Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway in the rearview and the Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) up next.
MORE: Watkins Glen entry list
1. Did Byron just plow his path to the Regular Season Championship?
No. 24 driver William Byron reclaimed the top of the mountain with a clutch victory at Iowa Speedway. He’s looking like the title favorite again, but first, there’s a Regular Season Championship to capture for himself — and keep away from his teammates.
William Byron arrived at Iowa last weekend locked in a fierce battle among the competitors atop the regular-season standings but struggling to find mid-summer momentum. He left as the King of the Corn, settling back in triumphantly as the favorite to win the 2025 Bill France Cup after claiming his first win since the season-opening Daytona 500.
It’s been a season of milestones for the 2017 Xfinity Series champion, who appears headed toward a third straight Cup Series Championship 4 appearance as he seeks his first premier series title. A series-best 910 laps led is already closing in on a career high, with his season-long speed netting out to eight top-five finishes; a handful of which were very near wins that could’ve easily had him leading the series in victories, too.
It’s easy to just look ahead to the postseason as No. 24 clearly has championship-or-bust potential this year — but there’s still a major prize to be won in the next three weeks, and it’s currently his to lose.
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Iowa put him back on top for now, but the Regular Season Championship will be decided in the coming races at Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona — all of which demand different skillsets and each distinctly testing his championship mettle. His Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott (-18) and Kyle Larson (-45) pose his biggest threats, along with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin (-51) and Christopher Bell (-86), but let’s take a look at Byron’s likelihood of holding onto the top spot — or not — from here as he hopes to collect his first RSC and the ultra-important bonus points that come along with it.
While his Watkins Glen finishes tend to yo-yo between top 10s — like his 2023 win — and finishes outside the top 20, the data suggests this weekend’s winner (if not Shane van Gisbergen, winner at three straight road courses) will likely come out of Hendrick’s stable, despite being arguably the most treacherous race among the three remaining. The team’s road-course dominance is well-established, and it’s corralled five of the last six trophies at The Glen. Of course, the other four wins are split between Elliott and Larson, but the 2021 champ Larson has led just three road-course laps this year, and the most recent of No. 9 ’s whopping seven road-course wins came all the way back in 2021. Hard not to feel like, of the three, Byron has the best outlook this weekend.
Richmond demands late braking skills and short-track aggression, and it’s a self-admitted weak track for him. Yet Hendrick’s consistency as a powerhouse organization has still allowed him to be competitive there a handful of times, evidenced by two Next Gen races in which he led more than 115 laps. Still, this could be his pain point, if there is one.
Daytona, meanwhile, is becoming Byron’s stomping ground — not only is he the two-time defending Daytona 500 winner, the young talent already has three total at NASCAR’s most famous track. If he avoids calamity, the RSC is as good as his.
Byron’s potential RSC run essentially hinges on two pillars, of which he’s quite adept at: maximizing stage points and avoiding costly DNFs. Both of those will be tantamount — and iffy, but mostly out of his hands — at Daytona, but chaos can strike at any time as we’ve seen this season. His two poles and general ability to lay down a quality qualifying lap bolsters his positioning to help with this, but he could be faced with a decision between shooting to add another win or aiming instead for stage points, particularly at The Glen.
With an 18-point buffer and three vastly different circuits ahead that he’s capable of winning at, Byron is in the most enviable position of any of them. But it’s almost always easier to be the predator than the prey, and there are four hungry hunters behind him in the standings ready to pounce.
MORE: Larson vs. Elliott: ‘This is what makes the organization great’
2. Who will give SVG the biggest run for his money at The Glen?
NASCAR’s native New Zealander looks right at home on the circuit’s road courses. With playoff bids in short supply and just three opportunities remaining to snag one, could a postseason hopeful — or a driver just looking to bolster his positioning — usurp the road-course king?
Shane van Gisbergen’s emergence as NASCAR’s resident road‐course maestro has been completely unsurprising, yet nothing short of meteoric.
In a five-week span earlier this summer, SVG transformed three straight road-course poles into three straight trips to Victory Lane, leading more than half the laps run in said races. His four wins, five top fives and eight top 10s in just 10 Cup road‐course starts underscore his natural affinity for apexes and braking markers that prove that he’s just, well, better than everybody else.
But that doesn’t mean he’s unbeatable.
