The Chase Report presented by Mobil 1: Where we stand after Las Vegas

Posted on October 5, 2026October 5, 2026 by George Winkler

The list of problems for drivers in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 on Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was long, but that wasn’t the case for Chase Briscoe, who swept the stages en route to winning the South Point 400 and scoring 75 points on the day. It was Briscoe’s second win of the 2026 season, with both coming on 1.5-mile tracks, and with one more 1.5-mile track left in this all-important three-race stretch.

Here’s where we stand in The Chase after the NASCAR Cup Series left Las Vegas last night and before Sunday’s Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Las Vegas results | Cup Series standings

Chase Changer

Even on what started out as a bad day, Kyle Larson had a good day, and that’s bad news for the rest of The Chase competitors. Larson rebounded from a 26-second pit stop in Stage 1 at Las Vegas and overcame an ill-handling car at times to finish second despite tangling with Tyler Reddick on the final lap and needing his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet to be towed away from the race track. In other words, the door seemed to be open for someone to close the gap in the standings, but Larson just wouldn’t let it happen.

Now the field is left hoping just to hold serve against Larson at Charlotte, the final 1.5-mile track in this three-race stretch, before better opportunities to gain ground at Phoenix, Talladega and Martinsville come along. What his Las Vegas performance showed was that Larson can be a legitimate threat to win a race even when his equipment and setup might not be optimal. And that’s just the sign of a great driver, which we all knew Larson was, but sometimes need a reminder of from time to time to know just how great.

When Chase Briscoe’s crew chief James Small was asked after the Las Vegas win what his driver needs to do to catch Larson, he said it was simple, win more races. Except as Small and everyone else in NASCAR knows, it’s not that simple. And that’s especially true when you’re chasing someone as versatile, as resilient, and as seemingly unshakable as Larson.

The Chase Board

Denny Hamlin just keeps losing ground to Larson, and those who witnessed Hamlin’s dominance throughout the season are wondering when he’s finally going to take a stand. After a 16th-place finish at Las Vegas, Hamlin lost another 14 points to Larson and the gap is now 40 points heading to Charlotte. That margin is getting dangerously close to being unreachable in one race, so the time is now for Denny to do something. Hamlin has one win in 35 races at Charlotte, but it came in the Next Gen car in the 2022 Coca-Cola 600. He also had top-five finishes at Charlotte in 2024 and earlier this season. The last time the Bank of America 400 was on the oval track (2017), Hamlin finished fourth.

Christopher Bell was headed for a good day at Las Vegas until power-steering issues relegated him to a 23rd-place finish. Before that, Bell was running up front, finishing second in Stage 1 and third in Stage 2. It was those 17 stage points that kept him afloat on a 31-point day at Las Vegas, but he still dropped five points to Larson in the standings and is 55 points behind heading to Charlotte. On the bright side, Bell has been great in the Next Gen car at Charlotte, with a win and three other top 10s in five appearances. So he might not be done yet.

Austin Cindric led another banner day for Team Penske with a fourth-place finish at Las Vegas, this following a second-place run at Kansas. Ryan Blaney (fifth place) and Joey Logano (10th) joined Cindric in the top 10 as Team Penske has found something for the 1.5-mile tracks. Cindric gained 12 points on Larson but still sits 128 points back and likely out of contention. Blaney gained 11 points to pull to within 80 points back while Logano lost four points to drop 71 points back. But if Blaney and Logano can gain ground at Charlotte, then they will be in good shape heading to favorable tracks in Phoenix and Talladega for the organization.

Rank	Driver	Points Behind	Gain/Loss to Leader
1	Kyle Larson	--	Gained 14
2	Denny Hamlin	-40	Lost 14
3	Christopher Bell	-55	Lost 5
4	Joey Logano	-71	Lost 4
5	Ryan Blaney	-80	Gained 11
6	Chase Briscoe	-84	Gained 39
7	Tyler Reddick	-106	Gained 5
8	Ty Gibbs	-110	Lost 16
9	Austin Cindric	-128	Gained 12
10	Bubba Wallace	-137	Gained 3
11	Carson Hocevar	-158	Lost 8
12	William Byron	-160	Lost 2
13	Chase Elliott	-163	Lost 2
14	Daniel Suárez	-195	Lost 8
15	Chris Buescher	-196	Lost 10
16	Ryan Preece	-200	Lost 27

Source: Racing Insights

Next Up

Charlotte Motor Speedway ends a stretch of three straight 1.5-mile tracks, and we’ve already talked about how some of the main competitors have done there in the past. This is the first time the oval will be in play for the fall race since 2017, so in a sense, everyone is coming in not knowing completely what to expect. Hopefully, the teams can get practice and qualifying in on Saturday to hone in on their setups for what will be another pivotal race in The Chase.

As one might expect, Hamlin is the top laps leader at Charlotte with 543, but he’s also the one with the most races there (35) by far. William Byron is next with 485 laps led (in just 10 races), followed by Larson with 447, Chase Elliott with 342 and Logano with 340. The mantle of most wins among active drivers belongs to non-Chase driver Brad Keselowski with two. After that, seven Chase drivers have one win at the track, including Elliott, Logano, Larson, Hamlin, Suárez, Blaney and Bell.

