Posted on by Holly Cain

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Benefitting from a split-second late-race strategy decision, veteran Aric Almirola held off a mightily motivated field to claim the win in Friday night’s Food City 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs opener at Bristol Motor Speedway.

While running second to the series’ championship leader, Connor Zilisch, when a caution flag flew with 36 laps remaining, Almirola watched Zilisch pull onto pit road for fresh tires, and instead of following him into the pits as his crew expected, Almirola abruptly pulled his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back on track at the last moment.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

He then had to out-run, out-maneuver and out-last the competition — several on fresher tires — in the closing laps to claim his second victory of the season and ninth of his career. A former full-time Cup Series driver who is now competing part-time in the Xfinity Series with Gibbs, Almirola ultimately beat Haas Factory Team driver Sheldon Creed to the checkered flag by .381 seconds — marking a series record 15th runner-up finish for Creed, who is still racing for his first career win.

“Just tired of getting beat by those guys, I figured I’d try my chances with the lead,” Almirola said of his race-winning pit strategy decision. “They’ve been so fast and they fire off so fast on new tires and I just didn’t think I could beat them straight up on new tires. It took me about 20 laps to get going, so I thought my best chance was to stay out on old tires.

“We watched the last two or three races here and saw how the nine-car with [driver] Noah Gragson win with like a 100 laps on his tires,” added Almirola, whose No. 19 JGR Toyota is racing for the owner’s championship. “So, I decided to stay out when they said pit.”

Creed passed his Haas Factory Team teammate Sam Mayer with a lap remaining but was unable to catch up to Almirola. JR Motorsports driver Carson Kvapil finished fourth, followed by his teammate Zilisch, who was trying to become the first driver in series history to win five consecutive races.

Zilisch’s fifth-place finish, however, still resulted in a series record, giving him 15 consecutive top-five showings. He has a series-best nine victories on the season and maintains a 32-point advantage over another JR Motorsports teammate, Friday’s race polesitter and reigning series champion Justin Allgaier, who finished sixth and earned a series-best 11th stage win.

“It was a good day, just so hard those decisions at the end because whatever you do, everyone else is going to do the opposite,” the 19-year-old rookie Zilisch said. “We had a really good day with our WeatherTech Chevrolet, got further up above the [playoff] cutoff line and we’ll move on to next week and keep on building.”

Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes, Jeremy Clements and Brennan Poole rounded out a top 10 that included three rookies. The top seven finishers were all playoff drivers. Ten of the 12 playoff competitors finished 14th or higher.

Sammy Smith, who went into the race ranked sixth in the playoff standings, took the biggest championship hit of the night. He suffered an early problem with his No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and had to retire to the garage only 56 laps into the race with an engine issue. He’s now ranked 12th and last among the playoff contenders, 24 points below the cutline with two races remaining in this opening round.

“Unfortunate situation,” Smith said. “Very disappointed for the team. Worked so hard and to not really have a shot was frustrating. We’ll just have to do our best the next two weeks in the Playoffs and see.”

MORE: Xfinity Series standings

Beyond Zilisch and Allgaier, Mayer is now 50 points off the lead, and Kvapil is 69 back. Burton, in fifth place, is now separated from 10th-place Taylor Gray by only six points.

Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love and rookie Nick Sanchez are the first drivers below the cutline — both three points behind Gray. Love’s veteran teammate, Austin Hill, is 16 points back with Smith dropping into that 12th slot after round one of the seven-race title run.

The series holds its second of the three Round of 12 playoff races on Saturday, Sept. 27, at Kansas Speedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).  Almirola is the defending race winner.

NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Almirola as the winner.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

BRISTOL, Tenn. — All’s well that ends well in the case of NASCAR Cup Series title contenders Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney — for now.

The pair of past champions had a nefarious encounter last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway as the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver spun Blaney in Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 135. While Blaney was furious over the radio in the moment, he and Larson had a cordial exchange on pit road after the race as the No. 12 Team Penske Ford rallied for a top-five while Larson placed 12th.

A week removed and an elimination race to focus on at Bristol Motor Speedway Saturday night (7:30 ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), there appear to be no leftover feelings about the incident.

