2026 NASCAR Cup Series entry list for Las Vegas Chase race

Posted on September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series heads westward to Sin City for a postseason bout at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday (5:30 p.m. ET, USA, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The 2026 contest will be the fourth of 10 races encompassing The Chase presented by Mobil 1 and the 31st points-paying event overall. Denny Hamlin, who currently sits second in the championship table, is the defending winner.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, enters Las Vegas on a scorcher, with four consecutive top-five finishes to begin The Chase and two victories in that same span, including a dominant victory at Kansas Speedway over the weekend. That Midwest triumph netted the defending Cup Series champion a 25-marker bump over Denny Hamlin and the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing camp, with Larson now 26 points clear of the other Chasers.

Thirty-six cars are entered into this weekend’s Chase race.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on NBC, USA Network

View the Las Vegas entry list here:

Posted on September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Staff Report

After a weekend away from the action, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to the track on Saturday with a date at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The Focused Health 302 will be the fourth of nine 2026 contests encompassing The Chase presented by Mobil 1, with the race additionally acting as the 28th points-paying event overall.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

With Sheldon Creed’s Bristol Motor Speedway victory, the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet leads Justin Allgaier and the No. 7 JR Motorsports camp by 11 points in the championship standings.

Thirty-six cars are entered into this weekend’s Las Vegas event.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on The CW, ESPN Unlimited

View Saturday’s entry list here:

Posted on September 28, 2026 by George Winkler

Kyle Larson delivered a haymaker on Sunday at Kansas Speedway as he swept the stages, earned the Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus and won the race to become the first driver to earn the maximum of 76 points under this points system. As a result, Larson boosted his lead from one point to 26 over Denny Hamlin, and every other driver lost points to the leader this week.

Here’s where we stand in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 coming out of the Hollywood Casino 400 and heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Chase Changer

Christopher Bell summed up the feeling that might be settling in with The Chase field after witnessing Larson’s dominating performance, saying he thought he needed to win three races to even have a chance at taking home the championship. Considering there are only six races left in The Chase, that sounds like a pretty tall order, even for someone with Bell’s talent who ripped off three wins in a row early last season, or for Hamlin, who went on the same type of three-race heater earlier this year.

But to see why this winner-take-all attitude is starting to creep in with this current Chase field, you needn’t look any further than the shift in points that occurred after Larson passed Chase Briscoe with seven laps to go in Sunday’s race. Before that pass, Larson had only an eight-point lead on Hamlin in The Chase standings, while Bell and Joey Logano were 28 and 39 points behind, respectively. Ryan Blaney, at minus-73, and Ty Gibbs (minus-75) were the next two drivers in line.

A Briscoe win would have made the situation a lot tighter entering Las Vegas, but when Larson overtook the looser-handling No. 19 Toyota and went on to win the race, his cushion became much more comfortable (see Chase Board). Now, it seems like it’s going to take a Herculean effort to deny Larson from winning his third championship, and Bell, Hamlin and others all mentioned in their post-race interviews the importance of not only piling up lots of stage points but also of ultimately coming away with the win.

The Chase Board

The driver who is closest to Larson in the standings, Hamlin, still might have something to say. The Chase has not gotten off to the start Hamlin might have wanted, but a third-place finish and a 51-point day at Kansas would have been great on most weeks. But on this particular week, it meant Hamlin lost 25 points to Larson’s 76-point outburst. Still, Hamlin’s top-five finish was his eighth straight on a 1.5-mile track, and he also extended his record-setting streak of lead-lap finishes to 29.

With two more 1.5-mile tracks left in this portion of The Chase, there’s still time for Hamlin to regain his footing in the championship race. According to Racing Insights, Hamlin is still rated No. 1 in speed in its season averages. He also comes in third in passing and fourth on defense, but he’s only eighth in restarts and pit crew.

A look at these season-long averages also hammers home the point of how Briscoe, the driver of the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, really let a big fish get away from him at Kansas. That’s because his numbers have been comparable to the top drivers, ranking first in restarts and defense, second in pit crew, fourth in passing and seventh in speed.

At Kansas, Briscoe had a rough day by his standards: Although he was first in pit crew, with a record-breaking stop mixed in, he was seventh in speed and passing, 10th in defense and 17th on restarts. An ill-handling car in the late stages, perhaps brought on by the fact that he had to work so hard to track down Larson, likely had a lot to do with the defense number being down.