In average finish, it’s Tyler Reddick at the top at 9.5 (in eight races), Bell at 11.8 (in eight races), followed by Hamlin (11.8), Logano (13.1) and Byron (13.2). Expect The Chase contenders to be running up front and for all of them to have their eyes on Larson. And like Las Vegas, how teams react to the unexpected could be a big factor, as well as how many unforced errors they can avoid themselves.

Posted on October 5, 2026 by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS — The steady progress made behind the scenes at Team Penske is finally translating on intermediate tracks. Its trio of teams reaped the rewards at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, putting all three entries inside the top 10 and keeping the organization’s championship hopes firmly intact.

Despite Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney cracking the top five in last week’s showdown at Kansas Speedway, questions remained about whether Team Penske had truly turned the corner at the 1.5-mile tracks in the heart of The Chase presented by Mobil 1. Was Kansas merely a blip, or could the organization sustain its upward trajectory in Sin City?

The two champion teammates of Blaney and Joey Logano wasted little time climbing up the leaderboard from mid-pack starting spots in Sunday’s South Point 400. Blaney raced to third in the opening stage, with Cindric two positions behind. Logano narrowly missed out on stage points, taking the green-and-checkered flag in 12th place.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Vegas

While championship hopefuls stumbled throughout the 267-lap affair, all three Penske cars remained steady. The lone misstep came from the No. 2 team, which fumbled its pit stop at the conclusion of Stage 1. A Lap 94 debris caution gave crew chief Brian Wilson an opportunity to get ahead of the strategy, however, calling Cindric to pit road while the bulk of the field stayed out. Cindric then stretched his fuel mileage to the end of the stage, finishing runner-up to Chase Briscoe.

“We didn’t start the race necessarily as close as we needed to and didn’t start practice as close as we needed to, but the guys worked on it all day and gave us some strengths that we didn’t have before,” Cindric said after the race, earning consecutive top-five finishes for the first time in his 182-race career. “It takes a great team.”

Blaney scored 15 stage points Sunday afternoon, tied with Cindric for third-most in the race. During a caution-free final segment, Cindric passed his teammate to finish fourth, giving both drivers top-five finishes in consecutive weeks. Logano rounded out the top 10.

With Kyle Larson’s early woes, Blaney gained 11 points on his championship deficit, now 80 markers behind the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Logano surrendered only four points to the championship lead, merely a net positive for the No. 22 team at an intermediate track.

“Our mile-and-a-half stuff has definitely been getting better and better,” Blaney told NASCAR.com. “Props to everybody for that. That’s encouraging. Just try to keep going; try to take little chunks at a time.

“I think we’re definitely on the right path. I do think there’s a little way to go for raw speed, especially early in runs — [Briscoe] was lights out early in runs. He faded but built the gap to where we couldn’t quite make it up. We’re getting there, but definitely not where we want to be, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

Logano was pleased with the progress from the Las Vegas race in March, when he took the checkered flag in 15th. That makes consecutive strong performances at 1.5-mile tracks for the No. 22 team, though he corded a tire in the waning laps at Kansas and limped to 20th in the final rundown.

“There were moments where we were good on the short run and moments we were good on the long run, but having both, it was hard to have that,” Logano said. “Just an OK day. But OK on a mile-and-a-half is improvement for us.”

MORE: Briscoe prevails at LVMS | Cup Series standings

Cindric remains ninth on the Chase grid and needs to convert a few Hail Marys to erase a 128-point deficit with five races remaining in the 2026 season. Logano (minus-71) and Blaney (minus-80), meanwhile, still believe they are within striking distance, particularly with the way the back half of the postseason schedule is shaping up.

“We’re close enough to say we can do it,” Logano said. “We’re right on the edge, though. We can race with nothing to lose because we’re right on that edge of being able to win the championship.”

Said Blaney: “Still doable. I would have rather gained 11 today than lose 11.”

The swing of intermediate races concludes on Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where Penske earned a pair of top 10s (Blaney seventh, Logano eighth) during the Coca-Cola 600 in May.

Posted on October 4, 2026October 4, 2026 by Staff Report

Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick tangled on the last lap of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race, going for wild rides but ultimately holding their positions at the finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Larson was running second as he pursued eventual winner Chase Briscoe, and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet clanged against the outside retaining wall as he rode the high groove at the end of Sunday’s South Point 400. He slowed after the contact, and Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota piled in before it veered sharply into the infield grass.

Larson kept his Kyle Busch tribute car rolling with sizable right-side damage and ended up second, 1.376 seconds behind Briscoe’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the checkered flag. Reddick ended up third.

“I was just trying to push it through (Turns) 3 and 4 to build some momentum at him and try to get by him down the straightaway,” said Larson, who has now finished first or second in the last four Cup Series races. “I just got really loose and overcorrected it into the wall. Thankfully, I was able to limp it home. It got exciting, for sure. I wish I could have won in this paint scheme while honoring Kyle because that would have been in very Kyle Busch fashion, but again, it was a great fight by this team.”

Larson, who recovered from early handling woes that left him a lap down to eventually contend in the late going, expanded his lead in the Cup Series standings to 40 points over second-place Denny Hamlin in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 postseason. He described Sunday’s showing as “a fight all day long.”

MORE: Cup Series standings

Reddick, who rallied after mechanical trouble early on, gained five points on the leader but sits 106 points out. He equaled his best finish in this year’s Chase, a third-place finish from the pole in the postseason opener last month at Darlington Raceway.

