The NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 8 begins with Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Updated NASCAR odds from FanDuel show Christopher Bell as the race favorite at +470, followed by Denny Hamlin (+550), Kyle Larson (+600), William Byron (+600) and Chase Elliott (+850).
From a NASCAR betting standpoint, I’m avoiding the outright market and pivoting to a plus-money prop as my best bet pick for Las Vegas.
Let’s take a look.
NASCAR Odds, Best Bet Pick for Las Vegas
*Odds as of Sunday morning
Toyota drivers Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Bell posted the three fastest speeds in qualifying, so it’s not surprising to see the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) teammates with the best odds to win today’s race, and Briscoe not far off at +900.
But it’s not just those three Toyotas that were strong in practice and qualifying on Saturday in Vegas.
The 23XI Racing cars of Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick qualified seventh and eighth, respectively, with JGR’s Ty Gibbs clocking in at 10th fastest, giving Toyota six of the top 10 qualifiers for the South Point 400.
Five of the six fastest cars in practice, in terms of 10-lap average, were posted by Toyota drivers, suggesting that these cars have very solid race pace as well.
Instead of pulling out my hair (what’s left of it, anyway), I’m grabbing Toyota as the winning manufacturer at +120 odds via DraftKings to cover the entire stable of cars that appear to be the cream of the crop heading into Sunday’s race at Las Vegas.
NASCAR Best Bet Pick: Toyota Winning Manufacturer (+120) — DraftKings
Track: Las Vegas Motor Speedway Location: Las Vegas, Nevada Track length: 1.5 miles When: Sunday, 5:30 p.m. ET Where to tune in: USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App Race purse: $9,797,935 Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles Stages: 80 | 165 | 267 Defending winner: Joey Logano, October 2024 Paint Scheme Preview: Sin City schemes set to shine
Starting lineup: Denny Hamlin on pole to start Round of 8
Viva Victory Lane: Vegas critical in journey to Championship 4
LAS VEGAS — Three races separate the eight remaining NASCAR Cup Series title contenders from the Championship 4. The first comes Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Sure, there are two other races in the Round of 8, which kicks off Sunday afternoon in the Nevada desert. But a win at Las Vegas to open the three-race round could light a golden pathway into the finale at Phoenix Raceway, where the title will be decided on Nov. 2.
“This is a big one,” Christopher Bell said Saturday. “This is the race that we’ve had circled since the schedule came out, really. I mean, you make it into the Round of 8, and the mentality changes at this point in the season, in the playoffs. The Round of 16, Round of 12, you’re just looking for points. It’s survival mode. And then whenever you get into the Round of 8, it’s about wins. And ultimately, you need to win in order to make that final four.”
Kyle Larson won the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas back in 2023, propelling him into the title round. The advantages are plentiful, but he cautions about how significant they are.
“I think it’s definitely a benefit,” Larson said. “I think other drivers I’ve heard say it’s, like, everything. I don’t think it’s everything to win this first one, but it is nice to kind of look ahead a little bit. You know, I feel like in the playoffs, you don’t really ever get a chance to look ahead past the week in front of you. So if you win this first race, to take a little bit of focus off of the next couple and start digging through qualifying and practice and stuff like that at Phoenix is important. But again, it’s not everything.”
Last year, it was Joey Logano who locked his spot into the Championship 4 with a trip to Vegas’ Victory Lane. From Phoenix preparation to a relief from the mental anguish playoff stress can create, he reaped the benefits all the way to his third NASCAR Cup Series Championship last November.
“I think there’s something to do with the stress level as well,” Logano said. “Like, you have a moment to take a deep breath, right? Like, regain your thoughts again. The playoffs are tough, right? These 10 weeks are hard. It’s a grind on everybody. That gives you a couple weeks where you’re not taking them off because you’re still focused on Phoenix, but instead of working on three different things, you’re worrying about one thing. And all of us know if you do one thing, you’re gonna be better at it versus doing 10 different things halfway, right?
“I think that just narrows your focus when you’re able to do that. And it’s also tough. The race is in Phoenix, so you’ve gotta think, when you’re racing in Martinsville, your Phoenix car’s got to be ready to go already, right? Like the truck’s got to get out there pretty soon. So it’s not like you have much time to focus just on that one car because your tongue is hanging out just trying to get there first. That’s the first thing you’ve got to do is get there. So when you put all that together, yeah, it’s a pretty good size advantage to win here this weekend.”