Rank	Driver	Points Behind	Gain/Loss to Leader
1	Kyle Larson	--	Gained 25
2	Denny Hamlin	-26	Lost 25
3	Christopher Bell	-50	Lost 33
4	Joey Logano	-67	Lost 51
5	Ryan Blaney	-91	Lost 39
6	Ty Gibbs	-94	Lost 52
7	Tyler Reddick	-111	Lost 50
8	Chase Briscoe	-123	Lost 36
9	Austin Cindric	-140	Lost 24
10	Bubba Wallace	-140	Lost 48
11	Carson Hocevar	-150	Lost 65
12	William Byron	-158	Lost 37
13	Chase Elliott	-161	Lost 44
14	Ryan Preece	-173	Lost 49
15	Chris Buescher	-186	Lost 62
16	Daniel Suárez	-187	Lost 53

Source: Racing Insights

Next Up

Las Vegas Motor Speedway offers an opportunity for those who were strong at Kansas to continue their momentum, because it’s another 1.5-mile track. There’s also a good chance that we will see practice and qualifying in a Chase where the metric has set the lineup three times in the first four races because of weather washing out qualifying.

Therefore, some drivers who were hurt by the metric at Kansas — like Briscoe, who started 23rd, and Blaney, who started 25th after the Carson Hocevar wreck at Bristol — might not be buried toward the back of the field at Las Vegas and have to work so hard to move forward.

Looking back at the most recent winners at Las Vegas, Hamlin has claimed the last two checkered flags there. Before that, it was Josh Berry in the spring of 2025 and Joey Logano in the fall of 2024. Further back, it was Larson who won consecutive Vegas races in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024. Needless to say, these are some of the key names in The Chase that likely will be running up toward the front come Sunday.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Blaney, Bell and Briscoe and have not yet won at Las Vegas in their Cup Series careers. Bell does have five top-five finishes and 279 laps led there, and he finished second to Larson in the fall of 2023 and second to Logano in the fall of 2024. But as the man said earlier, that’s probably not good enough in this Chase.

Posted on September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Zack Albert

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For a team that spent the better part of the NASCAR season getting grilled, the barbecue in Kansas Speedway’s Victory Lane had to be all the more satisfying for Kyle Larson and his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports group.

The line of questioning around Larson’s defense of his second Cup Series title has since made a dramatic turn. Until recently, “Why haven’t you won?” was the prevailing thought (though often more delicately phrased) as a 51-race drought hung on the shoulders of Larson and his No. 5 Chevrolet team in a so-called “off year.” All through the regular season, Larson insisted there was no cause for alarm, knowing how Hendrick’s historically battle-tested tendencies and talent have responded when resilience was needed. Team owner Rick Hendrick said the same in a summit with all four teams before the postseason began, reaffirming his belief in their efforts and trying to defuse the internal pressure created by long periods of grinding it out.

Safe to say, the lead car in that quartet has found some answers.

Larson and Co. delivered a maximum-points master class Sunday at Kansas Speedway, keeping their brilliant start to this season’s 10-race Chase steamrolling forward, landing a jolt to Toyota’s yearlong dominance and firming up his footing atop the Cup Series heap. The recent plot twist suggests a newfound tilt to the circuit’s balance of power, and the questions around the team now center on just how far Larson can go.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Kansas

“I think we’re certainly more in the ballpark,” No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels said of his team’s gains, moments after Larson’s romp in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 knocked a towering home run out of the yard. That old-school stomping touched off a spirited Victory Lane celebration, with Daniels — the team’s normally reserved signal-caller — chasing his crew around Larson’s winning car with champagne spray engaged.

Larson now sits in command of The Chase presented by Mobil 1 after landing his second win in a three-race span and opening the postseason with four consecutive top fives. He led a whopping 235 of the 267 laps, swept the stage wins and bagged the Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus — all adding up to a fully optimized 76-point day that put the rest of The Chase field on its heels.

Toyota teams have been dining out on the perception of Hendrick’s inferiority for most of 2026, winning 14 of the 26 regular-season races and gobbling up most of the postseason’s higher seeds once the points were reset. The automaker was heralded as the favorite, not just in The Chase but in Sunday’s Kansas showdown, which kicked off a pivotal midway stretch of three consecutive 1.5-mile tracks.

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Larson embarked on the 10-race final span as a stealthy seventh seed, with Hendrick teammates Chase Elliott (eighth) and William Byron (13th) also in unfamiliar territory behind the Cup Series front-runners. Rather than dwell on those negatives, Daniels says the No. 5 team stuck to its no-panic approach, fully aware that the competition ebbs and flows, and that Hendrick holds a patent in orchestrating peerless postseason runs.

