Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series continues its Chase presented by Mobil 1, transitioning from Phoenix Raceway to Talladega Superspeedway for a Friday bout at the 2.66-mile track (4 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The Love’s RV Stop 225 is the fifth of seven Chase races of the Truck campaign and the 23rd points-paying event overall. Gio Ruggiero is the defending Talladega winner.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series | Craftsman Truck Series

Kaden Honeycutt, pilot of the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota, enters Talladega as the Chase leader, holding a 39-point lead over Layne Riggs and the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports camp following the No. 11’s Phoenix victory.

Thirty-eight race trucks are entered into this weekend’s event.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on FS1

View the entry list here:

Posted on by Staff Report

After a contest at Phoenix Raceway, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series treks eastward to tackle Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The Progress Group 250 will be the seventh of nine races making up this season’s Chase presented by Mobil 1 and the 31st points-paying event overall. Austin Hill is the defending Talladega fall winner.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series | Craftsman Truck Series 

Hill’s teammate — and fellow Chaser — Jesse Love claimed The Chase lead in the standings following his Phoenix victory. The No. 2 Richard Childress Racing pilot holds a 36-point edge over Justin Allgaier and the No. 7 JR Motorsports camp. The defending O’Reilly champion in Love will look to continue his Talladega prowess, with finishes of 10th or better — including a 2024 O’Reilly victory there — in five career races at the 2.66-mile track.

Forty-one cars are entered into Saturday’s event.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on The CW, ESPN Unlimited

View the O’Reilly entry list here:

Posted on by Staff Report

It’s time for superspeedway action in the NASCAR Cup Series, with the circuit next taking on the one-and-only Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The YellaWood 500 will be the eighth of 10 races encompassing this season’s Chase presented by Mobil 1 and the 34th points-paying event overall. Chase Briscoe is the defending fall winner.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series | Craftsman Truck Series

A chaotic contest at Phoenix Raceway resulted in Tyler Reddick and the No. 45 23XI Racing camp finding Victory Lane for the sixth time this season and the first time in The Chase. A 34th-place scuffle for Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team resulted in every other Chaser gaining ground on the defending Cup champion. Following Phoenix, six Chase drivers are within 56 points of Larson.

Forty cars are entered into this weekend’s event.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on NBC

View the Talladega Cup entry list here:

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Tyler Reddick rose like a phoenix, scoring his sixth win of the season and first since April with a rousing victory at Phoenix Raceway. Suddenly, Reddick sits just 56 points behind series leader Kyle Larson after the standings significantly tightened in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Here’s where we stand in The Chase after the Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix and before Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Phoenix results | Cup Series standings

Chase Changer

Larson’s weekend began on the back foot after qualifying 22nd, but the pivotal moment came on Lap 283 when his No. 5 Chevrolet pounded the outside SAFER barrier in Turn 1 with a flat right-front tire. With zero stage points and a 34th-place finish, Larson walked away with just three points easily his worst finish all Chase long.

The other turning point in The Chase came on the ensuing restart at Lap 294, when Reddick restarted fifth and shot through the middle of a four-wide hole in Turns 1 and 2 to rocket into second place after a two-tire pit call by crew chief Billy Scott. That positioned Reddick perfectly to pounce on race leader Chase Briscoe and his older Goodyear Racing tires just one lap later, overtaking the lead and launching himself back into the championship picture with three races remaining.

The Chase Board

What once appeared to look like a Larson runaway has instantly become a seven-racer slugfest leaving the Arizona desert, with names like Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick each eyeing their first NASCAR Cup Series championship while Larson, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano look to collect another Bill France Cup trophy.

Larson’s opponents finally got what they were looking for — a bad day for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team — and yet the two-time champion remains atop the leaderboard. Larson’s problem now, of course, is that his lead is down to just five points over Christopher Bell while everyone between Larson and Reddick in seventh is within a 56-point margin. The championship picture is wide open for the taking for any of those drivers with three chances left on the schedule.

The trouble Larson encountered allowed each of his 15 Chase competitors to close the gap on the No. 5 team. But the Chase driver who fell hardest in Sunday’s standings was perhaps who we thought may have been Larson’s biggest threat for the title — Hamlin. Hamlin gained 18 points on the gap to Larson’s lead, but the No. 11 team slid two spots to fourth in the standings, 31 points behind the defending champion after Hamlin’s day was derailed by a late flat tire that ultimately trapped him one lap down — an issue compounded by a simultaneous pit-road speeding penalty. Only four other drivers gained as many points or fewer on Larson as Hamlin: William Byron (18), Ryan Preece (16), Austin Cindric (15) and Chris Buescher (12).

