Posted on by Staff Report

World Series 150

Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park

  • Practice results
Pos No. Name Sponsor Best Tm Best Speed In Lap Laps Diff
1 60 Matt Hirschman Bar Harbor Bank & Trust 19.165 117.402 32 35
2 36 David Sapienza Sapienza Enterprises 19.187 117.267 6 17 0.022
3 73 Paulie Hartwig III* Professional Therapy LLC/Velocita USA 19.19 117.249 30 34 0.025
4 1 Patrick Emerling USNE Power 19.256 116.847 6 38 0.091
5 79 Jonathan McKennedy Stuarts Automotive/Christopher’s Towing/Hillsboro Ent/Leone’s Corp/Levasseur HVAC 19.272 116.75 36 37 0.107
6 44 Chase Dowling SS Paving/Harshaw Paving 19.276 116.725 21 33 0.111
7 21 Stephen Kopcik Wanick Construction/Newtown Pools 19.329 116.405 14 40 0.164
8 05 Teddy Hodgdon IV* Business Time Motorsports/Omaha Beef/Landau Team of ReMax 19.333 116.381 38 40 0.168
9 3 Tyler Rypkema A-Lete Vision/Northeast Drilling/SYP 19.346 116.303 48 48 0.181
10 64 Austin Beers Dell Elec/Lumiere Elec/G&G Elec/Andrew James Int/AP Marquadt & Sons/Hughes Motors 19.367 116.177 7 50 0.202
11 17 Anthony Nocella Keene Towing & Recovery/Sontag Motorsports/Xtreme Autobody/Bells Septic 19.376 116.123 17 26 0.211
12 82 Andrew Molleur* Village Springs Water 19.378 116.111 35 37 0.213
13 28 Doug Coby Nucar 19.396 116.003 24 34 0.231
14 58 Eric Goodale GAF Roofing/Riverhead Building Supply 19.401 115.973 47 48 0.236
15 4 Joey Braun* Highmark Building Efficiency 19.405 115.949 10 38 0.24
16 89 Matt Swanson Ceravolos Auto/Swanson GMC 19.407 115.938 8 26 0.242
17 31 Michael Christopher Jr Elite Towing/Elite Heavy Transport 19.473 115.545 27 28 0.308
18 8 John-Michael Shenette USNE Power/Eighty-Two Services/Heintz Performance 19.553 115.072 9 38 0.388
19 2 Jacob Perry KLAS Motorsports/Simpson Race Prod/Maurice Ent/Del’s Vinyl Siding 19.58 114.913 7 33 0.415
20 18 Ken Heagy Merkel Racing Engines 19.581 114.907 22 29 0.416
21 88 Roger Turbush Rheem 19.63 114.62 18 42 0.465

 

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

Track: Charlotte Motor Speedway
Location: Concord, North Carolina
Track length: 1.5 miles
When: 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,233,037
Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles
Stages: 80 | 165 | 267
Sunday’s starting lineup | Pit stall assignments

Balancing championship defense with offensive mentality

CONCORD, N.C. — In all three national series, the No. 1 seed entering The Chase presented by Mobil 1 has lost the top spot.

Denny Hamlin, Justin Allgaier and Layne Riggs have each surrendered their points leads during The Chase and have ground to make up if they hope to hoist championship trophies at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Current points leaders Sheldon Creed (O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) and Kaden Honeycutt (Craftsman Truck Series) have each failed to build healthy gaps in their championship leads in their respective series’ most recent events. Honeycutt lost 20 points in his Truck Series lead to Riggs in the closing laps of Friday night’s Chase race at Charlotte after sliding up into the wall and being passed for the lead and win by the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports driver.

Those reversals offer a cautionary note for Cup points leader Kyle Larson, who enters Sunday’s Bank of America 400, the first fall race at Charlotte on the 1.5-mile oval layout since 2017, with a 40-point advantage over Hamlin after a blistering start to The Chase.

Ryan Blaney, who sits fifth in The Chase, compared the pressure of defending a points lead to a recent college football game between two of the country’s best teams.

MORE: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Charlotte

“When Ohio State (No. 1 ranked at the time) played Texas early this year, I’m a big Buckeye fan, they got up, they kind of started playing a little safe, and Texas came back,” Blaney said. “When you start having that lead and trying to keep it, you can maybe shift your mindset to where guys that are chasing, it’s like, ‘obviously they can’t afford a mistake either.’ There’s that pressure there of like, ‘we can’t bleed anymore.’ It’s just a different mindset of like, ‘oh, we have opportunity to go catch this person.’ But I’d much rather have that weight on my shoulders of leading it and just trying to maintain it than having to chase.”