“Nobody wants to go through the struggle, but the struggle can be so constructive, if you let it be, if you lean in the right ways,” Daniels said after Larson’s 34th Cup win. “We have a great company with a lot of great people on the shop floor that are in the teams, engine shop, car shop, leadership. Everybody kind of having the check of, OK, we’re not where we need to be, so let’s not play the blame game. Let’s look within, and how do we elevate our process, our setups, just digging into all the things you have to do. You guys have seen this for a long time. The sport goes in cycles. Somebody told me a long time ago, when the sport goes in cycles, when you’re on top, you’ve got to take the best of it; and when you’re not, you’ve got to be patient and be ready when it is your turn.

“I feel like we’ve shown a decent amount of patience. At the same time, we’ve been patient, just from the emotional level of not letting the struggle really keep us down. We’ve been passionate in the pursuit, passionate in putting in the work that now, honestly, my opinion, I still don’t think as a company we’ve peaked yet. I don’t think as a team we’ve peaked yet. There’s still a lot of racing left and a lot of work to do.”

Sunday was indeed Larson’s turn, and if there’s still room for the team to peak, as Daniels claims, it’s a daunting prospect for the rest of the title hopefuls. The two-time Cup Series champion grabbed the top spot in the standings from top-seeded Denny Hamlin the previous weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway by one point, but added 25 points to that total at Kansas with a maxed-out, perfect-day performance.

Chase Briscoe — winner at the most recent 1.5-mile track, Chicagoland Speedway, in July — was the foremost Toyota driver to mount a sustained challenge to Larson’s Sunday reign. When he briefly lurched in front after a furious charge in the final stage, it appeared he was destined to play spoiler. After one too many late-race scrapes with the outside wall, his bid unraveled.

MORE: Cup Series standings | 2026 Cup Series winners

Larson countered Briscoe at most every turn, rallying to retake the lead with seven laps remaining. He also countered the No. 19 team’s pit strategy with a quick dive to pit road with Briscoe on Lap 216, and the No. 5 over-the-wall crew responded by holding serve and keeping Larson up front after their final service.

“That’s why we’re here. That’s the moments that we live for,” said Allen Stallings Jr., the No. 5 team’s tire carrier. With their execution complete, Larson did the rest, and the memory of their regular-season woes continued to fade.

“I mean, we’ve been struggling all year, but the fight has been there,” Stallings said. “I feel like the hard work has been constantly put in week in and week out. I mean, I think at the end of the day, we knew we needed to catch fire right at the right time, and I think we’re starting to do that. So today was just a good day all around — the car was good, our pit stops were good, strategy was good. It just kind of all came together today.”

Sean Gardner | Getty Images

The outcome was confounding to the rest of Toyota camp, which now has their own questions — some with greater urgency than others. Hamlin did virtually everything he needed short of winning, collecting 17 stage points with top-three finishes at each segment and coming home a solid third overall. He still left Kansas with a 25-point hit in the standings, thanks to Larson’s win.

“Yeah, I mean he’s got the point lead. He’s definitely in control when he got it,” Hamlin said. “I mean, I think that we’re right there. We have finished right where we run every race. You know, there’s a few where maybe we finished a little better than what we were. I mean, Darlington’s the exception, but this is where we’re at right now on speed, and until we get a little bit faster in the short run, we’re gonna kind of finish right where we’re at.”

The regrouping process may need more drastic measures further down the board. Tyler Reddick, the winner here in May, lost 15 positions in the first eight laps, and his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota dropped as low as 34th in the opening stage. With major adjustments, he eventually rallied back into the top five by Sunday’s final segment, but the 11th-place result he salvaged was small consolation.

“I mean, running [11th] on an intermediate race track isn’t really anything we should be proud of, honestly,” Reddick said. “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.”

Losing a net 50 points to Larson’s lead raises the degree of difficulty for Reddick’s title hopes, but the one-time championship favorite had more fundamental concerns.

“Yeah, I mean … we got big problems,” Reddick said. “We’ve just got to figure our own (expletive) out right now and just not even be worried about that.”

MORE: Larson bests Briscoe in pits; Reddick’s slow stop

The rest of the field faces similar, sizable deficits. When Briscoe briefly lunged ahead, a look at the live Cup Series standings projected only moderate losses across the 16-driver field, had the eighth-place driver in the standings prevailed. Instead, all but two drivers — Hamlin and a resurgent runner-up in Austin Cindric — lost 30 or more points, and half the field plummeted by a 45-points-plus margin.