SVG’s credentials are historic, yes — his three consecutive Cup road-course wins from the pole tied him with Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon, and he’s on the brink of joining Dan Gurney as the only drivers whose first five Cup victories all came on road courses. But ask any Glen veteran, and they’ll point to the track’s high speeds and proclivity for last-lap drama with unpredictable cautions, which most certainly opens the door for an upset.
In fact, Watkins Glen is where SVG tasted defeat a year ago, losing on a boisterous final lap to Chris Buescher in overtime, giving hope to those not quite locked into the playoffs … like Buescher, himself.
No. 17 clearly stands at the forefront of the SVG counter-charge. The only driver to finish top-10 in each of the three Next Gen Watkins Glen races, Buescher out-orchestrated the three-time Supercars champ to pass him on the final lap and claim last year’s overtime victory.
Elliott’s two Glen triumphs (2018, 2019) and 170 laps led at the New York facility place him among its all-time greats, but he just hasn’t been the same kind of road racer in the Next Gen car, at least from a winning standpoint. Finishes of 19th and 32nd in his last two Glen starts (and starting outside the top 10 in each, too) hint at vulnerabilities that could keep him out of Victory Lane at a key time.
Never finishing worse than 14th in his four Glen appearances and quickly becoming one of the top road-course dogs, Bell also should give SVG a run for his money. He’s also the only other driver to win on one of these tracks this year, carrying some momentum from a March COTA victory and three top-two results in his last five road-course starts.
Wild cards lurk beyond this trio, however, including a pair of desperate-to-make-the-playoffs veterans.
Kyle Busch — a two-time Glen winner whose only 2025 top-fives have come on road courses — is running out of chances to ensure he doesn’t miss the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time ever. AJ Allmendinger, with a best-among-active-drivers 10.8 average at The Glen, is just as anxious to get back into the postseason.
Then again, we also can’t count out SVG’s teammate Connor Zilisch — the only driver doing triple duty this weekend — as perhaps he’s soon to be the 1B to his Trackhouse compatriot’s 1A on road courses at the Cup Series level in the near future.
Ultimately, while SVG’s pole-to-flag mastery and historic metrics make him the prohibitive favorite as he clamors for more playoff points, Watkins Glen’s storied penchant for final-lap lead changes and overtime finishes ensures no outcome is foregone.
Whether Buescher’s unfailing consistency, Elliott’s road-racing pedigree, Bell’s surging form or a wild-card opportunist can disrupt SVG’s streak, it makes this weekend at The Glen, which never disappoints, a true must-watch.
3. SVG on current playoff format: ‘That’s the reason I’m here, right?’
Shane van Gisbergen joins the latest episode of Corey LaJoie’s Stacking Pennies podcast and shares his thoughts on the pressure the playoff format creates.
4. Active drivers whose first Cup win came at a road course
There are six drivers in positions 17 through 30 in the playoff standings that are not only looking to make their mark on this year’s postseason — but also aiming to capture their first NASCAR Cup Series win. This weekend, historically speaking, presents an excellent opportunity to accomplish both. (Credit: Racing Insights)
| Date | Track | Driver | Cup Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8/10/14 | Watkins Glen | AJ Allmendinger | 3 |
| 8/5/18 | Watkins Glen | Chase Elliott | 19 |
| 2/21/21 | Daytona RC | Christopher Bell | 12 |
| 3/27/22 | COTA | Ross Chastain | 6 |
| 6/12/22 | Sonoma | Daniel Suárez | 2 |
| 7/3/22 | Road America | Tyler Reddick | 8 |
| 7/2/23 | Chicago Street | Shane van Gisbergen | 4 |
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
Paint Scheme Preview: 2025 Watkins Glen weekend
‘Heart of a lion’: William Byron ends dry spell, flips midseason momentum with Iowa win
Petty talks RFK’s uptick: ‘They have a resurgence going on’
Ride along: Wallace’s late-race charge to top-10 finish
Longform: How Jeff Gordon’s 1995 championship propelled him to new levels
Three Up, Three Down: Drivers in focus leaving Iowa
Radioactive: Larson lets his temper flare in a fiery rant
Keselowski, Preece fall just short at Iowa, finish top five in back-to-back weeks
Power Rankings: Chris Buescher’s time to strike for playoffs arrives at The Glen