RankDriverPoints behindGain/loss to leader
1Kyle Larson--Lost 44
2Christopher Bell-5Gained 46
3Chase Briscoe-24Gained 41
4Denny Hamlin-31Gained 18
5Ryan Blaney-40Gained 45
6Joey Logano-44Gained 48
7Tyler Reddick-56Gained 58
8Austin Cindric-130Gained 15
9Ty Gibbs-132Gained 24
10Chase Elliott-149Gained 36
11Carson Hocevar-158Gained 22
12Bubba Wallace-162Gained 23
13Daniel Suárez-188Gained 27
14William Byron-190Gained 18
15Chris Buescher-204Gained 12
16Ryan Preece-211Gained 16

Source: Racing Insights

Next Up

The only thing predictable about Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway is that it will be unpredictable.

NASCAR returns to the 2.66-mile superspeedway with a 3.5-inch rear spoiler, half the size of the rear blade teams used in the spring during the series’ last visit to Alabama. With less rear downforce should come more maneuverability for drivers behind the wheel, providing drivers options to move throughout the drafting pack of cars during the 188-lap contest.

But with the tight confines of the draft come potentially big consequences — like the “Big One,” the infamous multicar pileup known to rear its head at superspeedways like Talladega. A mistake by one driver in the pack could instantly send the points standings into further disarray with such tight margins throughout the top half of The Chase field.

Larson is still looking for his first superspeedway victory. Briscoe, Hamlin, Blaney, Logano and Reddick have each won at Talladega — including three wins for Blaney. Other Chase drivers know the pathway to Talladega’s Victory Lane as well, like April victor Carson Hocevar, Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace. But with a seven-car breakaway out front, stage points and race wins will dictate the pace of the final two Chase races to follow Talladega.

Posted on by Cara Cooper

Jesse Bernhagen has been racing for more than 20 years, but he certainly felt like a rookie in 2026.

He’s used to driving with his dad serving as crew chief, which has been the case since he started racing at age 5. But this season, for the first time, Bernhagen served in both roles.

“This was the first year that I ran the show myself, and I did all the shop work on the car,” Bernhagen said. “Everything was me. That made it feel like a little bit of a rookie season. It made me feel a little bit more accomplished within it.”

Bernhagen spent the year racing at Dells Raceway Park, a NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts track in Juneau County, Wisconsin. In the track’s NASCAR Regional Gandrud Performance Late Model division, he finished with one win, 10 top fives and 15 top 10s in 17 races.

Bernhagen finished fourth in the final track point standings, sixth in Wisconsin’s NASCAR Division I points, ninth in the Midwest and 23rd in the nation.

And since this was his first year holding a NASCAR license, Bernhagen secured the NASCAR Local Racing Series Division I Rookie of the Year award.

It’s his first time winning a national racing award.

Jesse Bernhagen
(Photo: Dells Raceway Park/Facebook)

“I wanted it. I knew that we’d be eligible for it, and it was something that I was striving for all year,” he said. “The kid that we were racing out of Oklahoma was hard to beat. It was fun. I’ve never done a national point standings thing like this. It was super, super fun to watch other guys around the country and pay attention to what they were doing on a weekly basis.”

Bernhagen returned to Dells this season after racing at other tracks the last few years. Even though it was a bit of a down year by his usual standards – he won the track title at Dells in 2021 and has more than 50 feature wins in his career – it meant a lot for him to just be able to go back home.

“We really struggled on the new Hoosier D810 tire. It took me until probably late August until I felt like I had a good feel on the car,” he said. “It means a lot whenever you go home. There’s also higher expectations. So then when you’re running fifth and sixth at the start of the year I think frustration kind of grows, so once we finally broke through and won that race in July, it was like, okay, we can still do this. We’ve still got it, we’ve got to just keep working at it to make the car even better.”

It also, understandably, took Bernhagen time to get used to his new dual role as driver and crew chief.

“There’s so much more that goes into it when you’re thinking about the tires and you’re thinking about everything as I’m out there driving,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for forever, and I know what my dad does in that role, I know what the crew chief does. But when you get out of the car and now have to do all those things like get the tires mounted, stretch the tires, make sure that the air pressures are where you want them, constantly hem and haw in your head over if you want to put wedge in the car or not because you’re kind of predicting which way the tire is going to grow or shrink or whatever.