“That pretty much sums up what today was like,” Reddick said of the closing laps. “Just one thing after another for us. Just really proud of everyone’s effort on this Jordan Brand Toyota Camry. We didn’t lose a lap changing the battery there, and we were able to drive back to the front — it just took too long. It put us in a spot where we had to be perfect on that final run, and unfortunately, we had some more mistakes and we came out behind the 5 (Larson) after we got by him in the first part of that run.

“I think ultimately that was the difference. If we could have stayed ahead of him leaving pit road, I think we get to those cars first and maybe don’t burn up as much. I think we could have won today.”

Posted on October 4, 2026October 4, 2026 by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS – This was supposed to be the week Denny Hamlin quelled all concerns and fought back into definitive championship contention. Instead, his title hopes may have dimmed … again.

Starting from the Busch Light pole position, Hamlin had ample speed in Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But by the end of the opening stage, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was coming from behind.

Hamlin spun from fourth place while chasing Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney with three laps remaining in Stage 1, costing himself crucial stage points. Cutting across the apron damaged the splitter on the No. 11, and his car was never the same afterward.

“Just trying to make up track position that we lost and trying to push to get it back,” Hamlin told a group of reporters after taking the checkered flag in 16th position. “Evidently, there was marbles or something up there – it was quite odd. I went up there to try to get a run and just spun out and obviously damaged the car.

“They are telling me every point matters, and I was trying to get the spots back that we lost.”

The damage to Hamlin’s track position was done well before the Lap 77 spin. When Zane Smith spun on Lap 43, Chris Gayle, crew chief of the No. 11, called Hamlin to pit road for two fresh Goodyear tires. It proved to be a double whammy: Kyle Larson’s No. 5 team had taken a major gamble during the opening stage and lost a lap after a 26-second pit stop for mass adjustments, but the caution allowed him to take the wave-around. Eight cars stayed on the track, putting Hamlin ninth for the restart.

Hamlin worked his way back to fourth with relative ease, but closing the gap to the two cars ahead proved far more difficult. In hindsight, Gayle admitted he would like a mulligan on the decision, opting instead to keep Hamlin on the track rather than send him to pit road and drop the No. 11 back through the field.

“I worry more about the part of it that I can control and the part of it I can control is, I probably should not have pitted there,” a fiery Gayle said post-race. “That’s what took us from the lead — the 19 and 20 stayed behind us and a few guys after the green-flag cycle that stayed there. That’s where we pit, I knew five or six guys would stay out — we had a couple more better cars with the 19 and 20 staying out.”

After dropping into the low 20s, Hamlin rallied to 14th by the end of Stage 2. His race took another major hit on Lap 170 when the No. 11 lost fuel pressure while preparing for a restart, costing him another 12 positions. Hamlin clawed back a handful of spots over the final 96-lap run to finish 16th, second among the Joe Gibbs Racing entries after the organization had its cars running first through fourth in the opening laps, seemingly setting the stage for a Toyota runaway.

Instead, Larson holds the championship lead by 40 points over Hamlin with five races remaining in the 2026 campaign.

“You just have to play the ball where it lies,” Hamlin said, “and where it lies is we have a little gap we’ve got to make up so we’ve got to perform at our best.”

Gayle was even more frustrated to have surrendered 14 points on a day when the No. 11 team appeared poised to gain momentum.

“It sucked. It don’t matter, what did we finish 16th? I didn’t even look at it, I was so mad,” a blunt Gayle stated. “Great that we’re only 40 out, so we gave up 14. Great that we didn’t give up more than that because we probably deserved to.”

Through the first five events in The Chase presented by Mobil 1, Hamlin has an average finish of 10.8, scoring a best of third last week at Kansas Speedway. Compare that to Larson’s heater of a 2.2 average finish in those same races — all top fives — and the No. 5 team has gained 95 points on the No. 11 bunch in that timeframe.

Hamlin and the JGR brass know that, despite the speed bumps that have dotted the first half of the postseason, there is still plenty of racing left before the championship is settled.

“We haven’t had any [catastrophic] days but certainly had our fair share of not performing,” a subdued Hamlin said. “Today, leaving a bazillion points on the table considering where we were before the wreck.”

But team owner Joe Gibbs has seen this story before and isn’t willing to give up hope yet.

“I think it’s pretty miraculous considering everything that’s happened in these first five races,” Gibbs acknowledged. “Everybody can see, you win a race and have a day like Chase [Briscoe] did today, you get 70-something points – I think that’s where we are with the 11. We need a win, and I think we will be right on top of it. We’ve got five races. I only go off of the first five and it’s been wild. I think the next five will be the same way.”

Patrick Vallely | NASCAR Digital Media

Posted on October 4, 2026October 4, 2026 by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS – Chase Briscoe left nothing to chance in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon — the Joe Gibbs Racing driver sweeping both stage victories, leading a race best 175 of the 267 laps and ultimately besting the field by 1.376 seconds to take his second NASCAR Cup Series trophy of the season under temperatures in the mid-90s – one of the hottest race days of the season.

The dominating win over the series championship leader, Kyle Larson, comes a week after Briscoe just missed beating Larson in the closing laps at Kansas Speedway. It moves Briscoe up two positions in the Chase championship standings with five races remaining in the season. It was redemption for him and the team, he conceded.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“I don’t think I’d be able to get on the [team] plane [if I didn’t win],” the 31-year-old Indiana native and driver of the No. 19 JGR Toyota said with a smile, referring to last week’s race outcome.

