Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. avoided punishment after NASCAR officials heavily deliberated and dissected their NASCAR Cup Series post-race incident at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The drivers made contact on the cool-down lap, sending Stenhouse spinning.
On the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde said in-car cameras and an overhead shot were among the many angles that were reviewed.
“It was a lengthy discussion,” Forde said. “A lot of discussion on whether we penalize, or whether we don’t. I would probably say that this is probably the closest it’s gotten to being a penalty without it being a penalty. But we looked at it as emotion again. And they came down pit road, and Stenhouse went to (McDowell’s) window and had a conversation. It cooled down pretty quickly.”
Forde said both drivers would likely have been penalized if their cars had hit the wall or damaged another car. Both drivers also still had their window nets up.
Bubba Wallace was fined $50,000 for hitting Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the cool-down lap after the 2024 Chicago Street Race. Bowman had already lowered his window net, and his car hit a concrete barrier from the bump by Wallace.
Forde said NASCAR officials will meet with McDowell and Stenhouse at Phoenix Raceway to discuss their dustup.
“We didn’t love it, so we did look at different examples of what we did in the past in these types of instances,” Forde said. “We decided that it was close but did not fully rise to necessitating a penalty.”
Other topics covered by Forde and senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis during the 73rd episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— How NASCAR staff adapted to the Sunday doubleheader of the Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
— The rules governing how teams mark and tape their pit stalls.
Click on the embed below to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Today Co. and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He has also covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
One name that has long been synonymous with Berlin Raceway’s vibrant local racing culture is Tim DeVos.
The first victory DeVos earned at Berlin came on June 5, 1982, and kickstarted a proud tradition of success that persists today. DeVos holds the record for most wins at Berlin with 127, all while amassing five track championships between four different divisions.
En route to winning Berlin’s sportsman title this year, DeVos also earned his second NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts national championship, this time in Division III. The first national title for DeVos was in Division II, which came during the 2022 season following a dominant campaign in Berlin’s limited late model class that saw him win 10 times across 24 features.
This year, the 70-year-old DeVos found Victory Lane 12 times while utilizing his familiar No. 12; which was about as fitting of a conclusion to a near-perfect season as the veteran racer could have imagined.
“I would say that’s a smoking year,” DeVos said. “We won [the national championship] back in 2022, but with that one, we didn’t find out we were running that good until right near the end. The track said we were leading regional and were close on national. We picked up the pace, worked extra hard on it and got the national too.”
The catalyst behind such a long, storied career for DeVos at Berlin was a raise he received from his boss Jack Theeuwes, a racer who utilized a collection of colorful pseudonyms during his career; primarily J.T. Hoff.
DeVos recalls how Theeuwes got tired of him ‘beating the crap out of his pick-up truck,’ so he was offered a raise of $3 an hour if he agreed to build Hoff a competitive race car. Nearly every Saturday, DeVos would ride in Theeuwes’ truck to Berlin and regularly assisted his boss on race days whenever he didn’t have a crew available.
As time passed, DeVos’ passion for building race cars continued to grow, which made him want to pursue the hobby as a career. The first car DeVos built was a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro before later constructing newer models.
Looks were not at the forefront of DeVos’ mind when it came to building cars back then. If it could win races, that was all that mattered.
“It was still junk,” DeVos said. “It was a terrible mess. It was the worst looking car on the track by far, but we were busy concentrating on trying to make it fast rather than trying to make it pretty. We didn’t have no time to spend on making it pretty.”
In Berlin Raceway’s sportsman class, Tim DeVos won the championship by 199 points with 12 victories in 21 starts. (Photo: Berlin Raceway)
DeVos took advice from anyone around him to figure out how to make the cars he was preparing go just a little bit faster. He kept that mindset when he decided to follow Theeuwes’ example and test his luck behind the wheel at Berlin.
The path to more than 100 victories and five track championships at Berlin was never going to be easy for DeVos. Berlin’s local divisions were filled with numerous blue-collar, hard-nosed competitors during DeVos’ formative years.
From DeVos’ perspective, there was a simple method to get an edge over his competition: find his own way around Berlin.
“The main thing was getting out on track, studying what everybody else does, where they’re faster, where they’re slower,” DeVos said. “Everybody’s pretty dang good [at Berlin] off the corner, so I changed my style completely and tried racing into the corner. They were all good on the bottom, so I tried getting into the corner on the top.
“That’s kind of become my signature move; hard into the corners on the top side and rolling up alongside. I’m kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time pointed in the wrong direction, but I just mess their whole line up too at the same time.”
DeVos views his racing line as a high risk, high reward concept. More times than not, DeVos would be collected in a wreck that took him out of championship contention, but the time spent away from Berlin repairing cars was never wasted. He would always come back ready to race for wins.