“It’s just a lot more happening inside your head during the race day when you’re doing both.”

Oftentimes on race days, Bernhagen would get so caught up in preparing the car he would forget to eat before strapping in. There were multiple times he had to remind himself to grab a quick bite before the race began.

Doing both jobs was stressful at times, but Bernhagen said it made him a better driver.

“It gave me a better understanding,” he said. “I wish I would have been doing it forever. It just gave me a better sense of control over what was going on, and then when we came to pit stops or between race adjustments when you had limited time, those were moments where I could make the calls on the race track. Not relay what was happening and then hope that he agreed. I was like, I know what I want to do. Talking to the crew guys, I know exactly what wrenches to tell them to grab and everything over the headsets and they can just be ready to go when the car stops.”

Bernhagen’s dad still helps on the car and keeps it at his house. He has other crew members who have been with him for several years. A number of them were once his students in the classroom. Bernhagen is a former social studies teacher and is now a middle school principal. He often tries to find students who are into cars and get them involved in the sport.

His career as a race-car driver isn’t something he likes to talk about much at school, and Bernhagen said he sometimes feels like Hannah Montana when his second career gets referenced.

“I think the kids don’t really understand it until they see it,” he said. “This year we had one of the teachers on my staff come to the July 11th race that we won, and she brought her kids. It’s always better when you win, but they’re automatically blown away by, Mr. Bernhagen drives a race car. Cool. Now when you go and watch it and you see cars beating fenders and guys passing each other and see the speed and everything up close, it just adds another element of how different it actually is. It’s a very unspoken thing during the school day, but I definitely work in a lot of life lessons that racing has taught me into when I talk with the kids and just trying to make them the best that they can be every day, too.

“Anything that we can do to get more people to the track is needed.”

Bernhagen reveled in the opportunity to come back home and race this season at the track where he made his name. He’s also proud to have a national award to add to his collection.

“At the end of the day, there are so many talented drivers out there that winning something at the national level takes a massive effort and takes a lot of hard work,” he said. “I think when you’re able to talk to potential partners and sponsors, and just people that are out in the community, and say we won this NASCAR national level recognition, I think that that speaks volumes to how cool it is, the things that we do on a weekend that we just feel are so run of the mill. Because we do it every weekend and we’ve been doing it forever, but when you’re able to add that extra take onto it, it just elevates things to a different level and makes you kind of sit back and appreciate what you do a little bit more.

“It was a cool year the closer that we got to it, and the more often that you’re able to say we are a NASCAR rookie of the year now, it just rings a little bit differently.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Cliff Daniels has a way of finding the bright side in most situations. The ever-unflappable crew chief and leader of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet managed to draw positives from Kyle Larson’s frustrating and abbreviated three-point day at Phoenix Raceway, one that cut the knees out from under the team’s once-mighty control of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase.

Daniels mentioned the team’s resilience, its inner strength and the opportunity to rebound in the season’s final three races — even with the severely scuffed No. 5 Chevy  prematurely loaded on its hauler. Still, it’s a far closer title fight than it’s been in recent weeks, with Larson’s Sunday hardship opening the door for more drivers and teams to close the gap.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Phoenix

It might be counterintuitive, but Daniels welcomes that, too. More competition? That’s the mark of a championship that’s well won.

“I mean, I think it’s great, and I think it’s no different than how it’s been all year long,” Daniels said. “I chuckle every time we try to crown a champion before the end of the year. Everybody tried to crown (Tyler) Reddick the champion early, and then they tried to crown Denny (Hamlin) the champion. Then they tried to crown us. You’re just like, there’s still three races left. There’s so many things that can change. Fantastic teams in the top 10, really, and I know it’s six or seven that are more in contention now? That’s what you want. That’s a great title fight. They’re the best teams on pit road, and it’s going to be a tough fight from here on out. So we’ve got to do our part. We’ve got to obviously not have days like this, but we’re not going to get lost in just the disappointment of what today is. We’re going to keep fighting for the next three.”

The Chase presented by Mobil 1 reached another crucial point in Sunday’s chaos-heavy Freeway Insurance 500, with a championship contest that’s suddenly a wide-open tilt heading to one of NASCAR’s most treacherous tracks. The pre-race anticipation about whether anyone could catch Larson in the postseason’s second half was answered with a resounding yes, after his early Chase dominance finally hit a snag in the Arizona desert. The measure of striking distance just got a bit shorter, and the championship is nowhere near being settled.