“So thankful to get this Toyota back in Victory Lane,” he added. “It’s been … not a rough year, but just not the results we necessarily want. So, glad to get all our partners back in Victory Lane.”

The margin of victory Sunday was larger and a bit misleading, as Larson and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick had chased Briscoe down in the closing laps – cutting his lead to less than four-tenths of a second with a lap remaining, only to have Larson hit the wall directly in front of Reddick on the final lap, final corner push toward Briscoe for a victory.

Larson settled his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet enough to maintain his second-place position behind Briscoe. And after tagging Larson’s bumper in the incident, Reddick was also able to regroup and manhandle his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota after it slid across the infield grass onto pit road – ultimately maintaining his third-place position.

SHOP: Winner gear

“It was a fight,” said a smiling Larson, who increased his championship points lead from 26 points to 40 over Briscoe’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin, who finished 16th. “I was surprised how far off we were that first run [of the race].

“My car got better but track position was so important, and we just chipped away at it all race long,” Larson added. “Just tried to stay patient, but my tires were pretty much burnt off by the time I got there [to Briscoe]. Just tried to do what I could to try to win. Felt like I moved up at the right time and did a decent job with it; just was trying to push hard in [Turns] 3 and 4 to build some momentum out, and I don’t know, and just got really loose and overcorrected in the wall. Thankfully, I was able to limp it home, and Reddick was able to come away third as well. That got exciting.

“I wish we could have won in this paint scheme honoring [Las Vegas native] Kyle [Busch],” Larson said of the first race back in Busch’s hometown after the late two-time series champion passed away in May.

Team Penske teammates Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five. Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott were sixth and seventh, followed by 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, Trackhouse Racing’s Shane Van Gisbergen and Team Penske’s Joey Logano. Van Gisbergen is the only top-10 finisher not Chase-eligible.

The JGR driver Hamlin, who won the previous two Las Vegas races and started Sunday from pole position, rallied from a mid-race spin and finished 16th. His teammate, Ty Gibbs – whose 24th birthday was Sunday – finished 17th after starting on the front row. An early pit penalty forced him into playing catch-up. Their teammate, Christopher Bell, who also led laps in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, finished 23rd, forced to wrangle his Camry without power steering the second half of the race.

READ: More on Hamlin’s issues

“Was just trying to get back track position that we lost and just went up there got into the marbles and spun out,” Hamlin said of his incident. “Obviously damaged the car, so it was nothing like it was before.

“Just got to go on to the next race and see if we can’t find a way to win. Charlotte will be good for us, but today certainly didn’t live up to what we expected.”

Bell maintained his third place in the championship standings, but is now 55 points off the reigning series champ Larson’s pace. Logano is fourth, 71 points back, and Blaney is fifth, 80 points off the pace.

Five races remain to settle the 2026 trophy. The series returns to action next weekend with the Bank of America 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Charlotte Motor Speedway, marking the first time the fall event will be held on the oval since 2017, when Martin Truex Jr. won the race. Daniel Suarez won the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 on the oval in May.

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

Stage 2 recap: Briscoe sweeps the stages

Chase Briscoe motored past Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott and William Byron — who all had much older tires — to win Stage 2 of Sunday’s Cup Series race at Las Vegas (live on USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The race — the South Point 400 — is the fifth of 10 in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Cindric finished second, followed by Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace. Joey Logano, Elliott, Byron, Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson completed the top 10.

Chase drivers made up 15 of the top 16 spots. Ryan Preece of RFK Racing was the only outlier in 28th. Notably, Denny Hamlin climbed back to 14th after a spin at the end of Stage 1.

After Stage 1 ended, the pit cycle was plenty eventful. Tyler Reddick pitted from fourth on a closed pit road after previously indicating radiator issues on his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. Cindric’s No. 2 Team Penske crew had a slow stop after a trip-up by the jackman. Bubba Wallace and the No. 23 23XI Racing team were penalized for equipment interference with the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team of Austin Dillon.

Briscoe returned to the lead early in Stage 2, prevailing in a pair of restarts with a debris caution sandwiched in between at Lap 93.

That yellow resulted in a mix of strategies. Fifteen cars stayed out, including Hamlin, as he hoped to regain track position after his spin at the end of Stage 1. He reported a tight condition after the second restart, running 20th at the time.

MORE: Full Stage 2 results | Briscoe wins Stage 2

Green flag pit stops began Lap 125 with Brad Keselowski, who announced earlier in the week that he is departing RFK Racing after 2026. Briscoe left the racing surface at Lap 129 for his scheduled service and cycled back ahead of the other cars that pitted.

Bell pitted one lap behind Briscoe and cycled to second. But moments after his stop was completed, he radioed to his team and said he was losing power steering and that it was fading “very quickly.” He hung on, though, to score key Stage 2 points as the rest of the frame stayed green.

Stage 1 recap: Briscoe wins opening frame

Chase Briscoe won Stage 1 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, leading 35 of 80 laps.

Christopher Bell finished second, Ryan Blaney third, Tyler Reddick fourth and Austin Cindric fifth. Daniel Suárez, Bubba Wallace, Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman and Michael McDowell completed the top 10 and points earners.

