR-inspired pieces that channel the electrifying energy of motorsports, while showcasing Anti Social Social Club’s creative identity. In addition, Anti Social Social Club and NASCAR will showcase a car with custom-designed livery at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during race weekend.
“NASCAR and Anti Social Social Club are coming together to create something fresh, bold, and unapologetic. Both streetwear and motorsports thrive on energy, culture, and individuality,” said Megan Malayter, vice president licensing and consumer products at NASCAR. “This drop brings those worlds into the same lane. We’re excited to see fans rock the collection trackside and beyond, repping NASCAR in a way that speaks to today’s style and culture.”
Since its inception in 2014, ASSC became an immediately recognizable pop culture symbol, driven by a passionate community. After an experimental run of 12 hoodies introduced its logo to the world, Anti Social Social Club has subsequently grown into a global business of scale.
The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs continue with the opening of the Round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 12, at 5:30 p.m. ET, live on USA Network.