With qualifying washed out due to inclement weather Saturday, two-time Cup champ Larson will lead the field to green Sunday and hold the advantageous first pit stall at Charlotte. He said bluntly that any pressure of being the points leader is a manufactured talking point and there’s no reason to change course regardless of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team’s situation.

“I think the media kind of tries to get you to think about it a lot,” Larson said. “For us, I think we’ve done a good job of just focusing on our race and trying to maximize it, and I don’t think that you should venture off of that. It’s easier said than done, I think. But we’ve done so well in these first five. Why change what your approach has been?”

coca cola 600
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Recipe for success

Larson has breezed through the first half of the 2026 Cup Series Chase with a whopping average finish of 2.2. He joins a rarefied group of drivers who have blitzed through a five-race stretch during any iteration of the Cup Series postseason, which first debuted in 2004.

The two-time series titleholder joined a crop of drivers who have finished no worse than second in the points standings after race No. 36.

DRIVERAVERAGE FINISHYEARRACESWINS DURING STRETCH
Jimmie Johnson1.82006Charlotte —> Phoenix1
Martin Truex Jr.1.82017Kansas —> Homestead2
Carl Edwards2.02008Martinsville —> Homestead3
Jimmie Johnson2.02004Charlotte —> Darlington4
Jimmie Johnson2.22004Martinsville —> Homestead3
Jimmie Johnson2.22007Martinsville —> Homestead4
Kyle Larson2.22026Darlington —> Las Vegas2

Speed reads

Race-day essentials:

• Charlotte hub: Weekend information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more
• Sunday Setup: Crew chiefs face unknowns after Saturday washout | Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Home-cooked designs for Charlotte | View gallery
• Neil Paine: Make-or-break moment looms for Denny Hamlin | Read more
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with video-vault replays from Charlotte | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Briscoe bolts forward in the latest Top 16 | This week’s ranks

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

CONCORD, N.C. — For the fourth time in six races, rain washed away practice and qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series – this time, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Unfavorable forecasts provided ample opportunity for crew chiefs to be ready for yet another starting lineup set by the metric ahead of Sunday’s Bank of America 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: Charlotte starting lineup | At-track photos

Bubba Wallace will take the green flag from eighth place Sunday, matching his finishing result of last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he earned his career-best 15th top 10 of the season. The No. 23 team at 23XI Racing has been steady through The Chase presented by Mobil 1, garnering four top 10s in five races and sitting 10th in the standings. But with no practice and qualifying on Saturday due to inclement weather, all crew chief Charles Denike has to lean on is the work he and his team put into setting up their No. 23 Toyota at Airspeed, their race shop just 20 minutes west of the speedway.

“It certainly puts all the pressure on our preparation and our tools and everything,” Denike told NASCAR.com. “But we do the same amount of work preparing for practice, the same level of detail to be ready to unload well for practice. So all that will carry over to the start of the race. You‘re just not 100% certain whether you get exactly the ideal balance. And then during the race, you’re more limited on adjustments during the race than you are for practice on what you can do, certainly within the time that you have on pit road.

“So trying to make sure that you stay in a box that is favorable for that on pit stops. If you decide that you want to do some extra work, you’re going to be giving up all your track positions. So you don’t want to be too loose or too tight and not be able to keep it within a good competitive range.”

At Spire Motorsports, Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 team rank 11th in points, the second-best Chevrolet behind points leader Kyle Larson. Hocevar has had excellent runs on the Charlotte oval in recent years, but trouble has thwarted those efforts, most notably through an engine failure in the 2025 Coca-Cola 600. Despite the lack of results to show for their speed, crew chief Luke Lambert is optimistic about returning to the facility’s 1.5-mile oval instead of the combination road-course/oval that is known as the Roval.

“For us, we feel pretty confident,” Lambert told NASCAR.com. “The last two Charlotte races, we’ve been pretty competitive, particularly last year, and obviously things have changed – we’ve got the new car this year, some things that we’ve learned over the last year and a half. We kind of have to apply to that, but I think that it’s really dependent on the team.”