Because of that mindset, DeVos prioritized victories over championships. Yet the seasons where everything did fall in line were always a special occasion worth celebrating.
DeVos knows better than anyone else how hard it can be to find success at Berlin, but his own tribulations have extended beyond the track. In 2012, a house fire severely damaged DeVos’ outlaw late model, with the engine being the only item he salvaged from the chassis.
The outlaw class is where DeVos has the most Berlin titles with two, so he naturally wanted to find a way back into that division. A close friend of DeVos’ offered him one of his Outlaws, opening the door for his return to outlaw competition at Berlin in 2026.
While DeVos was busy locking down Berlin’s sportsman title, he reminded everyone of his efficiency in an outlaw by setting the track record in the division on July 4 with a 14.736-second lap. The record only stood for two months, as Tyler Roarhig later bested him with a 14.687-second lap.
Being efficient in both the sportsman and outlaw classes in his 70s is something DeVos does not take for granted. Even with all the changes at both Berlin and within the racing industry, DeVos said many of the techniques used in his formative years are still apply in the modern era.
From DeVos’ experience, the success comes at a small price. There are those who think he is too good, but DeVos tries his best to brush off the noise and just focus on what works for him.
“It kind of sucks, really,” DeVos said. “[The competition accuses] you of cheating continuously. Every time the nose drags the ground, they’re all crying about it. My car always passed tech just fine. I never had any issues in tech all year. I’m known to work the grey areas pretty heavy.
“If it doesn’t say you can’t, in my opinion you can until they say you can’t.”
The sportsman title Tim DeVos earned at Berlin Raceway helped him secured his second NASCAR Local Racing Series national title, this time in Division III after previously winning the Division II crown in 2022. (Photo: Berlin Raceway)
Despite the criticism that he feels is unwarranted, especially since he is an advocate for rule changes in the name of fairness, DeVos cherishes every chance he gets at Berlin to show the newer generation he is still one of the best.
More than four decades after his first Berlin triumph, DeVos has another NASCAR Local Racing Series national championship to go along with his fifth track title and a Midwest Regional crown in Division III. He also scored the most points of any NASCAR Local Racing Series national champion this year with 448.
DeVos would love to add a Division I title alongside Division II and III, but he admitted that would be a tough ask in multiple aspects.
Berlin’s top-tier super late model class features plenty of talented competitors like reigning track champion Brian Campbell, Austin Hull, Evan Shotko and others. Even if DeVos could beat them consistently, he feels Berlin may need more races on their schedule for him to acquire enough points on a national scale.
Still, DeVos is open to giving the super late model division a shot. He hopes to get his super late model program up and running for 2027 alongside his limited late model, the latter of which he raced at Berlin twice this year.
DeVos is also keeping the door open on defending his sportsman title and running more outlaw races at Berlin, but he has a long offseason to ponder his options. Whatever title he pursues, DeVos will be ready to give it his all like has been for countless years.
The Berlin sportsman title, along with the Division III national and regional championships, went relatively smooth for DeVos, but he knows next year could be an entirely different story. Countless laps around Berlin have taught DeVos that winning anything requires patience, hard work and a little bit of luck.
No accomplishment has come easy for DeVos, but he is thankful Berlin and NASCAR provide him a platform for him to live out his passion of being a competitive racer.
“I like what NASCAR does for the whole program,” DeVos said. “There’s a lot of things we didn’t have before and it really heightens the competition and makes you try harder. Even if you’re leading the national points, it could all go away in a heartbeat. It doesn’t take long to lose it, so it makes you hunker down.”
A lot has changed for DeVos since he climbed into a car at Berlin for the first time; there is a lot more technology that goes into racing and the names he races are all different. Yet DeVos’ determined, creative drive remains intact and has yielded him another successful season around the facility that defined him.
For as long as he is able and willing, DeVos plans to keep building upon his legendary reputation as one of Berlin’s most loyal and accomplished competitors.
Goodyear will provide tried-and-true tire setups to all three NASCAR national series for this weekend’s Chase events at Phoenix Raceway.
The three series will carry over the same tire combinations from their most recent visits to the 1-mile Arizona oval. The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will use the familiar setup from their visit last March, and the Craftsman Truck Series last used this combo for its season finale last fall.
The NASCAR Cup Series will ride on left-side rubber that’s used only at Phoenix. The right-side rubber for Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — the sixth of 10 races in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 — has been deployed at five other tracks this season, most recently at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in August.