Both Larson and Daniels cautioned that Sunday’s showing — however dominant — didn’t guarantee a hurdle-free path to Cup Series coronation, with plenty of racing to come in the six races that remain. The full impact of this year’s shift to The Chase format is also still taking shape, with the potential for more wild momentum swings in the offing the rest of the way.

Still, the performance felt like the start of what could be a seismic shift, given Hendrick’s knack for attending to every detail.

“Yeah, we struggled for a good portion of the beginning of the year,” Larson said, “but it forced us to kind of work hard and zero in on the fine details to make us good.”

Those regular-season questions and doubts seem especially distant after a day when Larson, Daniels and the rest of the No. 5 team had all the answers.

Posted on September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 by Dustin Albino

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Questions surrounded Team Penske on intermediate tracks entering Kansas Speedway. By the time Sunday’s race ended, the organization had provided some answers.

With Saturday’s qualifying session getting canceled due to inclement weather, the three Penske cars were spread across the grid when the green flag waved for the Hollywood Casino 400. Joey Logano started from pole position and hovered inside the top five for the opening stage. Meanwhile, Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney rallied from outside the top 10 to both earn stage points, Cindric leading the way with a third-place Stage 1 finish.

As the 267-lapper progressed, it was apparent that Cindric had one of the best long-run entries in the field. He ended the race with a 3.39 average running position, his best in 181 career Cup starts.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“Thought we had one of the better long-run speed cars that we’ve had, which is great because I think we had that most of the day,” a pleased Cindric said following a runner-up effort, .565 seconds shy of race winner Kyle Larson.

Cindric was primarily bummed that he couldn’t break through to Victory Lane, knowing he had contending speed. He considered Kansas to be among the best intermediate races of his Cup career.

“It’s frustrating to feel like you had a car that could win the race or at least contended — and don’t,” Cindric stated. “I guess that’s being hard on myself, but otherwise, really great day and super proud of everyone on the No. 2 Discount Tire Ford. It doesn’t happen without a full effort. It was fun to race some of those guys and show what we’re made of today.”

Blaney steadily worked his way forward throughout the race, climbing from 25th — the lowest starting spot among the 16 Chase drivers. Like his younger teammate, the 2023 Cup champion chipped away at the deficit over long green-flag runs.

As Larson and Chase Briscoe traded the lead in the closing laps, Blaney continued to close the gap. He passed Christopher Bell on the final lap to secure fifth, earning his first top-five finish at a 1.5-mile track since the spring Kansas race in 2025.

“We got a little bit better throughout the day, and the last two runs were our best two,” Blaney acknowledged. “I would have loved about seven or eight more laps — I might have actually won. We were taking chunks out of it: five-, six-, seven-tenths over the last handful of laps. Good effort.

“Makes us look forward to Vegas and Charlotte. Hopefully, we gained on it a little bit and just keep fighting our way back into it.”

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Logano was battling Brad Keselowski for 12th position with three laps remaining when the right-front tire on his No. 22 Ford gave way. The three-time Cup titlist fell to 20th by the checkered flag, his worst finish since Sonoma Raceway three months earlier.

Logano has already conquered Las Vegas four times, while Blaney and Cindric are still searching for their first victories at the 1.5-mile track. But with all three Penske Fords showing potential at Kansas, the organization heads to Sin City with reason for optimism.

“It bodes very well,” Cindric said with a sly smile.

“This was a big stretch for us, understanding that mile-and-a-halves were places where we really needed to improve on as a company,” Blaney added. “Props to everyone at Team Penske who has worked hard and got us better at these places. Hopefully, it continues to carry over the next couple of weeks.”

Yet with Larson posting a maximum 76-point day, all three Penske drivers lost significant ground to the championship leader. Cindric scored the second-most points Sunday with 52. Blaney’s charge to fifth in the race and championship standings netted him 37 points, leaving him 39 points behind Larson on the day and 91 markers back overall. Logano dropped to fourth in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 standings but remains the leader of the Penske contingent, 67 points behind Larson after surrendering 51 points to the No. 5 driver at Kansas.

Blaney knows Penske will need to elevate its game even further with the season winding down rapidly.

“We have to step it up and go win two or three races to close the gap back up,” he added. “We still have six more of them, we’ve just got to go for more.”

Before The Chase began, Blaney said he likely needed to win three races to give himself a shot at the championship. Now, with the margin for error shrinking, his message was simple: “I better get on it. I’m running out of races.”

Posted on September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Dustin Albino

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Chase Briscoe knew Kansas Speedway represented a critical opportunity. After two straight rough outings in the postseason, the No. 19 team needed to make a dent in its points deficit during Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400.