The Next Gen car has never been utilized on the Charlotte oval for a fall race or a Charlotte oval race scheduled for less than 600 miles. How crew chiefs call Sunday’s race must be different than the approach they bring into May’s Coca-Cola 600.

“The whole feel of the race is different,” Denike said. “The runs are actually generally a little bit shorter. In the 600, you have four 100-lap stages. It pretty much is broken up into two 50-lap runs, which is about the limit of what we put on this intermediate tire, so a little bit shorter runs in Stage 1 and 2. (We) can get over 50 in Stage 3 but just a whole one less stage. So it makes this race feel a little bit more like a normal mile-and-a-half race for us.”

Charlotte also marks the third intermediate track NASCAR visits in a row, the final in a consecutive stretch of 1.5-mile tracks after Kansas Speedway on Sept. 27 and Las Vegas on Oct. 4. There are “a few things” that teams learned at those two tracks that carry over to Charlotte, but not a ton.

“I think that the tracks are very different,” Lambert said. “Kansas is incredibly smooth, lower banking compared to Charlotte per se, and Vegas is in some ways similar to Kansas, but with a lot more road content — very rough and it was really hot. Now we’re coming to Charlotte, which is its own animal, really. It’s an intermediate, but it’s high-banked, and there’s definitely some roughness. So yeah, they’re very different, and the things that we found that work at each of these tracks are not the same.”

There will be a lot of learning throughout the course of Sunday’s 400-miler. The question now is: who aces the test atop the pit box?

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

CONCORD, N.C. — With just five races remaining in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, Daniel Suárez is on pace to record the best average finish of his 10-year career.

Suárez, in his first campaign piloting the No. 7 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, holds an average finish of 15.3, highlighted by his triumph in the crown jewel Coca-Cola 600 in May. This year’s mark is nearly a full position better than his previous best average finish of 16.2, which he set in 2017 with Joe Gibbs Racing.

As a career year draws to a close, Suárez has yet to make his plans official for the 2027 Cup Series season, but a report from The Athletic on Friday stated the Monterrey, Mexico, native will return to Spire next year.

When asked about his future with the organization Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Suárez said: “We’re still working on it. We’re pretty close, but we’re still working on that.” 

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | At-track photos: Charlotte

Sunday’s Chase race presented by Mobil 1 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) marks the first time the Cup Series has raced on the Charlotte oval in the fall since 2017. Suárez is also the most recent Cup Series winner on the Charlotte oval.

The Bank of America 400 comes on the heels of Kyle Busch’s Celebration of Life held Friday evening at the track. Thousands of fans packed the frontstretch grandstands as Busch’s friends, family and former teammates reflected on Busch as a driver, owner, father and husband.

Suárez, an alum of Kyle Busch Motorsports, spoke on stage alongside Christopher Bell and Noah Gragson to reminisce about the stern but fair feedback Busch gave them as an owner when they competed in the Truck Series. Once Suárez moved to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Joe Gibbs Racing, he spoke with Busch weekly on the phone, receiving advice and mentorship about upcoming tracks on the schedule.

At the end of the celebration of life, Suárez watched Busch’s son Brexton perform an emotional burnout in his father’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, which Kyle last drove at Dover Motor Speedway before his sudden death on May 21. Once the burnout was completed, Brexton climbed out of the car, was handed a checkered flag from his younger sister, Lennix, and gave the crowd a bow to remember.

“I can’t even imagine what was going through his mind,” Suárez said. “He was actually doing a burnout in his father’s last Cup ride. Last night was very special for the Busch family.”

Suárez’s Coke 600 victory came in the first Cup race following Busch’s death, just three days later.

While the emotion was still raw that Memorial Day weekend, it made Charlotte Motor Speedway even more special for Suárez, who refers to the 1.5-mile oval as his home track.

“I mean this race track to me has always meant a lot just because it’s home, right?” Suárez said. “I don’t get to race in Mexico, so this is home for me. And 90% of the time, I always have family here. My mom is here this weekend, so it’s always special. This is one of my favorite races of the year just because I get to spend time with family.”

Suárez isn’t mathematically eliminated from winning the Cup Series championship, but his odds are far-fetched, sitting 14th in points — 195 markers behind championship leader Kyle Larson.

The Chase hasn’t gone according to plan for Suárez and the No. 7 team, with a best finish of 14th three times — all in the last three races. But Suárez said there’s still plenty to accomplish before the checkered flag waves at Homestead-Miami Speedway next month.

