Posted on by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS — Denny Hamlin led a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep of the top three qualifying positions for Sunday’s South Point 400 playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Hamlin’s No. 11 JGR Toyota claimed the Busch Light Pole Award on Saturday afternoon with a lap of 184.849 mph around the 1.5-mile Vegas high banks — just bettering teammates Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Toyota and Christopher Bell in the No. 20 Toyota Camry. All three are current NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers. It was Hamlin’s first pole at Las Vegas.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Las Vegas

And it’s the second time this season Toyota has swept the top three qualifying spots — the last time was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the summer, when the make swept the top five. It was the 25th time in Toyota’s history that it swept the top three starting positions on the grid.

“I felt good about it, truthfully,” said Hamlin, the 2021 Las Vegas playoff race winner and the current championship leader. “There wasn’t a whole lot left out there for it. But a great job by this team to get my car good. It was good in the short run in practice as well, got to work on it for the long run for tomorrow.

“But Saturday [qualifying] has always been our Achilles’ heel at this race track, and that’s a great way to turn that around.”

Heavy winds affected both practice and qualifying sessions, with drivers reporting substantial headwinds on the backstretch.

The eight playoff drivers starting this three-race penultimate round of competition all had solid qualifying performances. However, beyond the Gibbs front trio, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was fourth quickest, followed by his Hendrick Chevrolet teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson — a three-time winner in Sin City.

Reigning series champion and defending Las Vegas playoff race winner, Joey Logano, was ninth fastest in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford. His teammate, 2023 series champ Ryan Blaney, will roll off from the 14th on the grid.

Ross Chastain was fastest in Group A from practice, but his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet brushed the wall and the team spent the closing minutes of the session repairing it before qualifying. He will start 15th. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, who ended up fastest overall in practice, will start 10th on Sunday.

Gibbs fastest in practice

Ty Gibbs topped the leaderboard Saturday afternoon in practice at 181.733 mph over Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron (181.172 mph) and Chase Elliott (180.953 mph).

Denny Hamlin (180.741 mph) and Bubba Wallace (180.560 mph) rounded out the top five.

MORE: Practice results

Tyler Reddick (180.475 mph), Chase Briscoe (180.385 mph), Ross Chastain (180.288 mph), Kyle Larson (179.922 mph) and Christopher Bell (179.874 mph) completed the top 10.

Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet had the best 5-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 25- and 30-lap averages. The only two playoff drivers outside of the top 10 were from Team Penske, as Ryan Blaney (179.104 mph) was 17th and Joey Logano (178.094 mph) was 28th.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series continue the playoff action this weekend out in the desert, each kicking off their respective Round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.

RELATED: Full weekend schedule | TV listings

NASCAR Cup Series

Race day: Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Ten sets for the weekend (eight new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying and one set for practice). 

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

NASCAR Xfinity 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: Six sets for the weekend (four new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying and one set for practice). 

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

Posted on by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS – Dating back to mid-summer, William Byron’s 2025 statistics are full of waves. The bright spots include stretching his fuel tank at Iowa Speedway en route to his second victory of the season and clinching his first Regular Season Championship.

A deeper dive, however, shows more. Byron’s 11.17 average finish so far during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs ranks fourth among the eight remaining postseason drivers, despite having just one finish better than ninth in that span. That result was a third-place effort at arguably his worst circuit on the schedule at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Las Vegas schedule | At-track photos

The No. 24 team’s highs haven’t been too high and its lows haven’t been too low — he’s playing on a level field. In the 17 events since Byron led a race-high 98 laps at Michigan International Speedway (only to run out of fuel in the closing laps), he’s led in just three races. He paced the field for a total of 147 laps in that span, with 141 coming in his Iowa triumph.

Byron isn’t concerned, however, shrugging off the possibility that the No. 24 team isn’t hitting its stride.

“All that is behind us,” Byron said Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “We’ve done what we’ve needed to do. We haven’t done what we’ve wanted to do, but we’ve done what needs to be done to get to this point. The real race starts [in practice] and [Sunday]. Not really looking much at the past, but feel like we’re right where we need to be, at least from a preparation standpoint, going into Vegas. I’m pretty optimistic about today and tomorrow.”

Byron is a former winner at Las Vegas (spring 2023) and enters the weekend with five straight top-10 finishes in Sin City, the longest active streak in the series. With the points resetting, he drops to fourth, four points above Christopher Bell and the cutline.