Everyone else in the 16-driver Chase field made double-digit gains on Larson’s lead in the Cup Series standings, which fizzled from a robust 49-point advantage to a mere five over new second-place runner Christopher Bell.  “I mean, absolutely. I’m absolutely in it,” Bell said. “So, just got three more races to decide a champion. I think there’s a lot of us that are in it.”

Indeed, the “Mythical Top Six” threshold for serious championship contention made room for a seventh, with race winner Reddick recapturing the magic that made him one of the early anointed that Daniels mentioned. Reddick was the biggest gainer on a day full of them, cutting his 114-point deficit by more than half to just 56 points out, with a half-dozen of the sport’s elite ahead of him and within range.

Reddick’s Sunday celebration was especially jubilant with over-the-top burnouts and an impromptu catch-fence climb. “Making up for lost time,” he said, noting how he won five of the season’s first nine events, then went 23 races without in a sometimes-exasperating stretch. If there was ever a right time for his 23XI Racing No. 45 team to regain stride, it’s now — especially with the competition and plot both that much thicker.

“I think we’re going to stay on attack mode,” said No. 45 crew chief Billy Scott. “If it was maybe one competitor or maybe two that we were looking at contending with, it might be a different story. With so many people right there close together, every one of them are excellent, right? They could all be champions. I think you have to stay aggressive. If we can ultimately get the win, that’s going to go a long way.”

Larson’s lead was under constant threat Sunday, and his postseason perch was imperiled long before a downed tire and wall crunch ended his race 31 laps short of the full distance. Larson started a subpar 22nd in the 37-car field and was unable to approach the stage-points pay window as he wrestled a No. 5 Chevrolet with cantankerous handling.

MORE: Cup Series standings

His closest challengers saw a golden opportunity, but the degree to which they cashed in varied. Reddick’s rebound denied that group the points premium for winning, tempering the rest of the gains for teams that capitalized instead of maximized, to borrow a phrase heard around the Cup Series garage.

Larson didn’t have the market cornered on Phoenix trouble. Ryan Blaney finished a strong second to Reddick, chopping his deficit from 85 points to just 40, though a pair of sluggish pit stops hampered his progress. Hamlin had his own issues — a slow stop in the Stage 1 break, contact with Shane van Gisbergen in a Stage 2 restart and ultimately a flat right-rear tire and speeding penalty while running fourth during the final stage. He gained 18 points but slid two spots to fourth in the standings. Joey Logano came closest to a maximum-points swing by sweeping the stage wins, but slipped to a sixth-place result Sunday after an 11.8-second pit stop on Lap 225 dropped him from first to fifth in the running order.

Logano still enjoyed a 48-point boost on a day he characterized as “must-win” before Saturday’s qualifying session, but his late fade from the top five subdued his outlook.

“Bittersweet is kind of the word that comes to mind,” said Logano, who led 84 of the 312 laps — second only to Bell’s race-best 85. “Had a car that was capable of winning if it was up front and led a bunch of laps, won a couple stages, so that’s a pretty solid piece there, and just had one hiccup, right? One mistake, and we lost some spots. Just gotta be perfect these days. That’s all it was. It’s just … there’s one little hiccup, so it is what it is. We still had a solid day, scored a bunch of points, and we’ll move on.”

Moving on this time of year means visiting the track that’s loomed for most teams as the wildest of the wild-cards on the 10-race postseason slate. Next Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) has the potential to jostle the Chase field even further with a surprise winner and/or the colossal crashes the 2.66-mile oval typically produces.

The pressure, though, might not be as staggeringly high, since some of the must-win desperation level has subsided. “No, not anymore,” Logano admitted. “No, we’re close now.”

Several others who faced daunting margins before Sunday’s showdown can say that, too.

“We’re in the hunt,” Bell said. “That’s all you can ask for.”

Posted on by Dustin Albino

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Denny Hamlin’s 2026 postseason has been defined by missed opportunities, and Sunday at Phoenix Raceway offered another frustrating chapter in that trend.

“Opportunities lost in various ways by all of us,” Chris Gayle, crew chief of Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team, said to a group of media members Sunday evening, summing up the group’s disappointing Chase presented by Mobil 1.

MORE: Race results | Phoenix weekend schedule

With Kyle Larson searching for answers throughout the Freeway Insurance 500, Phoenix offered a prime opportunity for his championship rivals to capitalize. Hamlin looked poised to do just that, banking 12 stage points through the first two stages before settling into fourth with the best-handling car he’d had all afternoon.