“We have goals, but it’s not a number,” Suárez said. “Most people will think that a goal has to be a number. For us, the goal is to maximize our potential. If we have a 10th-place car, finish 10th or better. If we have a top-five car, finish top five or better. So that’s the goal wherever that takes us, and continue to push yourself to be better.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

If Denny Hamlin needs encouragement after a lackluster start to the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1, he needs to look no further than his own performance in the regular season.

After falling 129 points behind fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick — who drives for the 23XI Racing team he co-owns with Michael Jordan — Hamlin won three straight races in June, overtook Reddick and earned top seeding in The Chase.

RELATED: Updated Charlotte schedule | Cup Series standings

Over the first five Chase races, Hamlin has lost the 25-point edge he had to start the postseason — and then some. Currently second in the standings, Hamlin trails Chase leader Kyle Larson by 40 points entering Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Hamlin’s bid for a first series title, however, is far from a lost cause.

“We know it can be done,” Hamlin said. “It’s a 10-race season. We got a little head start to that, but it’s a 10-race season. What happened in the first (26 races) doesn’t matter when we come down to these playoffs.

“Anything is possible, and if we go win, we’ll take care of the rest.”

A late-Chase surge wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2007, Jimmie Johnson won four of the last five Chase races to snatch the title from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon. Four years later, Tony Stewart won three of the last four events to catch Carl Edwards and win the series championship in a tiebreaker.

Posted on by Staff Report

It’s a home game for the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday, as Charlotte Motor Speedway — just down the road from many race shops — plays host to the Bank of America 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But for the first time in nine years, the annual fall race is set for the 1.5-mile oval, a change from the infield road course that hosted NASCAR’s postseason from 2018-2025.

Sunday’s 267-lap race marks the third consecutive Chase presented by Mobil 1 event on an intermediate. It’s a key opportunity for championship-contending drivers to accumulate major points before Phoenix Raceway and Martinsville Speedway sandwich Talladega Superspeedway over the next stretch. Look no further than Denny Hamlin, who finished 16th last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and needs a strong result to remain firmly in the title fight. He enters Charlotte 40 points behind Kyle Larson after starting The Chase with a 25-point advantage.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos

With the Queen City on deck, take a look at drivers to keep an eye on over 400 miles, and keep reading for Racing Insights’ full race projections as postseason pressure continues to rise.

DRIVERS TO WATCH

KYLE LARSON: No driver in the Cup Series is hotter than Larson, who’s now earned five straight top-five finishes to open The Chase. He fell a lap down early at Las Vegas due to handling issues and a lengthy pit stop but battled through adversity to nearly claim the South Point 400 win. The two-time and defending series champion has averaged 54.6 points per race since the start of September, a massive jump from 27.85 points during the regular season. His 2.2 average finish is the best all-time through five postseason races, doubling as the second-best five-race stretch of his career. Larson is one of the best on intermediates, scoring a series-best 20 stage wins and leading 2,192 laps at 1.5-mile tracks in the Next Gen era. His results have been inconsistent at Charlotte, though, with an 18.1 average finish and just one win.

DENNY HAMLIN: With a car that he considered race-winning caliber, Hamlin spun from third late in Stage 1 at Las Vegas and never recovered. His finish outside the top 15 marked his first result worse than fifth at a 1.5-mile track since May last year, adding 14 points to his deficit to Larson. At minus 40, it’s the most the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team has trailed in points since Michigan in June. Hamlin has just one win in 35 oval Charlotte starts but has finished inside the top 10 in five of the last seven. He led 75 laps there in the spring and arguably had the best car before rain shortened the event and resulted in a Daniel Suárez victory. This weekend could make or break Hamlin’s championship hopes, and he’ll have some work to do — starting 12th after rain washed out practice and qualifying.

CHRISTOPHER BELL: Trailing Larson by 55 points, Bell continues to lurk but understands that he’ll need to click off multiple wins over the final five races to stay in the thick of the championship. That said, Charlotte serves as a great opportunity for the No. 20 JGR team to capitalize. Bell has a pair of podium finishes in the last three Charlotte oval events, including a 2024 Coca-Cola 600 victory. He’s finished inside the top 10 in four of the five Next Gen races, ranking sixth or better in points earned in each of those events, with an average finish of eighth. His average finish (11.75) is fourth-best all-time at Charlotte and second-best among active drivers (Tyler Reddick, 9.5). Through five Chase races, Bell has scored the second-most points (213), trailing only Larson. Like teammate Hamlin, Charlotte could determine whether Bell remains a viable title threat.

FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR BANK OF AMERICA 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA)

POSITIONNUMBERDRIVER
120Christopher Bell
211Denny Hamlin
319Chase Briscoe
45Kyle Larson
524William Byron
645Tyler Reddick
754Ty Gibbs
822Joey Logano
923Bubba Wallace
109Chase Elliott
1112Ryan Blaney
1217Chris Buescher
1348Alex Bowman
146Brad Keselowski
152Austin Cindric
161Ross Chastain
1767Corey Heim
187Daniel Suárez
1960Ryan Preece
2016AJ Allmendinger
2177Carson Hocevar
2221Josh Berry
2371Michael McDowell
2497Shane van Gisbergen
253Austin Dillon
2643Erik Jones
2747Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2838Zane Smith
2934Todd Gilliland
3041Cole Custer
3142John Hunter Nemechek
324Noah Gragson
3335Riley Herbst
3410Ty Dillon
3533Austin Hill
3688Connor Zilisch
3751Cody Ware
3866Gray Gaulding
Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

CONCORD, N.C. — Austin Cindric confirmed Saturday morning that he will return to Team Penske as driver of the No. 2 Ford for the 2027 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Cindric has driven the iconic car number for the historic team since 2022, winning the Daytona 500 that February. His new contract ensures a continued stay in Penske’s winningest car number for the near future.

MORE: Cup Series Chase standings | Updated Charlotte schedule

Cindric sits ninth in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 standings after a strong recent run of results, earning two top fives and three top 10s in his last four races, including a notable and season-best second-place finish on Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway.

Cindric responded simply but emphatically, “That’s correct,” when asked if he would be staying put for the 2027 season — secured by an additional “yes” when asked to confirm he’s remaining in the No. 2 Ford.

“It’s obviously come up in question, and I’m not entirely certain why it’s come into question, but there you go,” Cindric said during Saturday’s media availabilities at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The 28-year-old North Carolina native is producing a career-best 15.7 average finish through 31 of 36 contests this season, bolstered by an impressive stretch that began this summer. Over the last eight races, Cindric has finished 13th or better, supercharging his run into The Chase and performing once the postseason began.

MORE: Austin Cindric driver page

“I feel like consistency is kind of due to necessity with where we were regular-season points-wise for really the last two or three months,” Cindric said, “so definitely critical for us to be able to execute at that high of a level, and obviously, it’s that time of year to bring our best stuff and be able to come to race tracks for a second time and apply good notebooks throughout the regular season and into The Chase. So obviously it’s shown, and we’ve got to keep it rolling for the next five weeks.”

Cindric’s champion teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano have taken notice of the general uptick around the No. 2 team’s performance. Blaney and Cindric have both finished inside the top five in each of their last two starts.

“Austin, I think, has been an incredible asset to our group,” said Blaney, the 2023 Cup Series champion. “It’s been fun to work with him since ’22, really, when he (went) full time. Brings a lot of knowledge for how young he is. He brings a lot of good ideas. I enjoy his insight in our meetings and things like that. He makes me think about things a different way — which I mean, Joey does that too. We all kind of play off each other, but it’s nice that group has been able to have some clean races and have the speed — not only have clean races, but have the speed to run up front. I mean, gosh, I think one thing goes different in Kansas, he wins that race.

“He puts a lot of work in. I think (crew chief) Brian Wilson is very good at what he does. So yeah, it’s nice for that group to get going, and Austin (is) probably one of the hardest working guys in the garage, I think, of just time and effort he puts into things, and being very methodical, and it’s nice that it’s finally paying off for that group.”

Logano, a three-time Cup title winner, has also seen the No. 2 team’s pace pick up, a trend that can help all of Team Penske in the long run.

“He’s been really strong here recently, and they’ve been executing solid races,” Logano said. “And really, they’ve brought a lot of speed to the race track. That’s the biggest thing that I’ve noticed different. Austin’s always been a great competitor, great teammate, real student of the sport. Works really hard at it. So it’s not a huge surprise to me. But obviously, we’re looking and saying, ‘Hey, why are you guys so fast? What’s going on over here? What are you guys doing?’ And that’s part of having a good teammate.”