Briscoe was in prime position to capitalize on that proclamation in the closing laps. Following the final green-flag pit stop, he chased a dominant Kyle Larson down and passed the No. 5 Chevrolet for the lead with 30 laps remaining. He thought that was the pass for the victory. Instead, Larson tracked the No. 19 Toyota back down and cleared for the lead with seven laps left.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Kansas

“When I passed [Larson] as easily as I did, I thought I was going to run away with it and then started getting really, really, really free,” a dejected Briscoe said on pit road after the race. “Was hanging on for dear life and too many laps there at the end. I needed it to be a shorter race to be able to hold on.”

The No. 5 team believed Briscoe had given everything he had on the final run in an effort to challenge Larson for the win. Crew chief Cliff Daniels still wasn’t ready to rule his driver out.

“When the 19 had pushed so hard to get us, I kind of had a question mark of, like, is his car really going to be good enough to drive away just from the penalty of stress and push on his tires?” Daniels said, thinking back to his mindset. “I will say, I was super proud of Kyle for kind of — yeah, he took a reset. He settled in and didn’t really panic and overdrive his car. It would be really easy to overdrive his car, clip the wall, a number of things.”

With a few laps remaining, Briscoe began rim-riding around the wall, trying to find additional pace. He bounced off the wall multiple times and that hindered his performance, losing positions to Cindric and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.

Briscoe dropped to fourth at the checkered flag, his best finish of the four Chase presented by Mobil 1 events.

“With three or four to go, I started letting loose and running as hard as I could on the wall and got into the wall and went from second to fourth,” he stated. “Went into desperation mode, truthfully. I had to win to stay in contention for a championship and came up short.”

From atop the pit box, James Small could only watch as Briscoe’s No. 19 car began bleeding positions in the waning laps. He had no clear explanation for the sudden unraveling.

“I’m not sure what happened at the end,” Small told a pair of reporters after the 267-lap race. “Got in the wall a few too many times there and it kind of fell apart like a $2 watch.”

With Larson pitching a perfect 76-point game, the No. 5 team earned 24 points more than any other team. Briscoe moved up one position to eighth in the standings, but lost 36 markers to Larson, now 123 back with six races remaining.

Rachel Horton | NASCAR Digital Media

“It’s not ideal, obviously,” Small said of the No. 19 team’s outlook moving forward. “If we would have won, it would have made a big difference and would have helped us and it would have helped the 11 a lot. Kind of dug two holes there, but we will keep fighting and come back next week.”

Briscoe leaves the Midwest optimistic about the next two races at intermediate tracks, beginning next weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sun., 5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) before heading to Charlotte Motor Speedway. However, his immediate emotion was disappointment, as Kansas is among the few Cup races that he’s been in control of late in the event where he couldn’t seal the deal.

“I feel like in a lot of these late-race situations, I’ve been able to hold off and clutch it out and wasn’t able to do that,” Briscoe elaborated. “Frustrated with myself. I was really, really free, but I could have, playing it back in my mind, been more aggressive with changing lanes and being unpredictable – kind of like he was doing when he had the lead. He was doing an amazing job. I was superior to him, and I couldn’t pass him.

“Coming into today being 87 out, I knew I had to at least take 10 or so points off the cutline, and now to be 123 out – not ideal. Just frustrated with how this Chase has gone. This was a great opportunity, I felt like, for us to contend for a championship. Some of it has been my own doing and some of it has been out of our control. We have six more races to put up as many wins as we can.”

The always fiery Small can still be encouraged from Kansas. The No. 19 team recorded the two fastest four-tire pit stops in Cup Series history, according to Racing Insights.

“The guys on pit road are absolutely [expletive] killing it right now,” Small said bluntly. “You’ve got to look at all those positives. There’s still a long way to go, and if you win a few races, you might still stand a chance.

“Those guys are executing at a super high level. I joked the other day that if we had this group of guys in 2024, maybe Martin [Truex Jr.] would still be racing.”

Meanwhile, Briscoe is left to replay the closing laps and wonder what might have been.

Posted on September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Staff Report

Championship contenders Carson Hocevar and Bubba Wallace were among the drivers involved in a multicar incident on a Lap 123 restart at Kansas Speedway during the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Just after taking the green flag, the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet driver moved behind Chase Elliott, but there was not enough room as Hocevar collided with Ty Gibbs to spark a wreck that also collected non-Chase drivers Josh Berry, Zane Smith and Erik Jones. Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford, was lined up behind Hocevar during the incident. Keselowski was involved with Hocevar during an on-track spin at Darlington Raceway earlier this month.