Hamlin’s afternoon took a hit on Lap 221 of 312 when the No. 11 Toyota suffered a right-rear tire failure while navigating Turns 3 and 4. He limped to pit road for service and lost a lap seconds before Cody Ware had a similar issue and backed his car into the Turn 1 wall. The ensuing caution left Hamlin trapped a lap down.

Hamlin was penalized for speeding on pit road and deemed ineligible for the wave-around. As a result, he was relegated to restarting outside the top 30.

“I’m thinking that this is not ideal, but thinking we’re going to be early on this green-flag sequence and probably come out with the lead for a portion of the time,” Hamlin said of what was racing through his mind while experiencing the flat tire, “and when the caution comes out, we’ll pit for that last set of tires and be up front. Blowing a rear tire when the best the car had been all day. We had battled back and were able to pass a bunch of really good cars. Just frustrated.”

Gayle said the No. 11 team’s tire pressures shouldn’t have been a concern, as they stayed above his predetermined minimum threshold. Race winner Tyler Reddick ran the same tire pressures, he said, leading him to suspect Hamlin had run over a piece of debris around the 1-mile oval.

“I wish I could change it, you just can’t,” a dejected Hamlin said after finishing 28th, snapping his record streak of 31 consecutive lead-lap finishes.

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule

Larson was the first to pit during another round of green-flag pit stops at Lap 262. Hamlin pitted five laps later on the same circuit as race leader Bubba Wallace. Gayle wanted to keep his driver on offense, knowing the No. 11 Toyota was unlikely to earn the free pass if a caution fell during the cycle because of its lack of track position.

From there, the strategy hinged on a late-race caution that would give Hamlin an opportunity to take the wave-around and regain a lap. That caution came on Lap 283 when Larson experienced his own right-front failure, pancaking the Turn 1 wall. Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott and Ty Gibbs all stayed on track, preventing the No. 11 team from regaining its lap.

“Some things are meant to be, some things are not meant to be,” Hamlin added. “There have been so many cards that have been dealt in my career in these playoffs, Chase, that I’ve seen it all. Nothing surprises me. It’s not like I’m not shell-shocked because I’ve been here.

“We just cannot finish races to the best of our capability. Until we can start doing that in a really big hurry, you never know what can happen.”

Hamlin slipped to fourth in the Chase standings, surrendering positions to Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Briscoe. However, he gained 18 points on Larson and now sits 31 points behind the championship leader with three races remaining.

Despite the setback at Phoenix, Hamlin and the No. 11 team remain firmly in contention for the title.

Denny Hamlin makes a pit stop at Phoenix Raceway in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images

“Just one win – it’s doable,” Hamlin stated. “One win, we’re right there, and we need to do that.”

Gayle concurs with his driver, knowing that the No. 11 team remains in the title hunt. With Reddick snapping a 23-race winless skid, the top seven drivers are separated by 56 points entering Talladega Superspeedway.

“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t close the gap more because there was opportunity to do it,” Gayle indicated. “We were sitting in the spot to do that before the flat tire. It is what it is – there’s three more. All you can do is the best you can every week. As long as you don’t leave anything on the table that you knew you should have done, lay your head down at night and however it all plays out in the next three, it will play out.”

Hamlin has recorded three top-10 finishes in nine Next Gen starts at Talladega. From there, the series heads to his bread-and-butter track, Martinsville Speedway, for the penultimate race of the season before the championship is decided at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The 64-time Cup winner has multiple victories at all three venues throughout his Hall of Fame-worthy career.

“It’s not over,” Gayle stressed.

Posted on by Dustin Albino

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Kyle Larson has twice reached the pinnacle of his NASCAR Cup Series career at Phoenix Raceway, capturing a pair of championships at the Arizona oval. Still, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team left no stone unturned, dedicating as much time and effort to its preparation this weekend as it does for any race on the schedule.

That investment didn’t translate into results during Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500. Larson’s torrid pace through the opening six Chase presented by Mobil 1 races, highlighted by a 2.8 average finish, came to an abrupt halt.