MORE: Full Stage 1 results

Denny Hamlin, who earned the Busch Light Pole Award on Saturday, fired to the lead on the initial start. All four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas ran 1-2-3-4 after qualifying that way until they made pit stops at Lap 36 under green. After the cycle was complete, Hamlin returned to the lead. Ty Gibbs, who ran second before service, was penalized for speeding and returned to serve a pass-through.

After starting sixth, Kyle Larson dropped eight positions during the opening stint and was the first driver to dart for pit road. He spent 26 seconds stopped in his stall for massive adjustments and ultimately fell a lap down once the pit cycle completed.

The first caution came out at Lap 45, when Zane Smith spun from 28th after an apparent tire issue. He clipped the Turn 4 outside wall with his right-rear fender but continued after visiting pit road for repairs.

Seven lead-lap cars stayed out, including Briscoe and Bell. Hamlin and his 23XI Racing drivers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace were the first drivers to pit road, and they rejoined the field ninth through 11th. Larson also stayed out, allowing him to wave around to the lead lap.

With three laps to go in the stage, Hamlin spun by himself in Turns 3 and 4, coming to rest on the apron after keeping his No. 11 Toyota off the wall. The race remained green and Hamlin stayed on the lead lap, finishing the frame 28th. He led 39 of the first 80 laps.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on October 4, 2026October 4, 2026 by Dustin Albino

LAS VEGAS — When Tyler Reddick exited Kansas Speedway in mid-April, he was sitting atop the NASCAR world, having won five of the first nine races of the 2026 season. Five months later, the No. 45 team departed the same intermediate track in a vastly different position, searching for answers as the season winds toward its conclusion.

Upon exiting his No. 45 Toyota following an 11th-place finish, Reddick was disgruntled. In the opening laps of last weekend’s Hollywood Casino 400, he plummeted from 15th to 34th, hanging on to the lead lap by the skin of his teeth when a Lap 35 competition caution was displayed. The Billy Scott-led bunch powered on, constantly improving and cycled to the top five, only to drop to 11th after a late pit-road miscue.

RELATED: Chase standings | At-track photos

“I mean, running [11th] on an intermediate race track isn’t really anything we should be proud of, honestly,” Reddick said following the race. “I mean, we fought to get back up in there, but we still just didn’t have the speed we need to have at these intermediate tracks here.”

“We got big problems. We’ve just got to figure our own (expletive) out right now and just not even be worried about that.”

With practice getting washed out at Kansas, the No. 45 team showed up off the hauler with the wrong balance. Tough conversations were had at 23XI Racing this week, as this year’s Daytona 500 winner looks to turn his four months of misfortune around, dating back to Michigan International Speedway in early June.

“I think everybody on our side at 23XI, we’re not happy with where our balances were,” Reddick said on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “We definitely missed it [at Kansas] the most of our cars, finding that tight balance. We were able to have some takeaways from it.

“Certainly, it was very obvious at the start of the race how off we were. In some ways, it was nice that we were able to get within reason at the end of the race. We’ve been trying to understand how we can get that far off and make those adjustments to not show up the same.”

Reddick has slipped to a season-low seventh in the championship standings after three consecutive finishes outside the top 10. He now trails Kyle Larson by 111 points, with Larson gaining 50 points on the No. 45 team during his dominant Kansas outing.

Reddick refuses to give up on the 2026 season. He led the points after each of the first 17 races and knows the No. 45 team has the potential to catch fire at any moment. With consecutive races at intermediate tracks ahead, Reddick has an opportunity to chip away at the deficit, starting with Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He believes he still has an outside shot of making a championship push in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

“It is still possible, but we’ve got to run extraordinary and have things go our way, too, which you never want to be in that spot,” Reddick admitted. “For us, one race at a time to see if we can get our pace back to where we want to be on these intermediate tracks. If we get back on track, it’s a good way for us to end out the year. That’s what we’re focused on. If we run good, it will close back in; all the things we’re wanting will happen. But what starts all that is this weekend and this race and how well we perform.”

MORE: Starting lineup | Practice lap averages

The weekend began with Reddick stopping on track in practice due to a flat left-rear tire after having the best 15- and 20-lap averages in practice. The No. 45 car will take the green flag from fifth position.

Posted on October 4, 2026October 4, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

LAS VEGAS — Team Penkse’s Austin Cindric was easily best in class last weekend at Kansas Speedway, turning in a second-place finish that marked his best yet on a 1.5-mile oval behind a dominant Kyle Larson performance.

Now it’s up to Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney to find their best 1.5-mile speed as Team Penske pivots to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) in the fourth race in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

MORE: Starting lineup | Chase standings

Logano enters Sunday’s South Point 400 fourth in the championship standings, 67 points behind series leader Larson, with teammate Blaney behind him in fifth — another 24 points behind Logano and 91 points behind Larson. Cindric’s stellar Sunday at Kansas moved him up to ninth in points, but the 2022 Daytona 500 champion is still 140 markers back of Larson.

Yet Cindric was again the top Penske driver on track Saturday at Las Vegas, qualifying his No. 2 Ford in seventh place as the top Ford behind five Toyotas and Larson’s Chevrolet. Blaney qualified 20th with Logano 23rd — the only Chase drivers to qualify outside the top 14.