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Since James Small took over the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team in 2020, his cars have finished outside the top 10 at Las Vegas just twice in 11 starts. Ten of those starts came with Martin Truex Jr. behind the wheel. Now, Chase Briscoe wheels the No. 19 Toyota into the Round of 8 in his inaugural season with JGR.
But Small’s focus remains the same: Qualify well and stay up front all day.
“It just seems like they’re never that straightforward here, especially in the Next Gen car,” Small told NASCAR.com Saturday.
The good news is that Briscoe accomplished that goal in Saturday’s qualifying session and will start second alongside JGR teammate Denny Hamlin. Small, though, pointed to the “chaos” that tends to unfold in the playoff race. Last year, the vehicle he prepped was involved in a spectacular multicar wreck that sent Tyler Reddick flipping onto his roof across the frontstretch. That race had five cautions for 32 laps. The spring race featured nine yellow flags for 53 laps. Part of that stems from car setup, which Small said requires teams to “generally run the car a little freer to be fast, so it’s more just more knife-edgy.”
“You just need to have a good handle on being balanced enough in traffic to then not be too free out front,” Small said.
His teammates on the No. 11 team rocketed to the Busch Light Pole Award by a mere 0.036 seconds. Hamlin was pleased by his short-run speed, placing sixth in 10-lap averages on Saturday, but expressed concern for the long run. A weather change from Saturday to Sunday will factor into how competitive Hamlin remains throughout the course of the race, with Sunday’s high of 79 degrees Fahrenheit set to be roughly 10 degrees cooler than Saturday’s, with wind gusts slowed to 13 mph from Saturday’s 31 mph.
“There’s a big wind-direction change tomorrow, and that’s probably one thing which we knew was coming potentially,” No. 11 crew chief Chris Gayle told NASCAR.com after winning the pole. “And then the second is just we weren’t good enough (on the) long run. We had really good short-run speed, but we got a little too free long run. So we just need to fix that for (Sunday), especially considering we’ll start on the pole and have clean air if we can have a good start.”
Gayle didn’t hesitate to say he would pick pit stall No. 1 for the No. 11 team on Sunday, setting up the team’s box closest to pit exit toward Turn 1. That decision isn’t always automatic at Las Vegas though. Last year, Christopher Bell and crew Adam Stevens — another set of JGR teammates — selected pit stall No. 6 because of the opening that sat in front of the box and a perceived lack of grip in pit stall No. 1. Small selected pit stall No. 6 with the second choice in pit-stall selections.
“There’s very few openings out here this weekend compared to normal, compared to Kansas,” Small said. “There’s so many openings in and out (at Kansas), it’s not as big of an issue. But here, it’s definitely a lot tighter. We’ve been trapped here before on pit road. You saw people run into a lot of issues last year [with] cars coming across them. There’s generally always so many cars on the lead lap here, it just seems like that even on a green-flag cycle, it can become pretty chaotic. So, yeah, anything to do to get priority selection there is going to be huge, especially as it comes down to the end there, especially if you’ve got two-tire calls at the end and things like that.”
This will come down to the wire. Seven of the last eight races at Las Vegas have had a margin of victory of less than one second, per Racing Insights, with the pass for the win coming inside the final six laps in four of the last seven Cup races here.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
Ross Chastain. No, he’s no longer eligible for a championship after his heartbreak at the Charlotte Roval. But Chastain laid down the quickest lap in Group A of practice Saturday before contacting the outside wall. Chastain has a series-best five top fives at Vegas in the Next Gen car and has top 10s in six of his last seven Vegas starts. | See Chastain’s projected finishing position
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
The Round of 8 playoff drivers came to play in the opener at Las Vegas, with the top six qualifying positions belonging to Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. Team Penske was respectable, but Ryan Blaney, who is always a frontrunner on long-run pace, ranked just 19th on 10-lap averages. William Byron was dominant over the course of a multi-lap run in practice, ranking as the best on five-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 25- and 30-lap averages. The lone swap here this weekend is replacing Ross Chastain with Chase Briscoe, as he thought the No. 19 team had among its most balanced practice sessions of the entire season. Other notable Toyota drivers, Bubba Wallace and Ty Gibbs, also looked sporty on Saturday.