MORE: Race results | Phoenix weekend schedule

“We put as much effort into this race as we have for a Phoenix race, really, ever – and that’s a lot to say because typically Phoenix is the championship race,” Cliff Daniels, crew chief for the No. 5 team, said to a group of media members after Larson DNF’d with a tire failure and was credited with a 34th-place finish. “We put a lot of hard work into it. I’m a big believer that the Good Lord has us right where we’re supposed to be, and sometimes you have difficulty, you have struggles. Today was a terrible day. Our car was way off, don’t know why, because we had done a lot of work in the sim.

“Kyle, to his credit, was really invested in it, and we were too as a team. We thought we were solving for something correctly from where we’ve been here in the past. It obviously didn’t come together today.”

Larson sounded the alarm throughout the week, repeatedly acknowledging that the 1-mile oval hasn’t historically been one of his strongest tracks. Yet when the checkered flag waved in previous instances, the No. 5 team had capitalized on every opportunity, extending its streak to three consecutive third-place finishes and four straight top fives entering this weekend.

From the moment the track opened for practice Saturday, Larson and the No. 5 Chevrolet appeared a tick behind, especially compared to his primary championship rivals, who swept the top five starting spots in qualifying. Larson could manage only the 22nd-fastest lap in time trials.

When the green flag waved Sunday, Larson made early progress, climbing five positions in the opening four laps. By the end of Stage 1, however, he had slipped back to 22nd after a two-tire gamble briefly brought him inside the top five.

His struggles intensified during a lengthy green-flag run in Stage 2, as Larson fell a lap down and dropped to 28th. A caution on Lap 157 allowed him to take the wave-around and return to the lead lap, which he managed to maintain — barely — through the end of the stage.

An extended pit stop at the end of Stage 2 allowed Daniels to make a massive swing, hoping to find answers.

“We threw so many things at that car, that man, I’m just waiting to see a sign of life, and I don’t know that we made it a lot better,” Daniels added. “Don’t know why, very unfortunate. I very much give Kyle a lot of credit for not cussing me out or quitting, all the things that he could have done – he kept fighting, too. Just an ugly day.”

During another round of green-flag pit stops, Larson pitted early and climbed to 16th in the running order. He quickly slipped back to 17th behind Austin Cindric before suffering a right-front tire failure on Lap 281, 31 laps shy of the finish.

larson damaged car
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media

“I went to the brakes into [Turn] 1 and the right front was down,” Larson said from the infield care center, “so couldn’t slow down and along for the ride.”

Larson wasn’t stunned by the No. 5 team’s struggles at Phoenix. But just how much the Daniels-led group missed the mark was puzzling, particularly given its knack for finding solutions during the heat of battle.

“I didn’t expect to be good, but I didn’t expect to be that bad either,” Larson added. “We were just trying to fight as much as we could and scratch and claw for whatever finish we were going to get.”

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule

Daniels was surprised the team had run the tire pressure too low. He noted that the No. 5 team had a full pound more air pressure in its tires than it did during last year’s Championship 4 race, when Larson also suffered a tire failure.

Daniels said: “I thought we had margin in the tank there and obviously we didn’t.”

With Larson scoring just three points, the competition ate into their deficits. The reigning champ now holds a five-point lead over Christopher Bell while Chase Briscoe (minus-24), Denny Hamlin (minus-31), Ryan Blaney (minus-40), Joey Logano (minus-44) and Tyler Reddick (minus-56) are all in the mix with three races remaining.

As Daniels explained, having a misstep isn’t uncommon for the No. 5 team.

“If you plot the average finishing position of the 5 team, ever, it looks just like this,” Daniels noted. “We’re OK, and we have a lot of strength; we have a lot of poise. We are not fearful of what’s ahead. We’re going to keep fighting hard.

“I know Talladega is a tough one next, but we are typically capable of putting together two-thirds of a really good race at Talladega. Now we just need to put all three of the thirds together. Martinsville, we will be OK, and Homestead, it’s game on. Three more races, we’re going to be strong, we’re going to be tough.”

All 15 of Larson’s fellow Chase competitors gained at least 12 points on the championship leader at Phoenix. Tyler Reddick, who earned his first victory since mid-April, made the biggest move, gaining 58 points and cutting more than half of his 114-point deficit. Larson’s average race over the last seven races ballooned to 7.3.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

AVONDALE, Ariz. — After a phenomenal start to the 2026 season, followed by an agonizing dry spell, Tyler Reddick returned to Victory Lane on Sunday — and simultaneously did NASCAR Cup Series leader Kyle Larson a significant favor.

Snookering the top contenders in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 after a restart on Lap 294, Reddick surged past Chase Briscoe and into the lead a lap later, pulling away to beat runner-up Ryan Blaney by 0.801 seconds in the Freeway Insurance 500 as Briscoe faded to eighth on older tires.