“The Goodyear Racing Eagles we are bringing this weekend have already been proven on track at Phoenix,” said Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear’s Director of Racing for the Americas. “This is a somewhat unusual track, so we draw from our typical short track and intermediate track packages, along with a left-side Cup Series tire that only races here.”
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will take part in Saturday’s Timberland PRO 200 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a tire setup last used at World Wide Technology Raceway in Gateway last month. The Craftsman Truck Series will compete in Friday’s Zero Carbon Bioethanol 150 Powered by Poet (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), riding on a Goodyear combination that has seen action four times since last year’s championship race.
All three series will also have access to wet-weather tires (four sets for each Cup Series team, and three sets each in the O’Reilly and Trucks Series) in the event of inclement weather.
Tire allotments for each team competing this weekend:
Cup Series: 11 total sets — 8 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race and 2 for practice.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race and 1 for practice.
Craftsman Truck Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race and 1 for practice.
Analysis: Larson finally finished worse than fifth in The Chase, but naturally … his championship lead somehow got bigger, anyway. The No. 5 looked capable of winning Charlotte early, leading 97 laps and taking Stage 1 before Christopher Bell eventually wrestled the lead away. Contact from Hamlin on a restart knocked Larson from second to seventh, and he ultimately finished sixth after spending the closing run fighting to stay among the leaders. That still gives him an average finish of 2.8 through six Chase races, the best opening six-race stretch in postseason history, and a 49-point advantage over Hamlin with four to go. Briscoe and Bell have certainly started making things interesting, but Larson isn’t exactly handing over control. Phoenix is where he clinched his second championship last November without leading a lap, then finished third in March, so he’ll likely keep rolling.
Analysis: At Kansas, he couldn’t quite hold off Larson. At Vegas, Larson couldn’t catch him. At Charlotte, his teammate nearly stole it at the stripe, yet Briscoe still found a way. That’s one hell of an exciting three-race stretch, culminating in his first consecutive Cup victories and a 0.029-second win over Bell — the closest finish of 2026. The No. 19 led the final 61 laps after its pit crew helped turn the race around, with Briscoe’s team recording the three fastest stops of the afternoon. That crew now ranks first in the series for the season, too, and suddenly just about everything is clicking. Briscoe has gained 58 points on Larson over the last two races, chopping his championship deficit to 65. Phoenix wasn’t kind to him earlier this year, when he crashed out and finished 37th, but that almost feels like a different lifetime now, and he’s a proven winner at the track. Briscoe and the No. 19 are no longer just threatening to change The Chase; they already have.
Analysis: Eight second-place finishes this season. Eight. The No. 20 was arguably the best car at Charlotte, leading 93 laps, winning Stage 2 and ranking first in both speed and defense according to NASCAR Insights. Briscoe’s crew ultimately gained the advantage on pit road, and Bell spent the final 61 laps trying to reclaim it, nearly pulling off the pass in the final corner and almost beating him at the line. That’s painful, sure, but he’s now only 51 points behind Larson and heads to a track where he’s been downright outstanding. Bell won the spring Phoenix races in 2024 and 2025, then led 176 laps there this March before finishing — you guessed it — second. It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate place for his latest breakthrough to Victory Lane.
Analysis: Phoenix is coming, and Hamlin probably doesn’t need a refresher on how quickly things can go wrong there and make or break a championship. He led 208 laps in last year’s title race before a late caution and overtime strategy scramble helped hand the title to Larson. Now he’s heading back to Arizona still searching for his first series crown, and the circumstances are somehow feeling a little too familiar again. Hamlin finished fifth at Charlotte despite a pit-road safety violation and an awkward stop that forced him to back up before leaving his stall, but still lost another nine points to Larson. He’s 49 back now, with only two top-five finishes in six Chase races after dominating much of the regular season. The No. 11 remains first in season-long speed according to NASCAR Insights, and Hamlin finished fifth at Phoenix this spring, so we know the talent and equipment aren’t going anywhere. But neither is the clock, and the mistakes are catastrophically expensive at this point. He needs a flawless race.
Analysis: Lost in the Larson-Briscoe-Bell-Hamlin championship shuffle is a pretty important development: Blaney has quietly been just as capable of executing as that upper tier. Third at Charlotte marks three consecutive top-five finishes, his longest such streak since last season, and it came despite a pit-road speeding penalty and another slow stop that cost him five positions. The No. 12 ranked third in both speed and passing Sunday, continuing a stretch in which the car has looked considerably better than a couple of crash-induced finishing positions have made it appear. Now comes Phoenix, where Blaney has won the last two Cup races, including this spring’s thriller over Bell, and probably no one in the field is happier to see that track coming up. He’s still 85 points behind Larson, but with four races remaining, another desert win could make things interesting in a hurry. Blaney has the speed, he just needs his pit stops to cooperate, as he has all season long.