All drivers involved in the wreck remained on track, with only Berry falling multiple laps down to repair damage on the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

Wallace rallied on late-race pit strategy to earn a ninth-place result despite damage to the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota. Fortunes were not as favorable for Hocevar, whose car was impaired for the remainder of the race after the wreck and the Michigan native was credited with a 33rd-place finish, three laps down.

Wallace leaves Kansas tied for ninth in points, 140 points behind leader Kyle Larson. Hocevar dropped three spots to 11th in the Chase standings, 150 points back.

Posted on September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Reid Spencer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kyle Larson made a statement in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Retaking the lead from Chase Briscoe with seven laps left, Larson won for the second time in three races and took control of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1.

Larson’s fourth victory at the 1.5-mile track left him 26 points ahead of second-place Denny Hamlin, who entered The Chase as the top seed. Christopher Bell is 50 points back in third after finishing sixth on Sunday.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“I really thought when Chase got by, he was just going to stretch out, but I got some lines going where I could settle in and try to take care of my tires,” said Larson, who lost the lead to Briscoe on Lap 238 of 267. “I don’t know. I think it’s just easier to be the hunter rather than the hunted.

“With me out front, I’m just defending and trying to guess on what lines are fast. When he got in front of me, I could see he started getting really loose. Yeah, that was fun. That was such a good day. Max points. I was going to be happy with second with how the race went, but to get the lead, that’s a big deal for the points.”

The victory was Larson’s second of the season and 34th of his career, tying him with Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr. for 26th all time.

Though Larson, the defending series champion, won the first two stages, led 235 laps, and set the fastest lap (30.076 seconds on Lap 2) to score a maximum 76 points for the day, the win was hardly a foregone conclusion after the final cycle of green-flag pit stops.

SHOP: Winner gear

After following Briscoe to pit road on Lap 216 with a last-second call, Larson regained the top spot at the end of the pit cycle, but he scraped the wall early in the final run. Briscoe ran Larson down from 1.5 seconds back and passed the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for the lead on Lap 238.

Briscoe held the top spot for 23 laps, but his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota developed a loose condition late in the run, and Larson made up the ground he had lost. On Lap 261, Larson darted to the inside of Briscoe’s Camry and completed the winning pass.

Contact with the wall cost Briscoe in the final laps, as both runner-up Austin Cindric and third-place Hamlin passed him on the way to the checkered flag. Briscoe held fourth, followed by Ryan Blaney, who is now fifth in the standings, 91 points behind Larson.

“Yeah, just went really, really loose,” Briscoe said of the closing laps. “I kind of had that the run before when we did the green-flag pit stop. I got it in the wall so many times that I had a little bit of a leak. Just went really, really free ultimately.

“It was better for me to be in second. Just being behind (Larson), especially with how much he was aero blocking, it would just tighten me up and allow me to actually be a little bit better. And then as soon as I would get the lead, I would just go really, really free again.

“So, yeah, frustrating for sure. Yeah, just felt like I had a win there to stay in contention for a championship, and obviously now losing, I don’t know, 123 points back (in eighth place), that’s probably not going to happen.”

With perhaps the fastest long-run car in the race, Cindric closed to 0.565 seconds behind Larson at the finish.

Cindric, however, lost time on the track by pitting one lap later than Larson and Briscoe. He was 4.6 seconds down to the leader when pit stops cycled out and spent the rest of the race trying to close the gap.

“I just feel like that cycle could have gone better for us,” Cindric said. “I feel like just the way it all played out with three cars coming in front, and I slipped through the box a little bit, having some stuff on my tires. I could have done a better job there.

“When you only lose by half a second, I wish I would have had at least a shot at it. I felt like we could have at least joined the fun at least. But no, proud of the effort and great points for today.”

MORE: Chase standings | Cup Series schedule

Cindric scored 52 points to Larson’s 76 and is tied with Bubba Wallace for ninth in The Chase standings, 140 points behind Larson.

Behind Bell, William Byron ran seventh, followed by Chase Elliott, Wallace and Ryan Preece. Tyler Reddick made a remarkable recovery after running 33rd in his ill-handling Toyota early in the race and finished 11th. Reddick’s rally could have been even better, but for a blown pit stop under green in the final cycle.

Joey Logano, who started from the pole by the rule book when rain washed out time trials, finished 20th and fell from third to fourth in the standings, a distant 67 points out of the lead.

Ten of the 16 Chase drivers are now 111 points or more behind Larson, with 14th-place finisher Daniel Suárez 187 points down in 16th place.