Reddick’s sixth win of the season and first at Phoenix Raceway, combined with Larson’s catastrophic 34th-place result, brought seven drivers into the mix for the series championship with three races left.

The driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota won five of the first nine races this season, including the first three, but since then had endured a winless streak of 23 races.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Phoenix

“That’s way too long,” a relieved Reddick said after performing a massive celebratory burnout in front of the main grandstand. “Man, the way we worked there, I mean, thinking of Phoenix, we wanted to be a lot better when we came back here (after the March race). I think we checked that box.

“For us, this group never lost motivation, never lost the drive to keep searching and keep trying to find ways to make ourselves better, just be an all-around better team … Just something about today, I had a really good feeling. Practice was amazing. Yeah, we’re back to Victory Lane.”

Before Sunday’s race at the 1-mile speedway, Larson led second-place Denny Hamlin by 49 points with four races left in the postseason. After Reddick won for the 14th time in his career, there are now six drivers within 56 points of The Chase leader.

Fourth-place finisher Christopher Bell climbed one spot in the standings and trails Larson by five points, having trimmed 46 points from his previous deficit to the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

SHOP: Winner gear

“We’re right there in it,” said Bell, who led a race-high 85 laps and finished third in each of the first two stages. “Really proud of our team. They’ve been doing a really good job of bringing fast race cars, executing races. We’ve been able to qualify well and run up front in stages.

“I felt like our performance probably tapered off a little bit as the day went on. We had the strategy to put tires there at the end, had good restarts to get some track position. We’re in the hunt.”

Briscoe is 24 points back in third place, followed by Hamlin, who fell from second to fourth but gained 18 points to 31 back, despite a blown tire that relegated him to 28th at the finish.

“The beginning was not great, and once we got back in traffic, I thought the second half of the race we were really strong,” said Hamlin, who was trapped a lap down after pitting with a shredded tire on Lap 221 and incurring a speeding penalty.

“Could contend for the win. Just right there with the 19 (Briscoe) when the tire blew (while battling) for third.”

Blaney, the pole winner, is 40 points in arrears, followed by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who swept the first two stages of Sunday’s race and is 44 points behind Larson after a sixth-place run.

“It was good and bad, I guess,” said Logano, who led 84 laps but lost track position on pit road. “The good part is that we were fast and led a bunch of laps and won two stages.

“The bad part is we gave away a win. That part hurts a little bit, but I guess we made up close to 50 points to the leader, so you can’t be too mad about it. I wish we had it back.”

After qualifying 22nd, Larson struggled from the outset in a car that lacked speed. Despite a two-tire call that vaulted him temporarily to fifth, Larson remained 22nd at the end of Stage 1. From that point, his race went from bad to worse.

On Lap 283, Larson blew a tire in Turn 1, slammed the outside wall and retired from the event, scoring just three points for his efforts, compared with Reddick, who notched 61.

MORE: What happened to Larson | What happened to Hamlin 

“We never found the improvements we needed, so that was a bummer,” Larson said. “I didn’t expect to be good, but I didn’t expect to be that bad either. It wasn’t a lot of fun today, but we were just trying to salvage what we could of the day.

“We’ll go to Talladega and try to forget about today and get back after it. We’ve done well at the superspeedways, so hopefully we can execute, get some points and keep ourselves in the hunt.”

The only saving grace for Larson was that Reddick’s win kept him in the series lead. Either Bell, Briscoe or Hamlin could have taken the top spot in The Chase with a victory.

Larson’s teammate, Chase Elliott, finished third but remains 149 points out of The Chase lead. Reddick’s teammate, Bubba Wallace, led 52 laps and had control of the race in the final stage before a pit road speeding penalty under caution for Larson’s accident knocked him back to 17th at the finish.

Corey Heim came home fifth, followed by Logano, Daniel Suárez, Briscoe, Ross Chastain and Ty Gibbs.

All told, there were six cautions for 43 laps and 21 lead changes among 10 drivers. Reddick led only the final 18 laps after a lane opened up for him soon after the final restart.

“Yeah, just got really fortunate,” Reddick said. “I didn’t have a good launch. There was a hole. I was able to get through it. I thought the 19 (Briscoe) was going to be able to cover the move into (Turn) 3.

“I got him loose. We checked out.”