Lineup: William Byron, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
•NASCAR at Las Vegas: Key info, qualifying reports and more from doubleheader weekend | Read more
• Bubble Watch: Will anyone hit the jackpot at Vegas? | Read more • A common theme: Round of 8 drivers share same belief | Read more • Bell zeroes in on Vegas: Can No. 20 team return to Champ 4? | Read more
• At-track photos: Trackside sights, scenes from Sin City | View gallery
• Turning Point to Vegas: Is there a title favorite? | Read more • Neil Paine: Proof in pressure: Logano rises when doubted | Read more
• Byron chugging along: Check in with No. 24 driver | Read more
• Playoff Pulse: Who’s hot, who’s not ahead of Vegas | Read more
• Power Rankings: Sizing up where playoff drivers stand | This week’s ranks
No, those aren’t the winning numbers from a table game at South Point casino. But one of those numbers could represent the first driver to punch their ticket to the Championship 4 Sunday in the Mojave Desert, if the odds fall in their favor.
After Saturday’s practice and qualifying, Racing Insights projects William Byron to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) and clinch a spot in the title race next month at Phoenix Raceway.
Byron impressed on Saturday with his long-run speed and will start fifth. Byron’s recorded top 10s in each of the last five Vegas races, tying his active personal best clip at Talladega. He’s led in each of those five Sin City events and has averaged a whopping 42 points over his last 10 races at 1.5-mile circuits. As a whole, Hendrick has won five of the last nine races at Las Vegas.
But no matter which angle you look at Sunday’s 400-miler, everything leads back to his teammate, Kyle Larson. The 33-year-old from Elk Grove, California is a three-time Las Vegas winner, including the spring of 2021, when Larson earned his first of 26 victories and counting with the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team. His 426 laps led at 1.5-mile tracks are the most of all drivers this year, as is his 8.7 running position, and he’s led in 19 of the last 20 mile-and-a-half races. He’ll start sixth on the grid.
With as strong as Toyota has been this year, particularly in the playoffs, success at mile-and-a-half tracks has eluded them. The manufacturer is winless in six races in 2025, but it’s certainly not for a lack of speed. Denny Hamlin’s average finish of 20.33 at this track type is head-scratching, but he’s inside the top 10 in all five NASCAR Insights categories. He did, however, place 13th or worse in all five categories in the spring race at Las Vegas alone, as did Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe. Hamlin also won the pole on Saturday.
Don’t forget about Team Penske, either. At least one of their drivers has won a Round of 8 race in four of the last five years, and that’s paid off as the organization has scored three consecutive titles.
Las Vegas looks like just another stop on the schedule, but save for the championship race itself, Sunday’s 267-lapper is arguably the most important race of the season. A win in the city that never sleeps would allow for a playoff driver to rest soundly with a Championship 4 spot secured and prepare for Phoenix early, as the rest of the title contenders slug it out at Talladega and Martinsville.
CHRISTOPHER BELL: The four-time winner in 2025 has top fives at Las Vegas in three of the last five races, including runner-ups in the last two fall events. He’s been rock-solid through the playoffs thus far, earning 223 points, second-best only to teammate Chase Briscoe.
DENNY HAMLIN: Though he hasn’t earned the finishes at 1.5-mile tracks this year, Las Vegas has always been a solid track for the No. 11 team. He won the fall race in 2021 and has just one finish worse than 11th in the last six races in Sin City. His 12.78 average finish is ninth-best all-time.
JOEY LOGANO: The three-time champion has won at Las Vegas four times, and his Round of 8 wins in 2022 and 2024 have spearheaded two of the aforementioned titles. He’s earned the fewest points among remaining playoff drivers thus far, but the team’s survive-and-advance mentality can’t be quantified.
CHASE BRISCOE: The only playoff driver without a Championship 4 appearance, Briscoe’s statistically been the best driver this postseason with an average finish of 6.67 in six races. He’s won the pole at the last two 1.5-mile tracks the series has visited, so a strong Saturday could shape up well for Sunday.