The most recent intermediate track race at Kansas Speedway in the Round of 12 was disheartening for the No. 24 team. A late two-tire call by crew chief Rudy Fugle jumped Byron up the scoring pylon, gaining crucial track position and scoring a ninth-place effort. But the majority of the race was spent throwing “Hail Marys” to have a respectable showing.

The last 1.5-mile track before Kansas came at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, when Byron crushed the field by winning the opening three stages and leading a career-high 283 laps. Ultimately, Ross Chastain got by in the closing laps to secure the victory.

MORE: Where Byron is projected to finish at Las Vegas | Las Vegas results hub

After dissecting the Kansas performance, Byron feels like the No. 24 team can conquer Las Vegas (Sun., 5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) and advance to the Championship 4 for the third consecutive season. He believes that it’s his best intermediate venue.

“This is a totally new beast now that we’re at the race track and see what we unload with,” Byron said.

Byron has pointed his way into the Championship 4 in each of the last two seasons. His average finish of 8.9 on 1.5-mile tracks is the best in the Next Gen era, according to Racing Insights. During Saturday’s practice session, Byron topped the scoring chart in five, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30-lap averages. He’ll roll off fifth in Sunday’s 267-lapper after Joe Gibbs Racing swept the top three starting positions.

Posted on by Staff Report

See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series drivers will pit this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Cup Series
View of Cup Series pit stalls.

South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday (5:30 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

Pit stalls for Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas.
Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: How to watch NASCAR on The CW

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

In each of the last two years, Christopher Bell has finished second in the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The frustration in 2023 left him gutted after Kyle Larson beat him by 0.082 seconds. The disappointment he felt in 2024 after Joey Logano and the No. 22 team utilized a clutch fuel strategy call to earn the win by 0.662 seconds was summed up on his radio: “You’ve got to be [expletive] kidding me!”

MORE: Las Vegas schedule | Playoff standings

The memories of those defeats have lingered in the minds of Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens for the last year — particularly after missing the Championship 4 in 2024 in part due to his October loss in Sin City.

“That Vegas race we’ve been looking at and studying for basically since Vegas one earlier this year (in March),” Bell said ahead of last week’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. “Everyone knows how important that race is. It’s everything. I mean, we’ve seen it time and time again. That’s why the losses have been so heartbreaking. To come up close, to be so close to walking into that Championship 4 and not having it, everybody knows that Vegas is a super important race. Hopefully, we can dot our I’s, cross our T’s here at Charlotte, and then have that opportunity ahead of us next week.”

Indeed, it was mission accomplished for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team at Charlotte, where Bell took the checkered flag third and advanced to the Round of 8 for the fourth consecutive season. In two of the past three years, Bell has also qualified for the title race at Phoenix Raceway by locking into the Championship 4, a streak interrupted by last year’s ousting.

But what makes Vegas so important when it’s the first in a three-race round? That comes down to preparation in a championship pursuit. A win at Vegas for a playoff contender buys the successful party some cushion and mental relief from the stress of trying to lock in at the predictably unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway, in addition to short-track madness that could unfold at Martinsville Speedway.

Factor in an extra two weeks to focus preparations on the team’s car for Phoenix, and a Vegas win becomes priceless.

Bell finished 12th in the spring race at Vegas earlier this season, but he and his team have renewed reason to enter the Nevada 1.5-miler with confidence. At the most recent 1.5-mile track, Kansas Speedway, Bell was fighting for the lead when the white flag waved before ultimately placing third after leading 43 laps.

He described the team’s outlook as “very optimistic,” but a tinge of the anxiety that comes with this race’s results was also evident.

“I think Vegas races different (than Kansas),” Bell said. “It takes different things from your cars, but the general car potential and speed should be relevant. So yeah, I’m excited and obviously nervous, Vegas is a huge opportunity, and it seems like we’ve got the pace in our Camrys to go out there and do it.”

Stevens, Bell’s crew chief since the 2021 season, knows what it takes to win a championship, leading Kyle Busch to both of his titles in 2015 and 2019, respectively. He also knows how to get the most out of Bell.

“We know we can go there and be competitive,” Stevens told NASCAR.com. “Our intermediate stuff has really turned the corner here these last few weeks, and we feel like we’ll have the speed we need. And it’s up to us to execute the weekend and maximize our day.”