Analysis: Reddick continues to look a little more like himself lately, even if the results still aren’t quite doing him justice. Charlotte was another adventure, with contact while battling Cindric for second, a brush with the wall and another incident involving lapped traffic all interrupting an afternoon that ultimately ended eighth. Despite all that, NASCAR Insights rated the No. 45 first in passing, and he’s now finished third and eighth in consecutive weeks after a fairly miserable stretch. That’s encouraging, especially after the way this team’s season has unraveled since spring, but the task remains at hand. He’s 114 points behind Larson with four races remaining, and Phoenix produced an eighth-place finish in March. The speed is showing signs of returning, which is encouraging. but the championship opportunity can’t wait around for the rest to catch up.
Analysis: Logano has stayed close enough to matter without doing anything particularly spectacular lately, and it feels like that could change soon. Charlotte was another example, as contact with Ty Gibbs on an early restart forced an extra stop and sent the No. 22 backward before Logano recovered to ninth. That’s consecutive top 10s, though neither afternoon offered much evidence that the three-time champion is ready to run down the guys currently controlling The Chase. Fortunately, the calendar is about to get more interesting for him and Team Penske at large. Logano has four Phoenix victories and started from the pole there in March, leading significant portions of the race before a crash ended his afternoon in 31st. He’s 92 points behind Larson, which is considerably less comfortable than where he stood after winning Bristol, but then again, this is precisely the kind of situation in which Logano has made himself hard to put away over the years, and he’s certainly still in it.
Analysis: The finish (17th) suggests Cindric’s intermediate breakthrough stalled out at Charlotte, but the race itself says something a little different. He was challenging Larson for the lead when the competition caution arrived, scored fourth- and sixth-place stage finishes and spent a considerable portion of Sunday looking capable of another top five. The No. 2 eventually faded, ending his streak of two consecutive top-five finishes and costing him ground in the championship. That’s disappointing, but it doesn’t make Kansas and Vegas any less real. The bigger question now is whether Penske’s recent gains on 1.5-mile tracks will translate elsewhere as it hits some more favorable locales, even if Phoenix was downright miserable for Cindric in March, when a crash left him 34th. He’s 145 points behind Larson and the last three races established something worth building on, but now comes the harder part.
Analysis: At some point, you simply run out of ways to explain away the finishes. Gibbs was running eighth when a Lap 41 incident at Charlotte damaged the No. 54’s suspension, ultimately sending him to the garage and leaving him 34th. That follows consecutive 17th-place finishes at Kansas and Las Vegas, turning what once looked like a promising Chase into a pretty brutal three-week stretch. The speed hasn’t completely disappeared — NASCAR Insights still rates Gibbs second in season-long passing and fifth in defense — but the results certainly have. Here’s the intriguing part: Phoenix was one of his better races this spring, so don’t bury the No. 54 quite yet. Gibbs led late before Blaney passed him with 10 laps remaining, ultimately finishing fourth. So the opportunity is there, even if the current momentum isn’t. Four races remain, and Gibbs is suddenly 156 points behind Larson. He needs something to change immediately.
Analysis: Elliott climbs two spots here as a result of some shuffling around him, although Charlotte wasn’t exactly the kind of afternoon that would ordinarily justify much celebration. An extra pit stop to tighten a loose wheel interrupted his early progress, and a speeding penalty later cost him track position while he was running ninth. He ultimately finished 12th, ending a brief streak of consecutive top 10s and leaving him 185 points behind Larson. That’s an awfully large deficit for a former champion who still hasn’t put together the kind of sustained Chase run that would make a second title feel particularly realistic. The No. 9 has been steadier lately, sure, but steadiness alone isn’t going to solve for the title at this point in 2026. Phoenix produced a 23rd-place finish in March, and the remaining schedule isn’t getting any easier. The comeback needs to be much more convincing, and he’s capable, but the signs haven’t been there lately.
Analysis: Well, how about that — a relatively quiet Carson Hocevar afternoon. No fights, no spectacular accidents, no major controversy, just a couple of stage-point finishes and 14th at Charlotte. That probably doesn’t sound particularly exciting, but after the last several weeks, it’s not the worst development for the No. 77 team at large, though it doesn’t help him much in the championship picture. Hocevar finished eighth in Stage 1 and 10th in Stage 2, hovering around the edge of the top 10 before settling into a somewhat less remarkable finishing position. The biggest obstacle, however, continues to be execution. NASCAR Insights ranks his pit crew 26th this season, with 13 mistakes and a net loss of 110 positions on pit road. There’s been enough legitimate speed in the car to make that particularly frustrating, and Hocevar has already shown he can win in 2026. Building the rest of the operation around that capability remains a work in progress, but the arrow points upward.