ROSS CHASTAIN:Narrowly missing a Round of 8 spot, Chastain’s been sneaky good in the desert. His five top fives in seven Next Gen races are the most of all drivers, and he has the best average finish in that span, despite never scoring a win.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR SOUTH POINT 400:
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula incorporates current track, track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to predict a projected winner and provide full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
LAS VEGAS — Jesse Love blames himself for losing Saturday night’s Round of 8 opener in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
But the driver of the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet also lent plenty of responsibility to Nick Sanchez after a heated exchange on the final restart of the race with 23 laps remaining.
Restarting third when the green flag waved for the last time in Saturday’s Focused Health 302, Love looked to the inside of the leaders to make it three-wide before settling into a heated battle with Sanchez’s No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet. Sanchez cleared Love and nearly passed Aric Almirola for second, but fell back to Love’s clutches. The two side-drafted each other aggressively, nearly leading to contact and a crash. After leading 22 laps, Love ultimately fell back to finish sixth while Sanchez finished fifth.
Love exited his car frustrated, but waited at his vehicle for two minutes before making his way angrily toward Sanchez for a conversation. Sanchez explained to Love: “We’re racing for the win, Jesse. Did you not see me almost wreck down there (in Turns 1 and 2) with (Almirola)? You’re side-drafting me. Everyone’s side-drafting me. We’re racing for the win.”
Love wasn’t in the mood to hear it, responding: “That’s why you’ve crashed half these [expletive] races. [Expletive] you, dude,” before shoving Sanchez in the chest and departing back to his race car.
After taking another minute to collect himself, Love explained what he took issue with.
“Yeah, three things,” he said. “One, his track record with how he races other people, our past experience and then tonight. I mean just putting it on my door, about crashing us every time we’re trying to side-draft each other. And then, yeah, that was about 1% of lack of talent away from crashing both of us. So that’s why I’m upset. There’s a very few amount of people that I feel like in the field, you’re always feeling like you’re gonna crash, you guys are both gonna crash or whatever. And Nick’s one of those people. So yeah, I take issue with that.”
Saturday’s discussion wasn’t their first about on-track decision-making. JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith confronted Sanchez after an August race at Portland International Raceway in which Sanchez used an aggressive overtime move that resulted in contact with multiple cars. Sanchez’s reaction to the confrontation triggered another conversation with Love.
“I talked to him at Portland after he wiped out the field and explained to him, because he was like, laughing at Sammy,” Love said. “And I was like, hey, just so you know, you did screw up here and whatnot, because me and Nick are still good buddies. And then he laughed at Sammy, and then he laughed at me, laughed at my crew chief, so yeah, just obviously pissed off.”
Love is one of eight drivers still racing for an Xfinity Series championship and leaves Las Vegas 20 points above the provisional cutline. Sanchez was eliminated from the postseason after last week’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Sanchez, though, saw no fault in his on-track aggression.
“We were racing. We’re racing,” Sanchez said. “And you could be mad, you could whine, but we’re racing. And I didn’t wreck him. I’m gonna race the same way every time. And like I said, I’ve been telling everyone my boss hired me to race. And if I were to pull over and give him a top five, it’s not gonna sit well. So I race. I race for Big Machine Racing and I race for myself. And I try to do that respectfully, and when I make a mistake, I’ll own up to it. But that was just straight racing.
“I know I put it on his door, but some other people put it on my door for me to even get in the situation for him to be on my inside, right? And you know, he wasn’t exactly being cordial on the side drafts, right? So when you’re touching someone’s left rear on the straightaway, it’s game on. And like I said, I’m not gonna wreck him. He’s an alliance car, but I’m gonna race the piss out of him just like anyone else. If you don’t like that, go cry.”
He also has no interest in any further discussions with Love about their run-ins.
“It is what it is. I’m not gonna lose sleep about it,” Sanchez said. “I’m not gonna even have a conversation about it because we can talk about racing because I was racing right? The little act at the end, pushing me. If you’re gonna fight someone, fight it. You’ve seen the fights I’ve been in. The push doesn’t sit well with me, so I don’t want to donate any more to The NASCAR Foundation, so I’m just going to keep it to myself.”