Cindric stormed to the 2020 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship and was one corner short of a second straight title in 2021. Cindric has 13 O’Reilly wins, plus a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2017.

The Team Penske roster is now set for the 2027 campaign after a multiyear contract extension for Blaney was announced in May, and Logano is signed through at least next season. Defending O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love will take over the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford in 2027, an affiliate car to Team Penske, replacing Josh Berry after the season ends.

Posted on by Staff Report

With NASCAR Cup Series practice and Busch Light Pole Qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway canceled Saturday because of inclement weather, the starting lineup for Sunday’s Bank of America 400 was determined per the NASCAR Rule Book.

Kyle Larson will start first, with Chase Briscoe joining him on the front row. Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric round out the top five.

Cole Custer’s No. 41 Haas Factory Team failed pre-race inspection twice, resulting in the loss of pit-stall selection and the ejection of a crew member.

Sunday’s Bank of America 400 is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET (USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: Charlotte weather updates | Full weekend schedule

Pos.No.Driver
15Kyle Larson (C)
219Chase Briscoe (C)
345Tyler Reddick (C)
412Ryan Blaney (C)
52Austin Cindric (C)
624William Byron (C)
722Joey Logano (C)
823Bubba Wallace (C)
99Chase Elliott (C)
1097Shane van Gisbergen
1177Carson Hocevar (C)
1211Denny Hamlin (C)
1317Chris Buescher (C)
147Daniel Suárez (C)
1554Ty Gibbs (C)
1648Alex Bowman
1720Christopher Bell (C)
1816AJ Allmendinger
1971Michael McDowell
203Austin Dillon
2135Riley Herbst
226Brad Keselowski
234Noah Gragson
2443Erik Jones
2560Ryan Preece (C)
2633Austin Hill
2721Josh Berry
281Ross Chastain
2942John Hunter Nemechek
3041Cole Custer
3134Todd Gilliland
3247Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
3310Ty Dillon
3438Zane Smith
3551Cody Ware
3688Connor Zilisch
3767Corey Heim
3866Gray Gaulding
3944BJ McLeod
Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

CONCORD, N.C. — Kyle Busch’s legacy shone brightly at Charlotte Motor Speedway once again Friday night in an emotional celebration to remember the life of a legend.

Moments after the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race concluded around the 1.5-mile oval, 10 of Busch’s most iconic NASCAR rides rolled onto the speedway’s front straightaway in front of a packed grandstand, with family, fans, former bosses and drivers gathered to reflect on Busch’s enormous impact on the NASCAR world — through his on-track success, yes, but more importantly and more poignantly, the one-of-a-kind passion he delivered to his loving family.

RELATED: Sights from the celebration | Kurt Busch reflects on his brother

On a night filled with “Rowdy” reflections from Busch’s contemporaries, the ultimate cap came courtesy of his 11-year-old son, Brexton, who fired up his father’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, waved to the crowd and performed a burnout beyond imagination. The smoke show near Charlotte’s pit entry ended the only way it could — Brexton climbed from the blue-and-white Chevy and stood on the roof in triumph through the smoke, with his 4-year-old sister Lennix delivering him the checkered flag, cueing Brexton to replicate Kyle’s signature post-win bow. Brexton leaped off the roof of the car after the bow and embraced his mom, Samantha, and Lennix in a beautiful finale to the evening.

After nearly five months of grieving for Kyle Busch’s fans, family and peers, Friday offered a chance to relish Kyle’s greatest victory of all: family.

“This is not the end of Kyle’s story,” Samantha Busch, Kyle’s widow, said. “The story continues every time we give a young racer a chance, share something he taught us or tell the next generation what made Rowdy unforgettable. Years from now, I hope people remember Kyle as one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers. He worked his entire life for that. But I also hope (Brexton and Lennix) meet someone whose life is better because Kyle was here. That’s a legacy that no checkered flag can contain.”

Some of NASCAR’s brightest stars stood on stage with FOX Sports’ Mike Joy to share their funniest, most touching stories from their experiences with Kyle Busch. That list included Kyle’s older brother, NASCAR Hall of Famer Kurt Busch; Busch’s former team owner Joe Gibbs; former Kyle Busch Motorsports racers Daniel Suárez, Noah Gragson and Christopher Bell; defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson; and RCR teammate Austin Dillon.

Memories ranged from life growing up in Las Vegas as a phenom racer to telling Coach Gibbs — a two-sport Hall of Famer — “your cars suck,” to the many nights later in his life spent at Millbridge Speedway mentoring Brexton on the tiny dirt oval.