“Yeah, I definitely think it was our best intermediate qualifying of the year, You know, we were (31st) this time in the spring,” Cindric said. “Our guys did a great job. I mean, having having a good draw helps as well. Going out that late gives a lot of confidence to watch other cars and know what to do. But no, I thought we made a lot of progress in a short amount of time on our Autotrader Ford Mustang in practice and obviously showed in qualifying for them.”

Chris Graythen | Getty Images

There is still optimism to be found in the Penske camp, albeit tempered through past 1.5-mile results. Blaney has a Penske-best average finish of 11.5 on 1.5-mile tracks this season while Cindric’s 16.5 ranks 12th of the 16 Chase drivers; Logano’s is a Chase-worst 20.3.

But Kansas was encouraging: Blaney rallied to a fifth-place finish at Kansas after starting 25th and Logano averaged an 8.1 running position before falling to 20th with a late tire issue.

“Definitely good momentum,” Blaney said. “I was very pleased with our performance at Kansas. Like you said, the 2 car was really fast. I thought Joey was good most of the day before he had a problem there at the end, but the mile-and-a-halfs have been a place we’ve been really wanting to get better, and I think we made a good gain to get closer to some of those guys. I don’t think it’s fully out of reach. So I thought Austin had a great shot to win that race if a couple things go his way. So that’s promising. Hopefully we’ve learned from last week and can apply them here.”

In a Wednesday teleconference, Logano said Cindric’s Kansas run impacted the team’s plans for Vegas immediately: “Hey, what do we want to try this weekend for setups and practice and how do we want to go about it?” That mindset was still in place Saturday in the moments ahead of Cup Series practice.

“Yeah, it definitely adds a lot of confidence,” Logano said. “It says the potential’s there, right? They had a really fast car — a car that probably could have won the race just with a couple little execution things being a little better. So the speed’s there. That means the potential’s there. It’s just a matter of us getting it all out of it.”

Vegas will offer the latest test of Penkse’s performance improvement. The organization has been incredibly successful since the summer, producing three wins for Logano and two for Blaney, bolstered by a few career days turned in by Cindric. But with previous disappointment on 1.5-mile race tracks, the question becomes whether its Kansas success is real or a flash in the pan.

“I think a few weeks ago or the last month or so, you could probably attribute (Penske’s recent success) to the track type, but we’ve kind of checked the box at least with one mile-and-a-half,” Cindric said. “But yeah, I think as you said, it’s a team. It’s a whole group effort. … It’s a year’s worth of work to get us to this point. So yeah, proud to have obviously that work pay off and hopefully be able to use that notebook to continue to excel for the remainder of the season.”

Posted on October 3, 2026October 3, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

LAS VEGAS — Carson Kvapil reeled in Corey Day and put up one hell of a fight for the win in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Unfortunately for the JR Motorsports driver, the spoils of Vegas victory fell Day’s way by 0.287 seconds instead after a thrilling exchange in the series’ third race of The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Day and Kvapil exchanged the lead at the start/finish line four times across the final 11 laps, each pass appearing like a heavyweight punch. The closing circuits produced a stunning show worthy of a spot on the Las Vegas Strip: Kvapil and Day banged doors approaching the white flag to begin the final lap around the 1.5-mile circuit, with Day rocketing around the outside as Kvapil protected the bottom lane. Both drivers got sideways loose exiting Turn 2 with Day even smacking the outside wall before drawing back even with Kvapil.

The theatrics continued into Turns 3 and 4 and both took their preferred lanes. Day ricocheted off the wall again, and Kvapil could only watch as the No. 17 car drove away from him to score the win as Kvapil was forced to settle for second place.

“First things first, I’m bummed out, right?” Kvapil said. “It’s hard to run that good and be that close and lead a few of them towards the end and not win the race, but just part of it. I feel like all the guys on on this Bass Pro Shops Claire’s Technology Chevrolet with Hendrick Engines under the hood gave us a really fast car. And I felt like we never had the the lead position I guess to drive away or to defend, but we were always right there and in the top three once we got to race. And we seemed like we were always chasing people so it was apparent that it was going to be really hard to pass him.”

Day ultimately made it impossible for Kvapil’s advances to stick, but that didn’t stop Kvapil from trying. Still, Kvapil, a two-time winner this season, was left second-guessing his decision to stay low all race without giving the high lane a try late.

“At the end, I felt like for me, my bottom of 1 and 2 was our strong suit,” Kvapil said. “We would really gain wrapping the line down there and I could get back to the gas and get to his inside and have him have to have him make a decision in 3 and 4, but he did a really good job in 3 and 4 ripping the fence there. I didn’t know whether he was going to go to the fence or if he was just going to, I guess, run right beside my door and try to get me freed up on the bottom. But he did a good job running the top and didn’t make a mistake.”

Despite the disappointment of defeat, Kvapil was able to take a brief moment to acknowledge the fun he had racing Day after an intense, side-by-side battle lap after lap.

“I’m sure it was good,” Kvapil said. “From my seat, I didn’t like it as much as probably some others did. But no, this car that we have in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series really puts on a good show, and it’s so much fun to drive these cars. That whole last run there, I felt like I was just hanging on, and there was a few times where it almost looped around on me and sliding the back a bunch, and just a lot of fun racing these things. I’m sure it puts on a good show. Whenever the drivers have fun, everyone sitting in the stands or watching on the couch feels the same way about it. So really cool. Obviously, would have loved to come out of there with the win, but either way, good race and we kept it pretty clean. It was cool.”