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
The flash of pit-road confrontation nearly eclipsed what was an excellent night for Love and his No. 2 RCR team. Love averaged a 3.13 running position, third-best of the night behind race-winner Almirola (1.96) and Connor Zilisch (2.62). He was leading just before the final caution flag waved at Lap 173, but he missed his entry to Turn 3 and allowed Zilisch to pounce to his left, dropping Love to second when Dean Thompson spun out.
Under yellow, Love then lost an extra spot on pit road and lined up for the final restart third.
“I think in hindsight that when me and Connor caught lap traffic, I was just so freaking loose,” Love said. “And he’s not going to drive around all of us on the top; he’s going to try to out-wrap me (on the bottom of the track). And instead, I missed the line. So I was in a hurry to go nowhere, as my driver coach Scott (Speed) would say, and gave Connor clean air. And obviously, I lost the lead there. Maybe we keep the lead off pit road if I don’t make that mistake.”
The sophomore racer lamented his own mistakes and allowed himself to see both the positives and negatives after a pivotal opening race in the Round of 8 as he pursues his first Championship 4 appearance.
“Definitely productive day on the points. Definitely a missed opportunity at the same time,” Love said. “Obviously, there’s the drama with the 48, but it’s not to overshadow (that) I feel like I lost that race myself. And I’m not too upset about it because I know that’s something that I can control and I can fix. I haven’t been in as many of these spots this year as I would have liked to get those reps. But yeah, I’m gonna go back and look at it and see what I could have done better.”
The NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs continue next Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
THOMPSON, Conn. – Even though Ron Silk is now a part-time competitor on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, he will end the 2025 season with more victories than any other driver.
Silk clinched that distinction in Saturday’s World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park by leading half the event for his fourth victory this year. With his dominant performance, Silk became the eighth driver in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour history to tally at least 30 wins.
The two-time series champion pulled away to earn the win with an eight-second advantage at the checkered flag. While Silk did not expect the final margin of victory to be that wide, he possessed plenty of optimism about winning the World Series 150 once he got comfortable.
“We just had a great car,” Silk said. “We didn’t qualify great in 11th, but I knew the way it practiced and even how it drove in qualifying that I’d be able to get it to the front. It was probably a weird race for the fans, and I’m sure they would have liked to see some excitement there toward the end, but it was pretty good from my seat.”
Ron Silk takes the checkered flag at Thompson to become the eighth driver to win 30 #NWMT40 races!
Thompson has long carried plenty of significance for Silk throughout his storied career. He earned his first three Modified Tour victories at the track between 2007-08 and has now visited Thompson’s Victory Lane on nine different occasions.
The first time Silk prevailed at Thompson with his current team in Haydt-Yannone Racing in 2023 also proved to be a special moment. Finding himself in the middle of a heated championship battle with Justin Bonsignore, Silk’s victory that afternoon was crucial toward his earning his second Modified Tour title.
Voluntarily skipping several events this year meant another championship was off the table for Silk and Haydt-Yannone Racing, yet they remained one of the most potent combinations on Tour. Not only does Silk have the most wins in 2025, but he has also led the most laps, a statistic he bolstered at Thompson on Saturday.
Silk is grateful for the chemistry he shares with everyone at Haydt-Yannone Racing and how the program continues to be efficient despite scaling back to part-time. No matter the number of events they run in a Modified Tour season going forward, Silk takes pride in knowing he and Haydt-Yannone Racing remain atop the pedestal.
“I thought there were a couple [of races] we could have won earlier in the year, but you don’t want to get greedy,” Silk said. “Four [wins] was good for the amount we ran, and we’re happy with it.”
Matt Swanson was the closest driver to Silk in the closing stages, earning a distant-but-stellar second at Thompson. By finishing runner-up to Silk, Swanson clinched the FloRacing Connecticut Challenge, an in-season championship between the three Thompson events exclusive to new teams or programs that have not competed in the past three years.
Modified Tour points leader Austin Beers departed Thompson with a slightly larger margin over Justin Bonsignore. After methodically biding his time behind Bonsignore for most of the second half, Beers finally overtook the veteran driver to come home in third.