Analysis: Sometimes racing is just plain cruel. Wallace was running fifth at Charlotte when Alex Bowman got loose underneath him and slammed into the No. 23, sending both cars into the outside wall and ending Wallace’s afternoon before Stage 1 was complete. He finished 37th, which is an awfully ugly way to follow three consecutive top 10s, but obviously was not evidence that his recent improvement had disappeared. NASCAR Insights still rated Wallace seventh in speed and first in restarts for the race, and the No. 23 was genuinely competitive before getting collected. The championship picture is considerably less forgiving, though. Wallace is now 185 points behind Larson after entering Charlotte 137 back, and there simply aren’t many opportunities remaining to repair that kind of damage. He finished sixth at Phoenix in March. Another afternoon like that would be welcome, but he could use considerably more.
Analysis: Finally, a top 10. Buescher’s 10th-place finish at Charlotte was his best result of The Chase and first top 10 on a non-drafting track since San Diego. Even this one required some recovery work after the No. 17 had to back up on pit road to tighten a wheel during the Stage 1 break. Buescher managed to get things pointed in the right direction again, though, and came away with at least something useful. He’s now 216 points behind Larson, so the championship conversation has become increasingly theoretical, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to prove. This team has spent much of 2026 looking capable of more than the results suggest, and the final month offers one last opportunity to do something about it. Respectable is fine. At some point, though, you want a little more than fine as 2027 comes into focus.
Analysis: That’s a brutal way to end one of the more encouraging stretches of Byron’s season. Four consecutive top 10s had finally given the No. 24 some legitimate momentum after the Darlington disaster, and Charlotte looked capable of extending it. Byron was running seventh when Bowman’s accident involving Wallace also collected him, leaving the Hendrick driver with a 39th-place finish and a championship deficit that ballooned to 208 points. NASCAR Insights ranked him fifth in speed and third in defense before his race ended, so the performance certainly wasn’t as poor as the result suggests. Still, there isn’t much time left to separate bad luck from bad outcomes when The Chase standings only care about the latter. Phoenix produced a seventh in March, which gives Byron something useful to revisit; the larger championship comeback, though, has become too difficult to envision this year.
Analysis: The consistency continues. Suárez followed three consecutive 14th-place finishes with 13th at Charlotte, giving the No. 7 four straight afternoons of near-identical finishing positions. He even grabbed Stage 1 points and spent portions of Sunday running considerably better before a second stop for major adjustments interrupted the progress. It’s not nothing, but it’s also a long way from the kind of performances needed to make a serious championship push. Suárez is now 215 points behind Larson with four races remaining, and the magic that produced his remarkable Coca-Cola 600 victory at this same track in May has been largely absent throughout The Chase. There’s still time for another plot twist, technically. It would certainly be nice to see something other than 13th or 14th for a change.
Analysis: Charlotte was an improvement over Las Vegas. Preece finished 15th after a fairly anonymous afternoon in which he failed to score stage points and spent most of the race outside the top 15. That’s now consecutive Chase races without a top 10 after opening the postseason with three in the first four, and the No. 60 has slipped to last among the 16 Chase drivers, 227 points behind Larson. Phoenix at least offers a reasonable baseline after Preece finished 13th there in March, but the larger picture is becoming awfully difficult to dress up. He has already delivered a couple of finishes this season that nobody saw coming. At this point, he probably needs another one simply to make the final month interesting.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series transitions from the home confines of Charlotte Motor Speedway to the desert digs of Phoenix Raceway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The race will be the sixth of nine Chase presented by Mobil 1 contests during the 2026 campaign and the 30th points-paying event overall. Jesse Love, who won the 2025 O’Reilly title at the track, is the defending Phoenix fall victor.
Corey Day, who prevailed at Charlotte, enters Phoenix third in the Chase standings, seven markers behind Chase leader Sheldon Creed. The No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports driver has two career top-15 finishes at the 1-mile track in two career O’Reilly races there.
Thirty-eight cars are entered into Saturday’s race.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series continues its Chase presented by Mobil 1 stretch with a contest at Phoenix Raceway on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The race will be the fourth of seven Chase contests and the 22nd points-paying event of the 2026 campaign.
Layne Riggs, in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, returned to Victory Lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway, passing Kaden Honeycutt in the closing laps and regaining Chase momentum. Riggs gained 20 points on Honeycutt in The Chase standings, with the former now only 17 points behind the latter in the title table.
Thirty-six trucks are entered into this weekend’s Phoenix event.