But the nucleus of the conversation remained the same through each memory, dedicating his life to being the best husband, father and racer all at once.

“As I sit here today, one of the biggest things I learned about Kyle is not just the Rowdy that he leaves behind, but it’s the love,” Dillon said. “It’s his love for his family. Every time you see Kyle, you see Samantha. Samantha was a big part of being the marketing, the family behind it. You never didn’t see Samantha beside Kyle, the support system that he had from her. And let me tell you guys, this sport is tough. It is tough. You’ve got to be gritty to go out 36 weekends out of the year, travel. It’s great. It’s a great life, but I’m telling you, it’s a grind. And she’s right there with him all that time, and that’s tough. And that’s what’s shaping Brexton and Lennix — the love that they all four shared together. …

“Trophies collect dust. Records are meant to be broken. But what you leave behind is your family and your love. And he’s got an amazing family to leave a legacy forever for him.”

Brexton Busch performs a burnout in the car his father, Kyle Busch, drove.
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media

If Larson wasn’t Busch’s biggest rival by the end of Rowdy’s career, he was certainly Busch’s benchmark. Larson kept winning long into Busch’s winless drought, giving Larson moments in Victory Lane with his oldest son Owen while Brexton openly asked his father when he would win again in the Cup Series. But rather than let that fuel any animosity, Busch grew an even deeper admiration for Larson — whom he deemed “Tiny Kyle” — and even sought out Larson for help in bettering Brexton as an up-and-coming dirt racer.

“It was kind of unique because I think for a lot of us, you see Kyle in the NASCAR setting, and this was when he was still (with) Joe Gibbs and was very intense and super competitive,” Larson said. “But I got to see him kind of away from that, like out of his element at a dirt track trying to coach Brexton. He was really young and trying to figure out the dirt racing himself as a parent and coach and all that. So yeah, I got to see like a different kind of light-hearted Kyle, I felt like — but also a great coach and intense with Brexton.

“And for me too, having kids a similar age as Brexton and me looking up to Kyle so much and how he was able to coach and lead, I tried to take as many notes as I could, watching from a distance. But yeah, just getting to spend time with him at race tracks that were more my element was kind of cool.”

MORE: Daniel Suárez on how Kyle changed his career

Winning was everything for Kyle Busch. Until it wasn’t. Then his family became everything. That rang true at home in Busch’s latest chapter, even amid a career-long winless streak.

“Kyle was happy — really happy,” Samantha Busch said. “I know that might surprise some people. The last few years weren’t easy on the race track. The wins weren’t coming like they used to, and for a man who’d spent his whole life chasing wins, that was hard. But at home, I was watching something different. Kyle was beginning to appreciate everything racing had already given him. He was grateful to have this career and for the chance to continue racing. And the sport he’d given his entire life to was even sweeter because now he got to share it with our kids.”

Those kids basked in his father’s glory and memory once again Friday night while beginning to write a new chapter following the celebration of Kyle Busch’s life. For the first time publicly, Brexton Busch climbed behind the wheel of a Cup Series race car and burnt the Goodyear tires off the car exactly like his father would have. There’s a chance it’s the first of many burnouts we’ll see from him in a Cup car. If he pursues a Cup career, it certainly won’t be the last.

But Friday gave everyone — his family, his friends, his fans — a public goodbye and thank you to one of the most important personalities NASCAR has ever had.

For someone who always played up to the crowd, the fans made their love for Kyle Busch known by Friday night’s end.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Editor’s note: This story originally ran Oct. 1, 2026. At Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, Cup Series qualifying was canceled for the fourth time in the six Chase races, with Kyle Larson earning the pole via the metric.

Four races through The Chase presented by Mobil 1, Mother Nature has permitted just one time-trial qualifying session to set the NASCAR Cup Series starting lineup.

In the other three events, teams have had to rely on something entirely different to set the starting grid: the metric.

That term has been used a lot lately because it’s been needed so prevalently, thanks to inclement weather that washed out practice and qualifying at Darlington Raceway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway. And while the metric is just an equation to factor recent performance into determining the starting lineup, that metric has played an obvious role in how teams begin a race that featured no previous on-track time.

Simply put, the performance metric weighs two factors: 70% of previous race finish and 30% current position in owners points. Regardless of weather, this metric is used every week to determine the qualifying order for an upcoming race. The lower the metric, the better — and the later that driver will go out in qualifying.