The rest of the top five consisted of Matt Hirschman and Craig Lutz. Bonsignore, Kyle Bonsignore, Patrick Emerling, Tyler Rypkema and Stephen Kopcik rounded out the top 10.
One race remains before the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion will be crowned. Martinsville Speedway hosts the season-ending Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 on Oct. 23, with FloRacing carrying live coverage of all the on-track action.
LAS VEGAS — An incredible race-long scramble among the day’s front-running trio of veteran Aric Almirola and young talents Connor Zilisch and Jesse Love ended in favor of the experienced Almirola, but he really had to earn this trophy in Saturday’s Focused Health 302 NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Almirola, who led a race-best 107 of the 201 laps, took the lead for good from the season’s most dominant driver, Zilisch, with nine laps remaining and held off the championship leader by .696 seconds in one of the most competitive races of the season.
The win for the 41-year-old Almirola — who is racing part-time this season — gives his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota the first automatic berth for the owner’s championship in the Nov. 1 season-ending Championship 4 finale at Phoenix Raceway.
It was the third win of the 2025 season and 10th of his career for Almirola, who made the dramatic race-winning move — diving low on the 19-year-old Zilisch — and then had to out-run and out-maneuver the talented young star in the closing laps.
Almirola’s victory settles an owner’s championship position but also means the final four championship race is still open to four drivers — at least two of which will now advance based on points.
“Such an awesome opportunity to go race for an owner’s championship with [Gibbs’ late son] J.D. Gibbs’ name on the car,” Almirola said. “I’m having so much fun. This is the time of my life.
“Our car was good. Our car was really good, but the longer I ran the tighter I got and I was just struggling on the long run at the beginning of Stage 3 and finally on that re-start [with 23 laps remaining] I took off incredibly tight and couldn’t get going and was able to go chase the 88 [Zilisch] down. He looked pretty loose and I was able to capitalize on that.
“It was awesome racing them.”
Zilisch’s runner-up finish extends his series record consecutive top-five efforts to 18 races. He’s finished first or second place an incredible 11 of the last 13 races. However, that streak of success was no comfort in the immediate moments after Saturday’s checkered flag. He even apologized to his JR Motorsports team on the cool-down lap for not being more aggressive in the race’s closing laps.
“The frustration just comes from the fact this means so much to me and the chance to lock into Phoenix,” said Zilisch, who boosted his advantage in the championship to 82 points above the four-driver playoff cutoff line.
“I gave it my all and I drove as hard as I could. But I guess that’s all we had today. I just have to do a better job.”
“We put ourselves in the right spots, but unfortunately, I just didn’t come away with it,” he added. “Plus, 82 [points] is not bad; it could have been a lot worse, but having another “win” sticker on this thing would have been a lot better.
Zilisch’s JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, Saturday’s polesitter and the defending race winner, finished third followed by Hendrick Motorsports’ development driver Corey Day and Big Machine Racing’s Nick Sanchez.
Love, who led three times for 22 laps, finished sixth in the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. He got caught up racing hard with Sanchez in the closing laps after running among the top three for most of the day. He was frustrated and he and Sanchez had words on pit road following the checkered flag.
“I had words with him and obviously I’m extremely pissed off,” said Love, who is now 20 points above the cutoff line. “It was my fault I was in the spot racing him. … I don’t run into people and don’t put people in bad spots for no reason and that’s why I’m upset about it.
“I did a lot of things really good tonight and I did a lot of things really really bad tonight,” Love added.
For his part, Sanchez said he was just racing hard, and although he is no longer playoff-eligible, he still intends to race hard for wins in these final races of the season.
Ryan Sieg, Taylor Gray, playoff driver Sam Mayer and Austin Hill rounded out the top 10.
Beyond Zilisch’s huge lead in the playoff standings, Allgaier is second, 44 points up on the cutoff. Love’s sixth-place showing moved him from fifth place into third place and Mayer is fourth, eight points above the cutline.
JGR’s Brandon Jones, who finished 13th Saturday, is now fifth in points, minus-8. Mayer’s Haas Factory Team teammate Sheldon Creed, who finished 11th, is now 21 points off the cutline. Zilisch’s JR Motorsports teammates, Carson Kvapil, who finished 15th and Sammy Smith, who finished 20th, are now 22 and 24 points, respectively, below the four-driver cutoff.