After a weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Cup Series heads westward for a desert bout at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The contest will be the seventh of 10 Chase presented by Mobil 1 races in the 2026 campaign and the 33rd points-paying race overall. The 2026 Phoenix fall race will be the first time since 2019 that the 1-mile track does not host the season finale. Ryan Blaney is the defending fall winner.
Chase Briscoe, who has won back-to-back Chase races with his Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway victories, enters the Phoenix contest fourth in the Chase table, 65 points behind Chase leader Kyle Larson. The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing pilot is a former Phoenix winner, earning his first career Cup win in spring 2022.
Thirty-seven cars are entered into this weekend’s event.
Chase Briscoe did it again, winning for the second straight week and in the second-closest finish in Charlotte Motor Speedway history over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell. After six races in the Chase presented by Mobil 1, Briscoe sits 65 points back of Kyle Larson after making up 58 points over the last two races.
Here’s where we stand in The Chase after the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte and before Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
There were two big moments in Sunday’s race that had profound effects on what the standings look like today — or what they could’ve looked like had these moments played out differently. The top one was when Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota crew turned in the three fastest pit stops of the day, including on Lap 207 when Briscoe took the lead from Bell and held onto it for the final 61 laps to win the race by 0.029 seconds. Any lost time on pit road could have cost Briscoe the win, and had Bell won, he’d be only 31 points behind Larson instead of 51.
The other big moment came earlier on Lap 123 when Larson received contact from Denny Hamlin and dropped from second place to seventh. Up to that point, Larson had dominated, winning Stage 1 after leading the first 45 laps and leading a long stretch between Laps 59 and 107. But after the bump from Hamlin, Larson led only two more laps the rest of the way. Larson finished sixth and gained nine points over Hamlin in the standings and now enjoys a 49-point gap, but the margin could’ve been a lot bigger had Larson continued his dominance throughout the race and ended up winning.
The Chase Board
Despite Briscoe’s hot streak, Larson’s lead over the second-place driver in the standings has grown. This is both a testament to Larson’s ability to avoid the catastrophes that have plagued other Chase drivers and the fact that the driver in the hottest pursuit of him is coming from pretty far back to begin with. It would be a different story if it were Hamlin who was on a two-race winning streak and cozying himself up to Larson in the standings.
The rest of the field needs Larson to have a bad day, but that just hasn’t happened. The sixth-place finish at Charlotte was his “bad day” of this Chase so far, but it’s certainly not the type of meltdown needed to make a big difference. Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace and William Byron were collected in a massive wreck with Alex Bowman and saw their days end early. Hamlin had issues on pit road that caused him to lose track position. Ryan Blaney picked up a speeding penalty on pit road. Chase Elliott had to come back down pit road to tighten a lug nut, and the list goes on without Larson being on it.
As a result of Larson’s near-perfection, the pressure is building on the other drivers. And that pressure is perhaps no greater than on Hamlin, who has set the deadline of this year or next for him to finally win a championship. Hamlin was supposed to gain ground on Larson in the stretch of three intermediate tracks, but instead his deficit to Larson has grown from one point to 49 points. Hamlin’s demeanor has also seemed to change as the chances for him to snap out of his Chase “funk” have started to melt away.
Rank
Driver
Points Behind
Gain/Loss to Leader
1
Kyle Larson
--
Gained 9
2
Denny Hamlin
-49
Lost 9
3
Christopher Bell
-51
Gained 4
4
Chase Briscoe
-65
Gained 19
5
Ryan Blaney
-85
Lost 5
6
Joey Logano
-92
Lost 21
7
Tyler Reddick
-114
Lost 8
8
Austin Cindric
-145
Lost 17
9
Ty Gibbs
-156
Lost 46
10
Carson Hocevar
-180
Lost 22
11
Bubba Wallace
-185
Lost 48
12
Chase Elliott
-185
Lost 22
13
William Byron
-208
Lost 48
14
Daniel Suárez
-215
Lost 20
15
Chris Buescher
-216
Lost 20
16
Ryan Preece
-227
Lost 27
Source: Racing Insights
Next Up
Phoenix Raceway is next, with the former host of Championship Weekend starting a string of three races all on different track types, with Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway to follow before the season finishes up on a 1.5-mile track at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Perhaps the driver most likely to benefit from this stretch is Blaney, who has won multiple times on all three of these tracks, including the last two Phoenix races.
But he will get competition from teammate Joey Logano, who has four wins at Phoenix, and Bell and Hamlin, who each have two wins there. Briscoe got his first Cup Series win in 2022 for Stewart-Haas Racing but has struggled there of late with no finishes better than 18th over the last four races.