Perhaps lessening the sting was Kvapil’s climb in the points standings, slicing his deficit to points leader Sheldon Creed by roughly half: Kvapil entered third in points, 37 points back; he leaves second in points just 19 points behind Creed. That jump was aided by issues for JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, who was collected in a Lap 54 crash and fell from second to fourth in the standings.

“Obviously, having a good day is is the biggest thing, and whenever the people you’re racing for points don’t have the best days, that really helps too,” Kvapil said. “So obviously, don’t wish that upon them. But at the same time, it’s part of this Chase we have here. Some people are going to need to have bad days for you to be able to prevail and to fall back at that points gap or extend the points lead or whatever the situation it is.

“I mean we’ve got some wild cards coming up, especially with Talladega, Martinsville coming up. Just never know how those are going to go. So it’s hard to have a bad day before you get to one of those races. So for us and our 1 team, we’re just trying to have good consistent days and not make any mistakes to where we get to those races and we don’t have to worry so much about being super close on points.”

Posted on October 3, 2026October 10, 2026 by Holly Cain

LAS VEGAS — In one of the most thrilling finishes of the season, 20-year-old Hendrick Motorsports rookie driver Corey Day prevailed in a final laps back-and-forth with 23-year-old JR Motorsports racer Carson Kvapil to claim his third career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory in Saturday’s Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Day and Kvapil exchanged the lead four times in the last 12 laps before Day made a daring pass – after brushing the wall multiple times – with two laps remaining to solidify a trophy hoist ultimately decided by a slight 0.287 seconds.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Vegas

“Oh man, I just was so tight there and so scared I was going to go down and plow on the bottom and let him get by me,” said a grinning Day, who started his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet from pole position, won the opening stage and led a career-high 136 of the 201 laps. “Just a great car. We struggled over the summer, to tell you the truth. Won Talladega (in April) and then Dover pretty close and then just went dry. This feels really good. A dominant day for us for sure, great car.

“I knew we’d be a title contender from the start of the year,” added Day, whose win puts him fifth in the 12-driver championship rankings with five races remaining on the season. “Just had a dry summer there but we’re getting things rolling back in the right direction. We’ll just keep working.”

Kvapil, who like Day, also earned his first career series wins this season (at Indianapolis and Iowa), was understandably disappointed to lose out on Saturday’s victory, but also encouraged with the showing. It moved him into second place in the championship standings, now 19 points behind Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed, who finished 13th.

“I feel like our stuff was really good around the bottom,” Kvapil said. “Had a really good car today. Props to those guys for making us a top-three car. There at the end, I thought the 17 [Day] was pretty stout. Some lapped traffic held him up there and I was able to find some speed at the bottom of [turns] one and two. Just never really tried the fence. I knew once I got in front of him what would be best for me was to run the bottom. He ran the top and just hit a perfect corner.”

Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love, the reigning series champion, finished just behind the duel up front in third place, followed by JGR teammates William Sawalich — one of four drivers among the top 10 not Chase eligible — and Taylor Gray.

Haas Factory Team’s Sam Mayer — another eligible driver in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 — finished sixth, having turned in an impressive comeback. He won Stage 2 and led 40 laps (second to Day) but had to rally from the rear of the field after a pit-stop penalty for an uncontrolled tire during the Stage 2 break.

Non-Chase eligible drivers Jeremy Clements, William Sawalich, and Anthony Alfredo finished seventh, eighth and 10th respectively with Chase driver Austin Hill taking ninth place.

It was an especially impactful race for former series champion and the season’s most productive team, JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier. He was collected in a melee on Lap 55 with a fellow Chase competitor, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones.

Just after winning the race off pit road for the restart from the first stage break, Jones’ No. 20 Toyota had a problem and drifted up into Allgaier’s No. 7 Chevrolet in Turn 2, cramming both into the wall. Both cars were towed back to the garage. Allgaier was able to return to the track with 84 laps remaining and made a handful of laps to move up a position in the race’s finishing order. Still, his 34th-place result dropped The Chase’s top seed from second to fourth in the standings – 31 points off the leader Creed.

MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings | Weekend schedule: Vegas

It was only the second DNF of the season for six-race winner Allgaier, who held an enormous 229-point advantage atop the regular-season standings before the points reset for the Chase run.

“I checked up and tried to be able to sneak by him [Jones] on the outside, but it just didn’t work out,” said Allgaier. “I hate it for everybody on the 7 team. Obviously, we’ve had lots of speed everywhere we’ve gone all year, but to start The Chase off like this has been pretty frustrating. But we’ll go next week and try to win another race. Disappointing end to a day I thought we were making some headway.”

The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action next Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the Blue Cross NC 300 (8 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). This marks the first fall race on the 1.5-mile Charlotte oval since 2017, when Alex Bowman hoisted the series’ trophy driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.

NOTE: Post-race inspection is complete in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage. Corey Day’s win is confirmed. The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was disqualified for four or more lug nuts not safe and secure and will be credited with a last-place finish (originally 35th). The Nos. 88 (one lug nut not safe and secure) and 92 (inspection failures) will lose pit stall selection for next week’s race at Charlotte.