RELATED: Cup starting lineup | Photos from Bristol

“I’ve always been someone who doesn’t hold a ton of grudge,” Blaney said Friday at Bristol. “I’ve found it more healthy for me to get it out of my system right away, and then I can move on. If I hold it in, then I think about it for a long time and then that’s how things can kind of build and all that stuff. That’s just kind of how I’ve approached it. Just to have a conversation like we had last week is really all I was searching for. I think you get a lot more done having an adult conversation with somebody. Granted, if I felt like it was malicious, then maybe it’s a different conversation. But I don’t think it was. It was just a mistake of two guys running hard and I got the bad end of it.”

Larson said as much earlier in the week about the incident during a Zoom teleconference.

“We all have those moments,” Larson said Wednesday. “Every move we make throughout every corner of the race is strategical. I wouldn’t necessarily say that anybody races much different than anybody these days. We’re pushing hard. It’s coming to the end of the stage. I had made a move the lap before, which is exactly what I was trying to do that lap and it was just further back than I was lap before. I entered faster to get there, and then I wasn’t going to get there. I was just trying to get back in line and just misjudged where his left-rear corner of the car was by a foot or so.”

While Blaney could very well retaliate on track or after a race, it’s not in his blood and said that he’s a ‘spitting image’ of his father, Dave, in that they are soft spoken when the helmets are off, but in the heat of the moment, they both get really competitive because they want to win each weekend.

Instead of rubbing fenders or fisticuffs, Blaney prefers another way of getting back at those who wronged him on track.

“I would rather go out and if I feel like someone did me wrong or someone made a mistake around me, I think the biggest statement you can do is just go kick their ass the next week and like the rest of the year and do it in the right way,” Blaney said. “I don’t need to rough you up to beat you. I’m gonna beat you straight up and I think that’s the biggest statement that you can make and that’s just kind of how I always think.”

Posted on by Staff Report

See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series drivers will pit this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Cup Series

Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

RELATED: How to watch NASCAR on USA Network, NBC Sports App

NASCAR Xfinity Series

Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: How to watch NASCAR on The CW

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

UNOH 250 presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway on Thursday (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: How to watch NASCAR on FS1

Posted on by Reid Spencer

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Qualifying in the first half of a 39-driver field, AJ Allmendinger stole the spotlight from the NASCAR Cup Series playoff contenders who followed him around Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday afternoon.

Allmendinger toured the 0.533-mile concrete short track in 15.117 seconds (126.930 mph) to earn the top starting spot for Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, the Round of 16 elimination race (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

The lap held up against an onslaught of playoff drivers. Ryan Blaney (126.905 mph) came closest with a lap just 0.003 seconds slower than Allmendinger’s. Austin Cindric, just 11 points above the current elimination line for the Round of 12, will start third after a lap at 126.804 mph, far better than his average Bristol starting spot of 21.4.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Bristol

The Busch Light Pole Award was Allmendinger’s first of the 2025 season, first at Bristol and fifth of his career. It was also his first pole since 2015 at Watkins Glen, 10 years ago.

“We just had a really good practice,” said Allmendinger, driver of the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet. “We had a solid race in the spring, so good notes to go off of, for sure. You never know. They were saying the (softer right-side) tires were going to be a little different, but our practice was really good.

“I was pretty happy with that lap… The tire doesn’t feel a ton different. You can feel the softness — the car kind of moves around on it — but it’s not a massive difference to me. We’ll see how it races (on Saturday), once you get 125 laps on it.”

Blaney said his No. 12 Team Penske Ford felt tight in the final two corners.

“I’m proud of our lap and proud to be starting on the front row,” said Blaney, the 2023 series champion. “I wish I could have had it back and I’m sure a lot of guys say that. I just got tight in (Turns) 3 and 4…

“I think our race car is really good, too, over the long haul, and I’m just looking forward to (Saturday) night. Hopefully, we can run a good 500 laps and keep up with the race track and see what we can do.”

Non-playoff driver Ty Gibbs (126.720 mph) qualified fourth in the fastest Toyota, with six playoff drivers behind him. Kyle Larson (126.670 mph), winner of the last two Cup Series races at Bristol, was fifth, with last week’s Gateway winner Denny Hamlin (126.312 mph) sixth fastest.

William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell and Josh Berry will start sixth through 10th on the grid, respectively.

Berry is 16th in the playoff standings, 45 points below the cutline for the Round of 12 and needing a victory to advance past the Round of 16. But Berry was the fastest among the four drivers below the line.