Larson also has a win at Phoenix back in 2021 when his pit crew executed a perfect final stop to propel him to the championship. Larson has finished in the top four in six of the last seven Phoenix races, so a chance for a slip-up does not appear too good — unless you believe in the law of averages.
Fellow Chase drivers Byron and Elliott also have wins at Phoenix, with theirs coming in spring of 2023 and fall of 2020, respectively. So Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske appear headed for a battle in the desert to see where this Chase journey takes us.
Jacob Derrick has tried to win a championship for the last 11 years.
This season, after some frustration and a few near misses, Derrick can happily say he is not just a champion, but the NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts Division II national champion.
Racing limited late models at Langley and South Boston Speedways in Virginia, Derrick racked up 11 victories in 19 features to secure his first NASCAR national championship by four points ahead of Bowman Gray Stadium regular Zack Ore.
“We haven’t been able to win a championship on asphalt,” said the 19-year-old native of Hampton, Virginia. “My last championship came on dirt in go karts when I think I was like 7 or 8 years old. I’ve gotten so close so many times, but to be able to close one out is sweet.”
Like so many others, Derrick has racing in his blood.
He grew up watching his father Ricky race grand stocks. As he got older, he began helping his dad in the shop before taking up racing himself.
“I just watched him. I would hang out with a lot of people and hung out at the race shop and whatnot. I got into it really early, and it’s all I’ve been doing,” Derrick said. “I started in go karts, moved up to bandos, ran bandos for a few years, Legend cars and then got into late models in 2023.”
Derrick’s original plan for this season was to chase the track championship in South Boston Speedway’s limited sportsman division while picking up the occasional race at his home track, Langley Speedway.
However, a crash during the second week of racing at South Boston derailed those plans. Unable to repair his car in time for the third South Boston race weekend, Derrick and his team were forced to reassess their schedule for the remainder of the year.
Oddly enough, that crash at South Boston Speedway proved to be the start of Derrick’s Division II championship run.
“We just decided to travel and run our home track, Langley, and then go to SoBo and try to get as many wins as we could,” Derrick explained. “I think it was about two months ago we saw the points and we were starting to get closer and closer.”
Jacob Derrick earned 11 victories between Langley Speedway and South Boston Speedway this season. (Photo: John Bechtel Photography)
Ore, the 2024 Division II national champion, led the standings for much of the year on the strength of 10 wins at Bowman Gray Stadium. However, the Bowman Gray season ended in August. So when Ore’s season was over, Derrick still had a month of racing to make up ground in the battle for the Division II national championship.
Veteran Virginia late model racer Mark Wertz, who raced and worked with Derrick’s father and also owns Derrick’s car, has ample experience with the NASCAR Local Racing Series points system.
Wertz realized Derrick had a real shot at the Division II national championship and advised him to do everything in his power to claim it.
“(Wertz) is super familiar with how the points work, and he told us that we had a good shot at it and that we should go for it,” Derrick said. “We had no idea at the beginning of the season what we were going for. We were just trying to go try and win races.
“Mark Wertz has been a huge help for us. He’s taught me a lot, not just about driving, but working on (cars), too. He’s been a huge help, for sure.”
With Wertz pushing him, Derrick made a run at Ore and the national title in the last month of the year. On Aug. 20, Derrick was fifth in the Division II standings, 46 points behind Ore.
With exactly one month to make up 46 points on Ore, Derrick went to work. He competed in five features between Langley and South Boston, winning twice at Langley and never finishing worse than third.
Across 19 features at Langley and South Boston Speedways, Jacob Derrick finished in the top five on 17 occasions this year. (Photo: John Bechtel Photography)
Entering the South Boston finale on Sept. 13, Derrick had made up those 46 points and found himself tied with Ore at the top of the Division II standings.
He completed his championship effort with a runner-up finish that day at South Boston, which was just enough to secure the Division II crown.
“With Bowman Gray, they ended up a whole lot earlier. I felt like we were in the catbird seat,” Derrick said. “We were in striking range to be able to take the lead. One of my teammates, his dad, they had a whole points layout, so we knew where we had to go and where we had to finish.
“There was one night, there was a ton of rain coming down at Langley. We ended up having to start by points. I think we were fourth or so and only had 35 laps. That was a big race for us, and we ended up winning it. That put us tied with him and then we went to SoBo and finished second.”
With the Division II championship locked up, Derrick is ready to look toward the future. The plan for 2027 is to make the move to the ultra-competitive late model stock class, where he’ll battle drivers like Peyton Sellers, Woody Howard and Trevor Ward.
Derrick can do so with confidence knowing he’s proven his worth by capturing the NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts Division II national championship.
“I know not many kids my age will get to do this,” Derrick said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve gotten, for the people I’m around, like Mark Wertz, Chris Edwards and my dad. It’s our first championship on asphalt, and it’s a national one, at that.