Posted on October 3, 2026October 4, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

Track: Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Track length: 1.5 miles
When: 5:30 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

Contenders look to gap the pretenders at Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS — There is a clear divide atop the NASCAR Cup Series standings as The Chase presented by Mobil 1 approaches its midpoint.

Kyle Larson has overtaken Denny Hamlin for the points lead, and the two rival veterans now command the championship hunt after four of 10 races in the Cup Series postseason.

Will anyone else join them as the season reaches its title-deciding fever pitch?

MORE: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Las Vegas

Entering Sunday’s South Point 400, the top four drivers in the standings are within one race’s worth of points of each other: Larson, Hamlin, Christopher Bell (50 points behind Larson) and Joey Logano (67 points behind Larson). Larson dominated last week’s race at Kansas Speedway, earning a maximum 76-point day — a race win, both stage wins and the Xfinity Fastest Lap. He and the No. 5 team have proven they are here to defend their title with a vengeance, posting two wins, one runner-up result and a fifth-place finish in the opening four races of The Chase.

“I would love to continue to put together weekends like we have where we gain a lot of points,” Larson said Saturday, “just to stretch out (so) that way, if we do have a blowout race, you can not fall down the order a lot. But yeah, I mean that’s not guaranteed. So yeah, I mean that’s really not on my mind when I’m out there. I’m just kind of treating it as just trying to get a good practice, qualify well, get a good first stage, get a good second stage and a good third stage and then you look at the points afterwards. But yeah, it’s been a good start to The Chase, obviously at this point, and would love to keep it going.”

Hamlin entered The Chase as the No. 1 seed and is firmly in the hunt — particularly entering Las Vegas as the winner of each of the last two races in the Nevada desert. But for the first time since June, Hamlin is no longer the points leader, trailing Larson by 26 points entering Sunday’s South Point 400. And in four Chase races, Hamlin has just one top-five finish. That won’t be enough if Larson is able to maintain anything close to his current pace of 59.25 points per race.

But the true championship threats still have a chance to separate themselves from the rest of the field — and perhaps already are.

“If you can separate yourself by putting really good finishes and wins together early in a Chase, then typically, yeah, you’re going to narrow the field down and narrow the competition down,” Hamlin said. “So that goes back into the ‘do the work now, and then you check out the results later’ type of mentality. But overall, yeah, it’s all just going to work itself out however it is, and there’s kind of peaks and valleys to this that some teams had a rough maybe week or two and I think that they could end up going on a run and winning a couple and putting themselves right back in it, too. You just never know.”

Behind the quartet up front sit other stars like Ryan Blaney (-91), Ty Gibbs (-94) and Tyler Reddick (-111). With the gap widening between them and the championship frontrunners, they see that time and points are already starting to slip away.

“We’ve got to win some,” Gibbs said. “I’m gonna bet on myself. We’re gonna do it this weekend.”

Even Larson isn’t ready to count most drivers out of championship contention yet, so a victory by someone like Gibbs could heavily impact The Chase standings.

“I don’t view my gap as anything, where I think a lot of media members, it sounds like, view it that way,” Larson said. “I also don’t consider as many people out of it as it seems like everybody else does. There’s just a lot of racing left. There’s a lot of points on the table. There’s a lot of things that can happen. There’s a lot of restarts left. There’s all sorts of things. So yeah, I think with that, you just stay focused on yourself and stay focused on your team and what you’re doing during the week to improve and prepare for the upcoming race.”

What lies ahead is The Chase’s most pivotal race yet — one that will set the tone for the rest of the 2026 championship chase.

Patrick Vallely | For NASCAR Digital Media

Topping the charts on intermediate tracks

Denny Hamlin is in the midst of a historic run on 1.5-mile tracks, entering Las Vegas with eight consecutive top-five finishes on intermediates — a streak that ties him for seventh-longest all-time with Jimmie Johnson.

While Hamlin has flexed his muscle on intermediates, here’s a look at how all drivers in The Chase have fared on average this season, including their best 2026 finish at a 1.5-mile track, courtesy of Racing Insights:

Driver	Average 1.5-mile finish	Best 1.5-mile finish
Denny Hamlin	2.7	1st (Las Vegas)
William Byron	6.3	3rd (Las Vegas)
Bubba Wallace	10.0	5th (Kansas-1)
Chase Elliott	11.2	1st (Texas)
Tyler Reddick	11.5	1st (Kansas-1)
Ryan Blaney	11.5	5th (Kansas-2)
Daniel Suárez	12.0	1st (Charlotte)
Christopher Bell	12.0	2nd (Charlotte; Chicago)
Chase Briscoe	12.2	1st (Chicagoland)
Ty Gibbs	13.5	5th (Las Vegas)
Kyle Larson	13.8	1st (Kansas-2)
Chris Buescher	15.5	5th (Texas)
Austin Cindric	16.5	2nd (Kansas-2)
Ryan Preece	18.5	10th (Kansas-2)
Carson Hocevar	20.0	7th (Texas)
Joey Logano	20.3	8th (Charlotte)

Speed reads

Race-day essentials:

• Las Vegas hub: Weekend information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more
• Sunday Setup: Kansas lessons inform crew chiefs for Las Vegas approach | Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Bright designs for the Las Vegas lights | View gallery
• Neil Paine: Can anything slow Kyle Larson’s roll? | Read more
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from Las Vegas | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Christopher Bell plays crucial role in title fight | This week’s ranks