Alex Bowman, 35 points in arrears, qualified 15th. Austin Dillon, 11 points behind Cindric, will start 23rd. And Shane van Gisbergen, 15 points below the cutline, will start 28th.

Other playoff drivers qualified as follows: Ross Chastain (13th), Tyler Reddick (14th), Chase Elliott (16th), Joey Logano (22nd) and Chase Briscoe (31st).

Haley, Blaney fastest in practice

In an incident-free practice session, Justin Haley (Group A) and Ryan Blaney (Group B) topped the leaderboard after setting the same speed at 125.354 mph.

Carson Hocevar (125.338 mph), Brad Keselowski (125.313 mph) and Michael McDowell (125.305 mph) rounded out the top five.

Chase Briscoe (125.183 mph), Denny Hamlin (125.028 mph), Chase Elliott (124.938 mph), Ty Gibbs (124.889 mph) and Ross Chastain (124.622 mph) completed the top 10.

MORE: Practice results

Josh Berry was the slowest playoff driver in practice, slotting in 38th (122.146 mph) of 39 drivers who set a time.

Drivers and teams were able to collect data on Goodyear’s softer right-side tire compound, which aims to produce more wear and incorporate tire management into the strategy for Saturday night’s 500-lap race.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

BRISTOL, Tenn. — After the checkered flag last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Christopher Bell had a rare outburst on his radio, expressing anger with a seventh-place finish while his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe finished first and second.

The heat-of-moment sizzle stemmed from a good place — a burning desire to win for a driver and No. 20 team that haven’t won since March.

MORE: Playoff standings | At-track photos: Bristol

“We just [expletive] ran seventh with the best car on the track!” Bell radioed at Gateway. “Every [expletive] week, it’s the same [expletive].”

Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens spoke after the proverbial smoke settled and head into Saturday night’s Round of 16 cutoff race (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs “in a really good spot,” Bell said Friday.

“I think it was definitely a buildup of frustration and not performing up to our standards, and not getting the results that I think that we should get,” Bell said. “Well — not even think; should. We should get better results, and we haven’t been doing that. It was frustration.”

Bell opened the year by winning the second, third and fourth races of 2025, immediately firing off as a team that looked destined for another trip to the Championship 4. But the visits to Victory Lane vanished — save for a win in the exhibition NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in May. The No. 20 team’s last top five in a points-paying oval race came at Kansas Speedway on May 11.

“We’re all on the same team,” Bell said. “I want to win. Adam wants to win. All of my my team, we all have the same common goal. So I don’t think anybody takes it personal because we all want the same thing. And if I win, it’s good for Adam. If Adam wins, it’s good for me. So I don’t know; it’s professional sports.”

In a Friday morning interview with NASCAR.com, Stevens echoed Bell’s sentiments verbatim. He explained the context of a 29th-place finish at Darlington Raceway in the postseason opener, which added to the nuanced lead-in to last week’s brief verbal unleashing.

“It’s been a few weeks since we’ve won, and it just weighs you down,” Stevens said. “You know, little extra pressure of the playoffs, a little extenuating circumstances with not having a great finish at Darlington, even though we were quick. And having to really be mindful of points coming into Bristol with the new tire — we just don’t know what kind of weekend it’s going to be here, right? So I don’t think he had a full understanding of that in the heat of the moment, and frustrations come out. It’s a frustrating sport.”

Adam Stevens and Christopher Bell look on during Bristol practice.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media

The lack of results to bolster the No. 20 team’s pace is a significant contributing factor to Bell’s disappointment. Hamlin has won a series-best five races this year, and Briscoe and Hamlin, respectively, won the opening playoff races at Darlington and Gateway. Bell’s confidence in his equipment hasn’t wavered, but the post-race rundowns haven’t supported the mid-race speed he has shown.

Since leading 105 laps in his March victory at Phoenix Raceway, Bell has only led a combined 113 laps in the last 24 races.

“I’m happy for my teammates, but that’s the barometer,” Bell said. “And if your teammates are out there winning races and leading laps, that shows that the cars are capable. We have the equipment. And I haven’t been leading laps and I haven’t been winning races, so there’s obviously something going on that’s keeping us from from doing that.”

What complicates that challenge is that Stevens can’t point to a singular theme holding the No. 20 team back from reaching its maximum potential.