CONCORD, N.C. — At Charlotte Motor Speedway’s checkered flag, a duo of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates were fighting for the win in Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell, while Denny Hamlin escaped with another top five.
Behind them, Kyle Larson walked away without a top-five finish for the first time this year in The Chase presented by Mobil 1. The No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet took the checkered flag a postseason-worst sixth … which serves as a reminder of how blindingly fast the defending champions have been through The Chase so far.
JGR is trying to claw away at Larson’s points lead, particularly on the heels of Briscoe’s second consecutive victory: Larson extended his lead over Hamlin to 49 points, while Bell and Briscoe now trail by 51 and 65 points, respectively. In theory, that’s a healthy margin ahead of the competition considering second place pays just 35 points. But with four races remaining, Larson knows better than to feel safe out front.
Larson has been the class of the field throughout the opening 60% of The Chase, claiming two wins and posting an absurd 2.8 average finish. The team rallied from a sluggish start at Las Vegas and was strong early in Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte, leading a race-high 97 laps. But Larson wasn’t able to overcome Toyota’s strength once his Chevrolet was caught in traffic.
Cliff Daniels, crew chief of Larson’s No. 5 team, saw Sunday’s result as a helpful look inside the true battle for this year’s NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Joe Gibbs, team owner and namesake of Joe Gibbs Racing, sees good prospects ahead for his top three teams. And all he needs is an opportunity.
“I’mjustreallythrilledwhereweareasanorganization,andIthinkwedohavethree that aresittingthereprobably50to(65)pointsbehind,” Gibbs said. “Wedon’tknowwhat’sgoingtohappen,buthey,withfourracestogo,allyoucanaskforinprosportsistohaveachance,andIthinkwehaveachance.”
For a moment at Kansas Speedway on Sept. 27, Briscoe seemed destined for victory after passing Larson for the race lead late in the going — a win that would have marked the first of three consecutive victories for the No. 19 Toyota. Instead, Briscoe’s handling built too loose late and Larson surged back by him for the race win. No. 19 crew chief James Small was furious that afternoon. Now, in consecutive weeks, Briscoe has held off fierce charges late — at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, against Larson; at Charlotte, against Bell — and cut his deficit to Larson’s points lead from 123 points (eighth) to 65 (fourth) in just two weeks.
“I think we’ve got to step on their throats while we can,” Small said. “You’vegottokeepwinning.It’sstillabiggap,andiftheyjustconsistentlyscore points andanswer,evenifwegoandwinthenextthree,it’sstillveryhardtoclosethatgap.Soyeah,I’mnotgoingtoletoffthethrottlepedalrightnow.”
Briscoe is admittedly not a guy who carries a step-on-their-throats kind of demeanor. Actually, “definitely not,” Small said, but that’s a balance Briscoe is still managing.
Somewhere in this equation lies Denny Hamlin, the No. 1 seed entering The Chase, who has been OK but not quite to his winning standard throughout NASCAR’s postseason. His fifth-place finish Sunday at Charlotte was his second-best result behind a third-place run at Kansas two weeks ago. After starting the 10-race run to a championship with a 55-point advantage over Larson, Hamlin now trails him by 49 points and hasn’t won since June 14 at Pocono Raceway.
For a moment, Hamlin seemed to have his mojo back. Ripping through the field after a Lap 36 pit penalty, Hamlin keyed his radio at Lap 92 after passing Daniel Suárez for seventh place: “You let these [expletives] know I’m on my way!” That attitude continued as he moved Larson out of the way inside the top five on a Lap 123 restart. But that surge of bravado eventually faded.
“Well,ourrunstoppedthere unfortunately,so Ishouldn’t have openedmymouthonthatone,” Hamlin said. “ButIjustfeltlikewehadarace-winningcarforthefirst100 (laps)andthenafterthat,justgotstuckinthatthird (or)fourthrangeandjustcouldn’tdoanythingwithit,especiallywhenthetrack cooled off.Iwastryingtomakeupalotofthetimethatwehadlostinthatfirststagebygoing to the back.”
Bell was just 0.029 seconds shy of taking the win away from Briscoe, a swing in points that would have put Bell just 31 points behind Larson and Briscoe 85 out. Sitting third in points, the No. 20 driver wasn’t interested in any silver linings Sunday night.
But as it stands, three JGR Toyotas are now hot on Larson’s heels heading to a track where he knows he needs to improve: “Imean,Phoenixisdifficultforusherelately.”
For Cliff Daniels, the focus remains solely on his No. 5 team, regardless of JGR’s progress or any other competitor’s.