Sunday’s race (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) may not make or break Bell’s season, a campaign marked by four wins, 12 top fives, 19 top 10s and a series-best 11.7 average finish. But those 400 miles could determine whether Bell has a chance to win a championship — and that means everything.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

Racing Insights is back with NASCAR Insights stats focused on the entire Round of 8 tracks. By looking at performances on similar tracks, Racing Insights has come up with ratings for each driver in speed, long-run speed, passing, defense and restarts to see who’s set up well for the upcoming semifinal-round races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway.

RELATED: Cup Series standings | Weekend schedule

What we’ve done in the chart below is total up those numbers and order the drivers from lowest to highest (with the lowest being the best or the most likely to do well in this round). Six of the eight title-eligible drivers rank the highest. While Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe rank the lowest of their playoff counterparts.

Briscoe ranks 14th among the entire field for the Round of 8 ratings, but take that with a grain of salt as the four-year Cup veteran has turned into one of the best drivers in the field since the second half of the season. Las Vegas, Martinsville and Talladega were all early-year tracks and since the spring race at Kansas, Briscoe and the No. 19 team have gone on a tear with a pair of victories, six Busch Light Pole Awards and top-10 finishes in five of the six playoff races so far.

MORE: Playoff hub page |  Check your Playoff Grid Challenge score

On the flip side is Ryan Blaney, who ranks first in speed, long-run speed and passing for the next three tracks. It would come as no surprise if Blaney were to pull off the impressive feat of his Team Penske teammate, Joey Logano, to sweep an entire round (2015, Charlotte, Kansas, Talladega). Blaney is a three-time winner at Talladega and has won the last two playoff elimination races at Martinsville. Speaking of Logano, he ranks first in defense for this round and is pretty consistent among the pack as he ranks top 10 in every category — most notably, fifth in long-run speed.

The playoff drivers are tightly packed together, meaning it will take perfect execution to reach the Championship 4. The biggest differentials among the Round of 8 are restarts, all coming from JGR drivers as Briscoe (12th), Hamlin (13th) and Christopher Bell (15th). Besides that, you can throw a blanket over everyone else and there’s no telling who could break through and punch their ticket to Phoenix.

Check out the full list to see what jumps out at you that could be interesting for the Round of 8:

*Denotes playoff driver

DriverSpeedLong-RunPassingDefenseRestartsTotal
Ryan Blaney*1115614
Kyle Larson*2353215
William Byron*3667123
Chase Elliott*8732525
Joey Logano*9571729
Christopher Bell*54281534
Tyler Reddick612410436
Denny Hamlin*421191339
Bubba Wallace1011811343
Josh Berry7812121049
Austin Cindric1191361453
Ross Chastain16151041156
Alex Bowman12101515961
Chase Briscoe*131319161273
Ryan Preece2021919877
Brad Keselowski171418131880
Chris Buescher151622141784
Carson Hocevar142014292097
Ty Gibbs1819162722102
AJ Allmendinger1917202426106
Kyle Busch2528171719106
Zane Smith2118282027114
Daniel Suárez2326231825115
Michael McDowell2424253116120
Noah Gragson2823292121122
Erik Jones2229212328123
Austin Dillon2625242529129
John Hunter Nemechek2727262823131
Shane van Gisbergen3022313034147
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.3132302233148
Justin Haley2930273332151
Todd Gilliland3231322630151
Riley Herbst3334353424160
Ty Dillon3435333531168
Cole Custer3533343235169
Cody Ware3636363636180

Posted on by Nate Ryan

It might be maddening to be the often unwittingly agonizing center of attention every week, but Denny Hamlin at least has a sense of humor about it.

“I am that guy again,” the Joe Gibbs Racing star said with a chuckle in opening the latest episode of his “Actions Detrimental” podcast. “Three weeks in a row. Some I asked for it, some I did not. But this is three weeks in a row we definitely have been part of the story while finishing 12th, second and 23rd.”