“You just have to go track by track and week by week, and I don’t really think there’s a recurring thing there,” Stevens said. “To your point, we’ve had speed. We’ve suffered in execution here and there. And there’s lots of races and lots of tracks on the schedule, so you’ve got to take it all in stride. There’s 37 weekends if you count the All-Star Race, and you’re not going to win them all. And it comes and goes, just like anything else in professional sports.”

Stevens’ measured approach comes from 10 prior years of Cup Series crew-chiefing, a tenure that has resulted in two titles and 40 victories combined with Kyle Busch (2015-2020) and Bell (2021-present). Together, Bell and Stevens have made the Championship 4 in two of the last three seasons. To underestimate the confidence either has in one another is to ignore their past and recent successes. Per NASCAR Insights, the No. 20 Toyota ranks fifth in speed throughout the first 28 races of 2025 and places Bell as the fifth-best passer in the series.

“When we sit down and set our goals for the season, top of the sheet is to win the championship,” Stevens said. “And there’s nothing that’s happened at any point in time that’s taken that goal away. So it’s still right there in front of us. We have the cars. We have the speed. We have the driver and the team to do it, so eyes on the prize.”

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Despite entering the Cup Series Playoffs as just one of two drivers without a victory, the vibes still felt good for Alex Bowman entering the 10-race quest for the championship.

Bowman tallied top 10s in seven of the 11 races prior to the postseason and looked to be a sure-fire contender to make a run at least into the Round of 12. But that hasn’t been the case for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team and it’s primarily due to errors on pit road.

A disastrous 40-second pit stop at Darlington and another slow stop last Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway have set back Bowman entering Saturday’s first-round elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) and now faces a virtual must-win situation down 35 points to the cutline.

For this weekend, Hendrick made the call to swap all pit-crew members, minus the fueler, with the No. 77 Spire Motorsports team in hopes of solving the pit-stop puzzle.

RELATED: Cup playoff standings | Bristol photos

“I wasn’t super involved in it, had some conversations, but not super deeply involved in it,” Bowman said Friday at Bristol. “Those guys have been super fast at points throughout this year and they’re all really great athletes and do a good job. We’ve just had a bad two weeks at a time that we can’t have a bad two weeks.”

After a runner-up result at Richmond, it seemed Bowman was primed to begin the prep for a walkthrough into the playoffs. However, an early crash in the regular-season finale at Daytona had Bowman sweating until the checkered flag when Ryan Blaney outdueled a handful of underdogs to keep the cutline below Bowman and lock the Tucson, Arizona native into the title battle.

But the ick hasn’t been scrubbed since Daytona, and Bowman has qualified 25th or worse in each of the first two playoff races and finished 31st (Darlington) and 26th (Gateway).

“Certainly frustrating, right?” Bowman said. “We had a really good summer and the switch turned off for us, for sure. It’s kind of mortifying how bad we’ve been. It’s embarrassing. It’s not from a lack of effort, like everybody’s working so hard at HMS and our whole team is. We’ve just not put days together like we need to. So yeah, working hard to turn that around this weekend.”

The first item on the checklist toward willing the No. 48 team into the Round of 12 is a good qualifying lap.

Bowman put down a 125.757 mph lap in Friday’s qualifying session and will roll off 15th from the grid Saturday night.

Despite the inadequate circumstances coming into Bristol, Bowman isn’t approaching the race any different than he usually does.

“It’s really not that different than we normally would,” Bowman said. “We’re in such a tough spot, it’s almost less stressful, right? It’s not like we’re really close to the cutline and you’re trying to make sure you don’t make any mistakes. We got to make something happen. Mentally going through these last couple weeks has not been a fun time for me, but mentally it’s always kind of not been a fun time for me the last couple years. Just trying to run the best we can this weekend and be as prepared as I can be to go out there and do my job.”

With the pit crew swap, there’s no animosity or hurt feelings toward the members moving over to Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 team, and Bowman hopes that it will lead to good fortunes for both himself and Spire when the green flag waves Saturday evening.

“I’m definitely friends with all those guys and appreciative for all their hard work,” Bowman said. “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they had an amazing day on pit road on the 77 car and looked really good. I think for us, we needed a change, and just trying to have the best shot we can at winning this weekend.”

Posted on by Kobe Lambeth

Big Machine Racing and Nick Sanchez should not be overlooked entering the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, despite this being known as the year of dominance by one team, JR Motorsports.