MORE: Las Vegas schedule | Chase standings

There are two caveats to the metric, though. The first is seen in qualifying order itself. As stated in the NASCAR Rule Book in Section 7.3.REV A: “In each Chase Event, all vehicles and drivers that are eligible for the Championship, will be assigned the final Qualifying Order positions.” In layman’s terms, this means the 16 drivers competing in The Chase will be the final 16 drivers out for qualifying. The second caveat is that if qualifying is indeed rained out, that added benefit for The Chase racers is also washed away. Instead, those championship-eligible teams are slotted wherever the metric says they should.

As the math would indicate, that places significant added value on how a driver finishes the week prior. That particularly came into play when the lineup was determined for the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington, a race that followed the chaotic finish of the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway. As a result, 37.5% of The Chase field started 20th or worse at Darlington: William Byron (20th), Ryan Blaney (24th), Kyle Larson (25th), Ty Gibbs (28th), Carson Hocevar (34th) and Chris Buescher (35th). The uphill climb toward earning critical stage points becomes a much tougher task when starting that far behind. And yet, even at a track as rough and narrow as Darlington, three of those six drivers clawed their way into the top 10 to earn Stage 1 points: Blaney (fifth), Byron (ninth) and Gibbs (10th).

A similar situation occurred at Bristol, one week after a messy race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway left many contenders with poor finishes. So when the green flag waved at Bristol, another six drivers started 20th or worse: Tyler Reddick (20th), Buescher (23rd), Chase Briscoe (26th), Chase Elliott (27th), Daniel Suárez (28th) and Blaney (29th). This time, only one of those Chasers charged toward points in Stage 1: Blaney, who finished the stage sixth.

Blaney was bitten by the metric again at Kansas thanks in part to a late-race crash at Bristol with Carson Hocevar. (Perhaps you heard about it.) The No. 12 Team Penske Ford started 25th at Kansas, and again Blaney nabbed a single stage point in 10th place when the green-checkered flag waved.

And as you might imagine, there have been some mixed emotions surrounding the metric.

“I got done saying last week, ‘Oh, the metric is what it is.’ And now I’m starting to slowly hate it like you all for what’s been happening to us,” Blaney said ahead of last week’s race at Kansas. “I thought we did a great job (at Bristol) dealing with starting in the back. I think we got to 20th after starting 29th before the (competition) yellow, and then did a good call to stay out. I thought our car was good enough to establish track position and then play around with it during that second yellow in the first stage to get some stage points, and then flip and stay out, and we were able to win the second one, so I thought we handled that really, really well.

“You never know how each week is gonna go. No matter where you qualify, you have to adjust to it and then kind of audible as the race goes on and cautions fall, but it is tough. I mean, pit-stall selection is also brutal when you don’t get to pick it or you pick towards the end, especially at these places or tracks where (calls to take) two tires are really big. Getting wedged in between a couple guys that you’re gonna be racing around all day is always tough, but I feel like we’ve done a good job at what we’ve been given.”

His teammate Joey Logano has seen both sides of the metric — starting 13th at Darlington but then starting second at Bristol and on pole at Kansas.

“I mean, it’s played a fair amount because it’s been a few races where it’s been obviously an effect,” Logano said of the metric in a Wednesday teleconference. “Obviously last week (at Kansas), we were on the right side of it; Darlington, we weren’t. So it just kind of comes out in the wash most of the time, but it still rewards performance. It rewards running well. It rewards the points and those type of things. I personally don’t have a huge issue with it. I mean, tell me a better way and maybe I’ll change my opinion, but it seems to be OK. Maybe we can tweak it some, sure, but it’s definitely played an effect some, for sure.”

Ultimately, the metric has become a topic of conversation in the NASCAR world because of an uncharacteristic stretch of unfortunate weather scenarios in three of the first four weeks of the postseason. But with such high stakes in determining the next Cup Series champion through this 10-race stretch, a system that heavily values recent on-track performance appears the most fair way to solve a circumstantial qualifying problem.

Thankfully, the days of determining qualifying order by a literal random draw are in the past, as are the times that rained-out qualifying sessions meant lining the starting grid by season-long owners points. Performance and results matter. And when Mother Nature interrupts with a washed-out time-trial session, at least the metric relies on what drivers have done lately than any random method.