RELATED: Denny Hamlin driver page | Playoff standings

For those who might have forgotten (which seems implausible if you watched one lap during the second round), here are the recent recurring turns by Hamlin as NASCAR’s leading man in the Cup Series Playoffs:

  • At New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he spun Ty Gibbs during a fierce battle in midpack, sparking nonstop debates about teammate etiquette and family ties.
  • At Kansas Speedway, he chose to fight tooth and nail for the lead on the last lap against Bubba Wallace (whose 23XI Racing Toyota is co-owned by Hamlin), opening the door for both cars losing at the checkered flag to Chase Elliott (and effectively eliminating Wallace from reaching the next round).
  • At the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, Hamlin’s last-lap pass on Ross Chastain kept three-time Cup champion Joey Logano in the playoffs (and also led to a perplexed Hamlin getting clobbered in the final corner as Chastain made a desperate move to stay in the championship fight).

After the race, an agitated Hamlin animatedly questioned team members about why they had failed to inform him about Chastain’s points scenario and playoff outlook.

Maybe they just presumed their driver would omnisciently know that the narrative had revolved around him for the third consecutive week.

No driver in 12 seasons of the elimination playoffs has had a larger impact on a single round — and especially in determining which rivals advanced — than the clout commanded by Hamlin in the Round of 12 this year.

“And you know what sucks about all of it? I’ve gotten no DAP points for all of this,” he said sardonically on his podcast.

Logano has been the runaway leader in the Driver Ambassador Program, the first-year program known as DAP, that financially rewards stars for spreading the gospel of NASCAR.

But if there were a lifetime achievement award for media impressions, Hamlin would be an automatic finalist … if not the presumptive favorite among active drivers.

For years, the lightning rod of the Cup Series was Kyle Busch, who often overshadowed Hamlin with everything he did and said over 15 seasons and two championships at JGR. In three seasons since moving to Richard Childress Racing and more than two years without a victory, Busch now exists mostly on the periphery.

Hamlin has emerged as NASCAR’s main character — even without capturing a championship. Even when running a nondescript 15th at the end of a playoff cut race in which he was already locked into the next round.

Remarkably, Hamlin somehow gets thrust into the spotlight and often when he’s done little to deserve it (such as at the Roval).

Amid all the front-facing drama in his life, there is also a tremendous amount happening off the track.

Hamlin has added a third child to his family this season. He is wrestling with the health challenges faced by his father (whom he has alluded to multiple times in post-race interviews). Between race cars and podcast tapings, he seems to be in front of a camera on the daily.

And looming over this omnipresence is the fact that we already know when the curtain will drop on the Denny Hamlin Show (at least as a driver).

MORE: Las Vegas schedule | Bubble Watch

He has signed what he expects to be his final contract through the 2027 season and playfully has noted he knows exactly how many points races are left in his Cup career (the counter currently stands at 76).

For many drivers, that might be a detriment. For Hamlin, it’s a net positive. When the stakes are high, he usually thrives amid chaos.

It’s a quality that he shares with his NASCAR business partner. Michael Jordan is an NBA legend known as perhaps the most mentally tough pro athlete in history. In “The Last Dance” documentary series, Jordan and his Chicago Bulls were the NBA’s main characters during their run of six championships.

A title is virtually the only way that Hamlin hasn’t been the center of attention in NASCAR.

Yet it’s a starring role that seems inevitable.

Posted on by Holly Cain

The NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs Round of 8 begins with Saturday’s Focused Health 302 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and if the current run of races is any indication, it may well come down to who can beat championship leader Connor Zilisch, a 10-race winner who has simply dominated the season.

The 19-year-old Zilisch has either won or finished runner-up in 10 of the last 12 series races — eight victories and a pair of runner-up finishes. Although he came to NASCAR with a road-racing pedigree (with class wins in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Rolex 24 at Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring), the driver of the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet has won convincingly on ovals of various sizes and certainly shows up in Las Vegas as an odds-on favorite.

RELATED: Xfinity Series standings | Weekend schedule

Zilisch starts the Round of 8 with a dominating 57-point advantage on the field atop the championship standings.

He will, however, start this playoff round with very legitimate competition from his own JR Motorsports teammate, reigning series champion Justin Allgaier, who won the March race at Las Vegas by a second over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola. Zilisch finished ninth in his debut at the track.

Allgaier and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill are the only current series drivers to ever win at Las Vegas. Allgaier comes into this impactful playoff round 24 points above the cutoff line with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones and Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer four points and two points — respectively — to the good heading into the Vegas 200-lapper.

RCR’s Jesse Love (minus-2), JRM teammates Sammy Smith (minus-7) and Carson Kvapil (minus-11) and Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed (minus-13) round out the playoff eight in a much tighter contest for the final two championship positions beyond Zilisch and Allgaier.