Sanchez enters Friday’s playoff opener at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the No. 7 seed, a single point above the cutline. The No. 48 Chevrolet driver punched his postseason ticket in late June when he visited Victory Lane for the first time in his Xfinity Series career at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

Although the Big Machine operation has not found the same level of success as JRM with top seed Connor Zilisch’s remarkable year of nine wins at the forefront, Sanchez acknowledged the No. 88 team’s excellence but also feels his single-car team could be next in line after the JRM drivers.

RELATED: 2025 Xfinity Series Playoffs field set | Xfinity Series schedule

“What Connor is doing is insane, and rightfully so, he deserves the praise he’s getting,” Sanchez said during Tuesday’s Xfinity Series Playoffs Media Day. “But I feel like there’s a world where we could be the third fastest race car in the playoffs behind the 7 (Justin Allgaier) and the 88 (Zilisch). Like at Stage 1 after Gateway, I know it’s just one race. That’s where we were. And I feel like we’ve qualified very well. We’ve had raw pace, and that’s something that’s very hard to get.”

In the last seven races, Sanchez has started on the front row three times at Dover, Indianapolis and last Saturday night at Gateway. However, 37th-, 33rd- and 25th-place finishes in those races cannot happen in the postseason if the No. 48 team hopes to advance.

While the speed is clearly evident in qualifying, a possible deep playoff run may ultimately come down to the execution of the race. Sanchez believes Big Machine is showing more raw pace compared to technical alliance teammates, Richard Childress Racing drivers Austin Hill and Jesse Love, but knows his team must maximize its potential each week and control what it can control.

“I think it’s just having good, tough, sometimes tough and hard conversations with the team and identifying where we could be better, right?” Sanchez said. “Because like I said, the pace is there, but qualifying and just merely being fast is one thing, but executing throughout the whole race is another. And there’s areas where I could improve. There’s areas where the team can improve. I think we’re having those conversations now and trying to rectify those problems for the playoffs. And I think we definitely can.”

With Sanchez’s team debriefing the weaknesses that need some work before Friday night’s playoff opener in Thunder Valley, some areas of strength play right into the No. 48’s hands, such as road courses. The Round of 12 cutoff race is the Charlotte Roval, and Big Machine almost advanced to the next round of the playoffs last year with its then-driver Parker Kligerman.

Only mere moments before Kligerman took the white flag while leading the race, the caution came out. It forced NASCAR Overtime, where Sam Mayer out-dueled Kligerman and eliminated Big Machine from the postseason.

Sanchez has been on a roll on road courses, riding a three-race streak of top fives at Chicago, Sonoma and Portland. Despite the good runs turning left and right recently, the 24-year-old Miami native does not necessarily think he will be in a must-win situation. If the team can fully execute for the next three Round of 12 playoff races, the rest will take care of itself and maybe set the stage for a deep playoff run.

“Outside of the top two in points, everyone has one win,” Sanchez said. “I know Austin has three, but he lost all his points. So in that regard, we’re not really overcoming a huge deficit in the playoff reset. You know, I’m plus one, I think, seventh seed, and I’m 10 points out of third seed. So everyone’s really close, right? You could change, you could swing it in the stage. So in that regard, I don’t feel like there’s many must-wins ahead of me.”

MORE: Xfinity Series standings

If Sanchez reaches the Round of 8, Talladega stands out as a prime chance to punch his ticket to the Championship 4, thanks to his earlier win this season on a drafting track in Georgia. The Round of 8 cutoff race is Martinsville, the site of Sanchez’s seventh-place finish in 2022 when he was running a part-time schedule with Big Machine.

With the wild ending to the Martinsville spring race in late March, the potential for chaos in the fall edition might be a case of “survive and advance” for Sanchez, assuming he lives up to his lofty postseason expectations for Big Machine to meet the big moment.

“I need to be top three or top five in every stage of the playoffs and finish there,” Sanchez said. “If I do that, I think it’s good enough to get to Phoenix. Obviously, the win and you’re in changes things a little differently, but I feel like everyone’s really close in points. So you just really got to beat your competitors. And I know the 88 (Zilisch) and the 7 (Allgaier) are in a different points situation than everyone else. So I think the rest of the spots are pretty wide open.”

Posted on by Nate Ryan

“The Toyota Way,” a famous blueprint for the workplace culture of the world’s largest automaker, is a collection of core values rooted in a Japanese philosophy known as “Kaizen.”