After finishing fourth in Stage 1, Bristol pugilist Carson Hocevar was part of a six-car restart wreck on Lap 123. With severe damage to the splitter on his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, Hocevar finished 33rd and dropped three spots to 11th in the standings, 150 points in arrears.

Note: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Larson as the Kansas winner. The Nos. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, 12 Team Penske Ford and 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will go to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for engine dynamometer testing.

Stage 2 recap: Larson continues domination with another stage victory

Kyle Larson won Stage 2 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Austin Cindric finished second, followed by Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell. William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs and Brad Keselowski completed the top 10 and points earners. Keselowski is the only non-Chase driver.

MORE: Full Stage 2 results | Watch Larson clinch Stage 2

After his dominant Stage 1 victory, Larson fired back out to the lead to begin the second frame. He extended his margin to four seconds over Hamlin, before Cindric – who started the race 11th – climbed into second at Lap 104.

The first caution for incident came at Lap 114, when Noah Gragson went up in smoke in Turns 1 and 2. He told his No. 4 Front Row Motorsports team that he blew up, while other drivers reported fluid on the racing surface. Gragson was scored with a 36th-place finish, last in the running order.

All lead-lap drivers pitted during the caution. Larson won the race off pit road, taking four fresh Goodyear tires and fuel. Cindric dropped two positions on pit road, marking the third consecutive stop where he lost ground to open the race. Before The Chase started, Team Penske swapped the Nos. 2 and 12 pit crews.

The first multicar incident of the race came on the ensuing restart at Lap 121, when Carson Hocevar moved right and contacted the right side of Ty Gibbs’ car, forcing him into Bubba Wallace. Erik Jones and Josh Berry were also involved. Keselowski, who has a recent history with Hocevar, was behind him on the bottom for the restart, but replays were inconclusive as to whether they made contact. Keselowski’s RFK Racing teammate and Chaser Ryan Preece narrowly avoided the melee.

READ: More details about the crash

At the time of the crash, Hocevar ran 11th. All cars but Gibbs came down pit road for repairs. Berry fell multiple laps down, but the others remained on the lead lap.

Larson assumed his advantage on the Lap 127 restart and cruised to another stage victory when the green/checkered flag waved at Lap 165.

Stage 1 recap: Larson wins opening stage at Kansas

Kyle Larson won Stage 1 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Larson, the two-time and defending series champion, dominated the opening frame. He led 78 of 80 laps.

MORE: Full Stage 1 results | Watch Larson capture Stage 1 honors

Denny Hamlin finished second, followed by Austin Cindric, Carson Hocevar and Christopher Bell. Joey Logano, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs and Ryan Blaney completed the top 10 and points earners. The entire top 10 was comprised of Chase drivers.

Chase Briscoe finished 12th, Ryan Preece 13th, Chris Buescher 14th, Bubba Wallace 16th and Daniel Suárez 23rd. Tyler Reddick dropped from 15th at the start to 28th, the worst among Chase drivers in the opening stanza.

Stage 1 was completed without incident. The only stoppage came for a Lap 35 competition caution after rain washed out Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Staff Report

Kansas Speedway is on deck for the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series this weekend, with both series continuing The Chase presented by Mobil 1. For the Cup Series, the 1.5-mile track will host the fourth of 10 postseason races and the first of three consecutive races at 1.5-mile tracks. Meanwhile, the Truck Series will race in its second of seven Chase races. Bookmark this page and return often for your race-week essentials, from qualifying orders and pit stalls to results and more.

NASCAR Cup Series

Race day: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Eleven total sets — eight new sets for the race, two for practice and one for qualifying that transfers to the race.

Entry List
Qualifying Order (CANCELED)
Practice Results (CANCELED)
Practice Lap Averages (CANCELED)
Practice Lap Times (CANCELED)
Starting Lineup (SET BY RULE BOOK)
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

Race day: Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Five total sets — three new sets for the race, one for practice and one for qualifying that transfers to the race.

Posted on September 27, 2026September 27, 2026 by Zack Albert

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Legacy Motor Club will keep its longest-tenured NASCAR Cup Series driver in the fold next season and beyond, signing Erik Jones to a multiyear contract extension as driver of its No. 43 Toyota.

The team made the announcement Sunday morning at Kansas Speedway, where Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will mark the fourth of 10 races in The Chase presented by Mobil 1. The core of the No. 43 group will stay intact, with Justin Alexander also set to return as Jones’ crew chief.