Practice and Kennametal Pole Qualifying for the race is at 2 p.m. Saturday (The CW App). Kvapil won the pole position this spring and Mayer started on pole in this race last fall. Cup Series regular AJ Allmendinger is the defending race winner.

Posted on by Neil Paine

“Joey Logano has advanced another round in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.”

Those words are music to the ears of the No. 22 team, including crew chief Paul Wolfe — whose gamble to have Logano pit for newer tires than high-leverage rival Ross Chastain with 11 laps remaining on Sunday at the Roval paid huge dividends. But judging from the boos raining down during Logano’s post-race interview, many fans weren’t exactly thrilled with the result.

And it certainly wasn’t what the other seven drivers in the Round of 8 wanted to hear.

In fact, Logano is just about the last competitor they’re eager to take on, given his status as defending Cup Series champion — and winner of two of the past three Cup titles — with the track where he’s the winningest active driver (Phoenix Raceway) looming as the championship site again on Nov. 2.

So Chastain would have done the rest of the field a huge favor by knocking Logano out of contention. (And he almost did, crossing the finish line backward in true ‘Melon Man’ style.) But he didn’t, and now Logano is in the hunt again for career championship No. 4, which would tie him with Jeff Gordon for the fourth-most in Cup Series history.

The good news for Joey’s rivals is that he starts the Round of 8 from a position of weakness. He ranks last among the active playoff drivers in the standings, sitting 24 points below the cutline and 10 points below Chase Briscoe, the next-lowest ranked Round of 8 driver. According to our NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs forecast model, which uses projected Driver Ratings to simulate the rest of the schedule 10,000 times and tracks who advances, there’s just a 26.2 percent chance we see Logano back in the Championship 4 for the third time in four years.

What’s driving such low odds for such a feared driver? One of the problems is that, outside of winning one of the next three races, the paths for Joey to advance are fairly narrow. While a win would — by definition — send Logano to the next round, there aren’t many other scenarios that carry high odds of advancing, according to our simulations:

Barring a win, a trio of top 10s would give a 72 percent chance of advancing … but that only happened in 4 percent of the simulations, so it’s a big ask for something that’s not even a surefire Championship 4 ticket. Meanwhile, if he simply has two top 10s, the advancement odds drop to 29 percent. And although consistency over the next three races is a good thing unto itself, a high floor can only get him so far: Three finishes in the teens or better (again without a win) would only produce a 35 percent chance of moving on, and simply avoiding any truly bad finishes only carries an 18 percent chance. (And if he only scores a single top 10 or less, you can pretty much forget about him making the Championship 4.)

So while we’re not saying Joey is in “must-win” territory to start the Round of 8, he’s not far from it, either.

The good news, however, is that Logano is heading to a series of tracks where he’s as good as just about anyone. Among all places where he’s run at least five career Cup races, Las Vegas (100.8) and Martinsville (96.8) rank 1-2 for him in career Driver Rating. He ranks fourth among active full-time drivers at the latter track — trailing just Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney — and second only to Kyle Larson at the former, where he’s won four times.

Chart showing Joey Logano's driver rating in regards to track.

Talladega is less of a Logano speciality in terms of Driver Rating, but that’s because it’s not really a speciality for anyone. (Or at least, just a select few can consistently ride the draft to predictably elite results.) But even there, Joey has won a trio of races — albeit none since 2018.

In other words, a win to punch Logano’s Championship 4 ticket is hardly off the table, even if the odds for any winning driver (save for SVG at a road course) are never all that high. And the other factor working in his favor? Like it or not, Logano is legitimately a clutch driver in the playoffs.

Chart showing Joey Logano's performance in the playoffs versus in the regular season.

In his 12 seasons as a playoff driver, only twice (2019 and 2023) did Logano have a lower Adjusted Points+ index and/or Driver Rating while actively pursuing the championship than he did during that year’s regular season. And on average, he’s posted an Adjusted Points+ index 32 points higher and a Driver Rating 5.2 points higher while active in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. Among drivers with at least 20 races while actively in the championship hunt in the current playoff format (since 2014), Logano is one of only seven with an average Driver Rating in the triple digits (100.2) and his 208 mark ranks second only to Kevin Harvick (211) in Adjusted Points+ index over that same sample.