It essentially means “continuous improvement” through small and persistent upgrades that are derived from constant observations and learnings about how to make performance gains.

“Every improvement, regardless of size, is valuable,” according to “The Toyota Way” listed on the company’s website. “Encouraging both incremental and breakthrough innovative thinking, we seek to evolve with Kaizen, never accepting the status quo.”

It’s a concept that resonates when looking at Toyota’s surge to open the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

RELATED: Playoff standings | Weekend schedule

Before sweeping the top two spots at Darlington and Gateway and leading 515 of the first 607 laps in the 10-race title run, there were few signs that Camrys would flaunt such dominance. Before the playoff opener, Toyota had won four of the past 18 races.

But in the background, the dedication to progress clearly continued — slowly but surely.

“We have made some minor improvements to the performance over the course of the last six or eight weeks,” Toyota Racing Development president Tyler Gibbs said after Denny Hamlin’s win at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

That was a rather understated evaluation of results that are setting off alarm bells for the competition. Defending Cup Series champion Joey Logano notably conceded after Gateway that Toyota “has got the smoke” because he was unable to outrace Hamlin. Camrys took five of the top eight positions at Gateway after claiming six of the top seven spots at Darlington.

“They’re ridiculously fast,” Logano said of the Toyotas. “They’ve got a lot of grip, and they’ve got a lot of horsepower. We’ve got a lot of work to do to catch up. We’ve got to be absolutely perfect in every category to contend, and we need them to make mistakes, which they do. We have the potential to do it; it’s just going to be really challenging.”

Just the odds seem to favor a Toyota driver winning the championship this season for the Cup Series’ most overdue manufacturer. It’s been six years and a combined five championships for Chevrolet and Ford since Kyle Busch clinched the 2019 title with a victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway — the third Toyota championship in five years at the 1.5-mile track.

The Championship 4 race shifted to Phoenix Raceway in 2020, and the manufacturer has barely been a factor since. A Toyota title contender had led at the 1-mile oval in only one of the past five season finales — Martin Truex Jr. in 2021. Hamlin (2020-21) and Christopher Bell (2022-23) both went to Phoenix with championship aspirations and were shut out of a turn at the front.

As a 1.25-mile track whose banking and shape have been compared with Phoenix, Gateway could be viewed as an encouraging sign for a turnaround in Toyota’s title prospects — though the results were downplayed by the head of its NASCAR program.

“It’s race by race, week to week,” Gibbs said. “Anything can happen. We’re just going to focus one race at a time. I know that’s cliché. It doesn’t really do us any good to look that far down the road. We’ll prepare for this week. Look at the week after as well, because it takes so much work to get ready for these races. … We’re just, again, going to keep our heads down and keep preparing the way we have.”

Humility. It’s another principle that undergirds the Toyota worldview.

“We welcome competition without ego. It pushes us to improve.”

That’s straight from “The Toyota Way” — and it might be the path to a 2025 championship.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Front Row Motorsports has made its mark in “Thunder Valley” recently as the organization has won the last three Craftsman Truck Series races at the Tennessee short track.

Layne Riggs scored his second Bristol Motor Speedway victory in the last three events to secure his spot in the Round of 8, but the track swung back at Chandler Smith under the lights Thursday evening as the No. 38 Ford suffered an electrical issue during Stage 1.

The issue pinned Smith multiple laps down, and with a clean night from the field limiting the number of cautions, the Georgia native gained no ground after 250 laps, finishing 14 laps off the pace in 30th.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“I’m not sure what the issue was honestly,” Smith said after the race. “Sounds like it was a sensor that just slowly unplugged itself, which is mind-boggling to me that we’re racing at this prestige of a level and can just have something just start wiggling its way out and completely ruin your day.”

Smith started the second Truck playoff race of 2025 inside the top 10 and found himself working his way toward the lead after teammate Riggs spun on the opening lap.

But as he closed inside the top five, Smith said his truck completely shut off.

“After that [Lap 1] caution, after probably about eight laps, I started running the top, and I was passing guys up top, got up to third or fourth and as I was passing somebody, it just cut out,” Smith said. “Just stopped, like wow. Just dead. I was like ‘maybe it’s fuel-pressure related’ because I was running the top and went to the bottom, kind of cleaned itself up, but with lapped traffic and stuff, forced me back to the top. Started doing it more and more, and then finally, it just was done.”