Jones is in his sixth season with the No. 43 team, and he described the negotiating period with Legacy management as “really straightforward,” with team leadership reaffirming its commitment to its longest-serving driver. The 30-year-old Michigan native says he’s found a comfort level with the organization, which will grow to a three-car operation in 2027.

“I mean, it would definitely feel weird walking in somewhere else, I guess, is the best way to look at it,” Jones said with a grin. “When I go to the shop and see the group and see the shop floor and the people there, it definitely feels comfortable to me and feels like I belong there. At the end of the day, I’ve been one of the longer-standing ones there, so feeling, I guess, just appreciated and respected and needed and wanted at a company always feels good, and I have that in Legacy right now. So yeah, it feels like home to me.”

The description of “longer-standing” feels apt for Jones, who began his stint with the No. 43 team under the Richard Petty Motorsports banner with ties to Chevrolet. The team’s entries are now Toyotas, and the organization morphed from Petty GMS to Legacy Motor Club as shifts in ownership changed the team’s dynamic, with seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson taking the reins and bringing in a host of strategic partners.

More change is due next season with the addition of a third chartered entry on the Cup Series grid, and two new teammates for Jones as Josh Berry and Riley Herbst come on board. The seemingly lone constant amid all the overhauls is Jones, who continues his link to one of the sport’s most iconic car numbers.

“To say it’s not been a bit chaotic at times would probably be untruthful,” said Jones, who arrived to drive for a lightly funded, single-car No. 43 team in 2021. “… There were maybe 30 people that worked at the shop at that time, and I think there’s two or three of us that are still with the company now. So it’s a lot different than what it was the first day I walked in that shop, but it’s all been stuff that’s been to try to make the program better. …

“With everything we have going on, it’s going in a good direction. It’s still got obviously room to go and room to grow, and we’re growing with this Next Gen car each and every year. Everybody, especially the top teams, get a little better, and we’re just trying to keep with that escalation as everybody improves, but yeah, it’s definitely been a lot of change. I hope that we can get settled in. I feel like there’s … I have a long time I can race if I want to, and I do want to right now, so being with one group for that time for the next stretch would be great for me.”

That feeling is mutual, says Michael Guttilla, a longtime motorsports executive who was named Legacy Motor Club president in April. Guttilla indicated that the continuity of keeping Jones and Alexander intact as the core of the No. 43 team was “an intentional part” of the organization’s long-term plans

“I think we’ve talked a lot about what Legacy’s goals are going forward, and with Jimmie Johnson coming on board and the current ownership structure and the team that’s been put in place, we are on a five-year journey,” Guttilla said. “We’re one year into that, and Erik is the cornerstone of that and has been. He’s been continuously building our program and making it stronger, and so we were just really happy to be able to put a multiyear deal together that would be consistent with that time frame, and for our families, for our fans, for our hard-working employees and our partners, we just knew this was going to be the mix. And there’s such mutual trust between Erik and LMC and what we’re building, and LMC and Erik and his abilities to get us where we desire to be.”

Legacy Motor Club’s pending expansion will mean more effort to establish the third team, but Jones says he sees performance positives to be made from the growth. Jones ranks 21st in the Cup Series standings, six spots ahead of outgoing teammate John Hunter Nemechek heading into Sunday’s race at Kansas, but foresees the benefits of information sharing providing a lift once a new-look Legacy M.C. lineup takes flight.

“Adding a third car in is huge for us,” Jones said. “We, as a company, only have our two data points right now, and having one more is a help, and it’s going to continue to help us get better. So finding all the right matches for everybody is never easy, and I hope next year we can get the ball rolling, and everybody’s happy with where they’re at, and this can be a lineup that we have for a while.”

Jones will also welcome some continuity atop the No. 43 pit box as he seeks to end a seven-year postseason drought. Alexander assumed the crew chief role at the start of the season, bringing a wealth of experience from his long-running tenure at Richard Childress Racing, where he produced five Cup Series wins while paired with Austin Dillon.

Jones said he wasn’t particularly close with Alexander before their partnership began. Since then, he’s discovered that his crew chief favors an easy, open line of communication, one that’s rooted in honesty and a shared level of respect.

“We both believe in each other,” Jones said. “We both know our abilities. We’re both comfortable that we’re trying to be the best we can each week, and that we’re doing the work to show up and be ready to go when we get to the track. There’s never felt like there’s any doubt in that, and we’re always on the same page most of the time about where we’re trying to head with competition, what our struggles are. I feel like we’re honest about that, from whether that’s a struggle that we’re trying to get better at personally on competition, or if it’s something as a company that we need to improve on, I feel like we’re always pretty close on those pages. So that part’s been great, and just the communication, really.”