In other words, Logano is perennially a good regular-season driver who dials up his greatness in the races that matter most. And with three of those coming up — at some of his best tracks — we should all be on the lookout for more of Joey’s patented late-season heroics. Sure, his odds for another title might be long at the moment, but he has spoiled our playoff prognosticating and made us all look silly before.

That’s why the other drivers were not-so-secretly hoping his title chances would be officially buried last week: They know that as long as the No. 22 Ford is still alive in the playoffs, he’s always going to be a threat to snatch the trophy away in the end.

Posted on by Adam Fenwick

Austin Beers is doing everything he can not to think about the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title.

Each day he goes to work and tries to forget the fact that, at 22, he’s two races away from winning a championship in NASCAR’s oldest division.

“Everybody is going to ask. All my friends are going to tell me not to mess it up,” Beers said. “One race at a time. That’s what we’ve been doing all year. Just focus on the next one and don’t worry about something you can’t control right now.”

The driver of the No. 64 KLM Motorsports Modified for Mike and Maggie Murphy has enjoyed a spectacular 2025 season. He leads the series in almost every major statistical category, including top fives, top 10s, laps completed, average qualifying position and average finish position.

“I wouldn’t be racing the Tour if not for Mike and Maggie and that whole family,” said Beers. “They gave me this huge opportunity, and I’ll forever be in debt to them. I want to deliver this championship to Mike. All those years where they’ve struggled; they’ve had rough years and haven’t had much success.

“I just want to show them with hard work and dedication, we’re going to get it done for them.”

UPDATE: Mods race at Thompson rescheduled for Saturday

Austin Beers
Two wins and no finishes outside the top 10 have helped Austin Beers stay at the top of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings this season. (Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)

Beers sits atop the Modified Tour standings by 13 points ahead of Justin Bonsignore going into Saturday’s World Series 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (8:15 p.m. ET on FloRacing and The NASCAR Channel).

His championship lead arrives in large part thanks to wins at Lancaster Motorplex and, last Saturday, Riverhead Raceway. The win at Riverhead last weekend was a huge shot in the arm for Beers following what he considered disappointing ninth-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

There are several reasons why the victory at Riverhead was significant. First and perhaps most important, it added six points to Beers’ lead over Bonsignore in the standings.

If that weren’t enough, Beers won the race by passing Bonsignore, who leads all drivers with 12 Modified Tour wins at the track.

“We kind of struggled for speed in practice, and it showed in qualifying, as well,” Beers recalled. “I kind of got lucky there with the (redraw) wheel for the first time. Usually, the wheel sends me back some spots, but I went plus six before the green and got to start up front. That’s a big help there.

“I wanted to get the lead early and get a bonus point and maybe try to lead the most laps if our car could contend for it. I got up front and the car was just working really good and got through the center really well.”

While the win was vindicating for Beers and team, it was only a small step toward the larger goal of winning the Modified Tour championship.

“We’ve still got work to do,” Beers said bluntly. “We’re happy, but we’ve still got stuff we need to do.”

The next challenge Beers faces comes Saturday at Thompson, another track where Bonsignore has the statistical advantage.

Austin Beers
Austin Beers has secured victories this season at Lancaster Motorplex and Riverhead Raceway as he purses the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship. (Photo: Bryan Bennett/NASCAR)

In 48 starts at Thompson, Bonsignore has won 14 times. That ranks him second on the all-time Modified Tour win list at the 0.625-mile oval behind only NASCAR Hall of Famer and seven-time Modified Tour champion Mike Stefanik.

While Beers has never won at Thompson, he does have one thing going for him. In the two races this year at Thompson, he’s beaten Bonsignore both times.

“Obviously Justin and that whole No. 51 team, they are the best in the business. Everyone is hunting them,” Beers said. “Like I said, we’ve still got work to do. We’re going into Thompson this week. That’s obviously another track that he’s really, really good at.

“We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing and keep showing up with our confidence and good speed in the race car.”

His confidence may be high after winning last weekend at Riverhead, but Beers knows there is still work to be done. It’s why he hasn’t allowed himself to think about what winning the Modified Tour championship would mean.

His friends, however, won’t let him forget.

“I’ve got some good friends; they try to rile me up and get me thinking about it,” Beers said. “But they’re also my biggest supporters.”