The series returns to playoff action next week at the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway for next Saturday’s United Rentals 250 (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Sammy Smith is the defending race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Almirola as the race winner. No cars will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.
LAS VEGAS — All of the NASCAR Cup Series alpha dogs have advanced to the Round of 8. Let them bark.
Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske — the flagship team for all three manufacturers — fill the eight positions in the Round of 8. This year joins 2021 as the only time that the eight spots were represented entirely by the three heavyweight organizations. Seven of the eight drivers in this year’s Round of 8 have appeared in multiple Championship 4 battles. Excellence personified.
“I wouldn’t say there’s any surprises in the Round of 8,” reigning Cup champion Joey Logano said on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I think they are all capable of winning the championship this year — every one of them. There are none that are like, ‘I can’t believe this guy made it this far.’ I think you’ve got the best eight teams going for it; it’s going to be a battle right until the end.
“I don’t see a clear favorite or a clear this person is going to kill them all. It seems like it’s going to be close all the way to the end.”
The metrics skew in favor of these eight drivers. Every driver but Logano has multiple victories in the opening 32 events of the season and has accounted for 21 of the 26 wins on ovals. Josh Berry, Austin Cindric, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and Austin Dillon are the outliers.
Over the six previous 2025 playoff races, Chase Briscoe, a JGR newcomer, has tabulated the most points with 233. Christopher Bell, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, ranks second with 223 points scored. All eight drivers are within 48 points of each other.
“These are some of the best teams,” 2025 Regular Season Champion William Byron said. “It’s pretty straightforward to get here this year. I think that changed with Talladega not being in the Round of 12. It made that round — I would say — based on merit. These are some great race teams.”
The consensus among the Round of 8 drivers is that experience pays dividends. Four of the eight drivers are Cup champions, no doubt future Hall of Famers. Denny Hamlin’s 59 career victories easily secure him a spot among NASCAR immortals. The stock for Bell, Briscoe and Byron continues to rise with each passing season.
“There is a lot of experienced drivers that made it to the Round of 8, and I think that experience allows you to get to the Round of 8 throughout the playoffs,” 2021 champion Kyle Larson said. “I guess I never thought about that, but it’s impressive, and hopefully we can do a good job to make it on.”
The lone driver to not have a prior Championship 4 berth is Briscoe, whose deepest run was to the Round of 8 in 2022 with Stewart-Haas Racing. The script has flipped on his outlook as he had an outside chance of advancing to the Championship 4 that season.
“You don’t luck your way into the Round of 8,” Briscoe said. “I feel like it’s probably the strongest Round of 8 we’ve ever had. Just when you look at the teams and drivers. It’s not going to be easy. The points are tighter than they’ve ever been; nobody has separated themselves. It’s going to be tough, but at this time of the year, you have to go perform.
“I at least know the intensity of the Round of 8. It was a way different situation because we were complete underdogs. It felt different from what it feels like right now, but at least having that experience and knowing how that Round of 8 feels is good. There is a reason the same guys get there year after year, and they have a lot of experience doing it.”
The points reset would concur with Briscoe. After the reset from the Round of 12, Hamlin is scored as the No. 1 seed, only eight points above the cutline. That’s the fewest in playoff history by a considerable margin, with the smallest gap previously being 18 points in 2019.
All eight drivers know getting through Las Vegas unscathed is paramount. The middle race in the round is at the hallowed grounds of Talladega Superspeedway, where a driver’s destiny can oftentimes be in the hands of their competition. Hamlin knows that firsthand, which is why winning the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) holds a high magnitude.
“We’ve got really two races to make it,” Hamlin said. “Talladega is going to be a coin flip for all of us, so we have two races to try to execute the best we can and hopefully speed wins out. Hopefully, you don’t get unlucky. That’s going to be the difference. Someone is going to get lucky and someone is going to get unlucky to either make or not make the final four.”
Playoff drivers governed the field in qualifying on Saturday, filling up the top six positions. Ryan Blaney, 2023 Cup champion, is the only driver not to crack the top 10 and will take the green flag from 14th position. The Round of 8 contestants have combined to win five of the last six races at Las Vegas.