The NASCAR Cup Chase continues next Sunday with the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Stage 2 recap: Logano sweeps the first two segments

Joey Logano swept the stages in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Chase race at Phoenix Raceway, earning max points in the first two frames. The race is the seventh of 10 postseason events in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Chase Briscoe finished second, followed by Christopher Bell, Josh Berry and Bubba Wallace. Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Todd Gilliland and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10 and points earners.

RELATED: At-track photos: Phoenix

Logano held serve after pit stops during the Stage 1 break, restarting from the top spot after taking right-side tires.

But that advantage didn’t last long as Bell snuck past the three-time champion in Turn 2 to take his first lead of the afternoon on Lap 69.

Bell jolted ahead to a multi-second advantage, but as the stint progressed and tires began to wear out, Logano reeled the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Bell darted for pit road on Lap 123, taking four fresh Goodyear tires and fuel and handing the lead to Logano.

Hamlin pitted moments later from just outside the top 10, executing a clean four-tire stop after a hang-up on the left-rear last time down.

MORE: Full Stage 2 results | Watch Logano sweep the stages

Midway through service, Brad Keselowski spun entering pit road, nudging the rear of Connor Zilisch’s No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. The race stayed green.

Blaney pitted on Lap 127, along with Larson — who continued plummeting through the field. Logano surrendered the lead for service a lap later, and Bell cycled back to the lead with the No. 22 Team Penske Ford seven seconds behind him – but with a tire advantage.

Larson, who entered Sunday’s race with the series lead, cycled to 27th, a lap down and multiple spots behind the free-pass position.

On Lap 157, Austin Dillon suffered a flat tire entering Turn 3, bringing out the second caution for incident of the afternoon.

The leaders came down pit road for service, with most drivers electing to take four tires. Logano eked past Bell as the first car off, setting him up for the lead on the restart.

Because all lead-lap cars pitted, that allowed for Larson to take the wave around and return to the lead lap — a key development for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet near the race’s midpoint.

Logano held serve on the restart as Briscoe jumped into second, the highest the No. 19 driver has run in his quest for three straight wins.

With 15 laps left in the stage, John Hunter Nemechek suffered a tire issue, but nursed his No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota to pit road, and the race stayed green the rest of the frame.

Stage 1 recap: Logano wins opening frame

Joey Logano won Stage 1 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Chase race at Phoenix Raceway, leading the final nine laps of the opening frame in the desert.

Denny Hamlin finished second by a hair over Christopher Bell, followed by Ryan Blaney and Chase Briscoe. William Byron, Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick and Josh Berry rounded out the top 10 and points earners.

MORE: Full Stage 1 results | Watch Logano win Stage 1

Blaney, the polesitter, jumped out to the lead on the initial start and paced the first 44 laps until the first caution of the afternoon. Michael McDowell and Riley Herbst crashed in Turn 4 while battling for 20th, Herbst contacting the No. 71 Chevrolet from behind after close-quarters racing down the backstretch.

That resulted in the first batch of pit stops. Hamlin, Byron and Elliott each took two tires and were the first three drivers off pit road. Larson, who started 22nd and gained only a minuscule position during the first stint, also took two and lined up fifth. Blaney had a slow four-tire stop and dropped to eighth in the running order.

But it was Logano, who elected for four tires, who passed Hamlin on Lap 51 to win the stage. Larson struggled on two tires and plummeted back to 22nd, where he started the 312-lap event and did not earn points.

Note: Post-race inspection was completed in the Cup Series garage with no issues, confirming Reddick as the Phoenix winner.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR national series head west for a pivotal weekend at Phoenix Raceway as The Chase presented by Mobil 1 enters its final four races across all three divisions. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series opens the action Friday night, followed by the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series on Saturday and the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday. Phoenix marks the second of five straight tripleheader weekends to close the 2026 season. This weekend also marks the first time since 2019 that the 1-mile Arizona oval will not host the Cup Series season finale, with that distinction shifting to Homestead-Miami Speedway. Bookmark this page and return often for your race-week essentials, from qualifying orders, pit stalls, results and more.

RELATED: Weekend schedule | TV listings | Goodyear tire setup

NASCAR Cup Series

Race day: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Eleven total sets — eight new sets for the race, two for practice and one for qualifying that transfers to the race.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

Race day: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Five total sets — three new sets for the race, one for practice and one for qualifying that transfers to the race.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

Race day: Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Five total sets — three new sets for the race, one for practice and one for qualifying that transfers to the race.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results