The opening round of the postseason has been nothing short of a nightmare for Smith and the No. 38 crew.

Smith entered the seven-race playoffs as the third seed with a 16-point buffer to the cutline. However, it took just 14 laps two weeks ago at Darlington Raceway for the advantage to disappear as the No. 38 driver slammed the wall, bringing a swift end to his day at the “Lady in Black.”

He entered Bristol just two points below the cutline, but a second consecutive minimum points day for Smith pins him 24 points below the cutline with an elimination race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway looming next Saturday (Noon ET, FS1, NASCAR Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the Truck Series returns to the “Magic Mile” for the first time since 2017.

“Gut-wrenching,” Smith lamented. “We had the fastest truck here tonight. Really, really happy that Layne won, though. That’s three in a row here for FRM. Now we’re in a must-win situation, I’m pretty sure, going to New Hampshire. It honestly comes all the way back to making a bonehead move at Darlington that put us in this position. Who knows where we would be points-wise depending on how Darlington went and not stuffing it in the fence?

“But nevertheless, we’re gonna go and do what we were gonna do tonight, and that’s kick their ass.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Layne Riggs recovered from a first-lap spin at Bristol Motor Speedway and rallied to win Thursday night’s UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics, the second race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs.

Grabbing the lead after a restart on Lap 142 of 250, Riggs held off a determined charge by two-time Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes to win his third race of the 2025 season, second at Bristol and fifth of his career.

“You don’t get two mulligans in the playoffs, and I got two,” said Riggs, who salvaged a 17th-place finish after slamming the outside wall in the first playoff race Aug. 30 at Darlington. “The first lap of the race to spin out, it’s a blow to your confidence, for sure, but I’ve got faith in this team, and I’ve got faith in everybody here …”

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

With the victory, Riggs earned a berth in the Round of 8 of the playoffs and won’t have to worry about the Sept. 20 Round of 10 elimination race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

“I think this shows that we’re right there, we’re in contention, we can do it,” said Riggs, who ran the final 109 green-flag laps with scuffed qualifying tires on his No. 34 Ford, having used a set of stickers after the spin on Lap 1. “That’s three in a row at Bristol for Front Row Motorsports. It’s a big testament to all these guys. We’ve got a really good package here.

“Man, I’m excited for New Hampshire. I’ve never even been there and I already love that race track.”

Riggs’ victory ended a three-race winning streak for series leader Corey Heim and kept the driver of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota from equaling Greg Biffle’s series record of nine wins in a single season.

Heim won Stage 2 but lost three spots on pit road under caution during the break and lined up third for the Lap 142 restart behind Cole Butcher, who stayed out on old tires. Butcher backed up the bottom lane on the restart and Heim fell to seventh in the running order.

All the winner of the opening playoff race could do was claw his way back to a distant third at the finish.

“It was a debatable choose on that last restart, lining up behind the truck that stayed out — I think it was the 62 (Butcher),” said Heim, who led a race-high 122 laps to Riggs’ 110. “He spun the tires really bad and we fell back to seventh or eighth, and it was just a super track-position-dependent race.

“I thought our truck was good. I think the best team won for sure. Those guys were lights out.”

Playoff drivers Ty Majeski and Daniel Hemric ran fourth and fifth, respectively, and took comfortable points positions into the elimination race at New Hampshire.

SHOP: Layne Riggs gear

Riggs’ teammate, Chandler Smith, winner of the spring race at Bristol, wasn’t as fortunate. Smith fell off the pace with what he described as a power steering issue on Lap 32 and lost 12 laps on pit road during repairs, ultimately finishing 14 laps off the pace.

Smith completed the night 10th in the standings, 24 points below the elimination line for the next round.

Similarly, pole winner Jake Garcia, who captured the first stage win of his career in Stage 1, lost power on Lap 84, took his No.13 ThorSport Racing Ford to the garage for repairs and finished 33rd — three spots behind Smith and 31 laps down.

Garcia is 14 points below the cutline entering the elimination race.

Non-playoff drivers Tanner Gray, Connor Mosack, Andrés Pérez de Lara, Corey LaJoie and Matt Crafton completed the top 10.

The Truck Series returns to action next Saturday, Sept. 20, for the Round of 10 elimination race at New Hampshire (Noon ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Riggs as the winner.