Posted on by Zack Albert

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Justin Allgaier walked over and grabbed the shoulders of Jesse Love in a consoling show of sympathy for the fright-filled Halloween he’d endured at Martinsville Speedway.

It was a cordial conversation and a show of respect between the two most recent NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champions, who will race it out again for the title in next weekend’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But instead of a 1-on-1 faceoff, the championship-battle reservations are for a party of five.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Martinsville

The top spot in the tour’s standings changed hands with a wild pendulum swing as Love faltered to a 30th-place finish in Saturday’s National Debt Relief 250. The 19-point advantage he carried into the 250-lapper was erased, with Justin Allgaier placing second to JR Motorsports teammate Carson Kvapil and emerging with a 22-point edge.

The multitude of trouble for Love’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet team — capped by a Lap 220 crash after brake failure — allowed Allgaier to pass him, but also opened the door for three other title hopefuls to keep their longshot bids alive. Corey Day recovered from an early spin and closed to 23 points off the lead, with Kvapil 31 points back and Sheldon Creed still in the hunt at minus-42.

The jolt to Love’s title defense, however, was the most pronounced, and he insisted that even with the engine still warm from a full day at Martinsville that he was focused forward on the Homestead finale.

“Everybody’s gonna ask me how am I gonna process this, and how long I’m gonna be upset about it, and I’m pretty much already over it,” said Love, who finished nine laps off the pace. “You guys are my last obstacle in the way of putting it behind me, which is fine, but at the end of the day, next week our goal is to become a two-time champion, and in order to do that, obviously winning the race is going to achieve that. So when there is one goal at hand and pretty much one avenue to achieve that goal, there’s a lot of clarity in that moment. So yeah, not going to take a whole lot for me to put this one behind me.”

A boxed-in pit stop in Stage 2 was one of the least of Love’s issues. His car’s right-front tire began to smoke midway through the stage, and he made multiple stops under yellow flags to address a rub and an eventual flat. A broken water line compounded those problems, before his brake pedal finally pressed to the floor with 30 laps remaining, sending the No. 2 Chevy looping into the Turn 1 retaining wall.

MORE: Hear from Allgaier | Hear from Day

Allgaier, meanwhile, was rock-solid on a night when Kvapil’s pole-starting No. 1 Chevrolet was the field’s best. The 40-year-old veteran led 52 laps and padded his points stockpile with a Stage 1 win and a runner-up effort in Stage 2.

Like Love, Allgaier has the chance to become a multi-time champ, matching the crown he earned in 2024 and adding the finishing touch to one of his finest seasons. It’s an opportunity he welcomes as he heads into the later years of his career, and he made sure to tell his No. 7 JRM crew he loved them during a red-flag break in the final stage.

“It’s always good to be the points leader,” said Allgaier, a six-time winner this year. “At the same time, you would love to be farther ahead. You’d love to have a 70-point lead and go in there and not have to worry about it, but either way, I’m proud of the team, proud of the effort. I think that Homestead’s a great race track for us. Obviously, getting the win there last year and just the speed that we’ve had there. You know, this team, I’m so proud of the effort, and I’m disappointed for my guys that we didn’t get the job done. But it’s hard to be disappointed at JR Motorsports 1-2.”

Day stands as the next-closest title challenger after an outing that began with his No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in a five-car pileup before the first stage was finished. With minimal damage, he rallied to lead 24 laps and come home third, just behind Allgaier.

A triumph would highlight a breakout four-win campaign in his first full O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, and he foresees winning in his first-ever trip to Homestead as a requirement.

“I’d say we have a pretty good chance,” Day said. “I’d say we’re in a must-win. I don’t really see the 7 running worse than top five there, for sure. So yeah, a must-win’s OK, though. I like that. I like those odds. It’s better than being out of it entirely.”

Love said he shares the must-win mentality, especially after a fit of Martinsville mayhem.

“It does change it a little bit, right?” Love said of his approach to the finale, “because unless the 7 has a DNF, right, and then it’s between me and the 17, you’re going to have to win the race to win the championship. So funny how that works out. But you know, regardless, I feel that there’s a lot of, again, clarity mentally when you show up the race track with that mindset, and I feel like our team will do a great job in a moment like that. So yeah, just put our eggs in one basket, go to Homestead with a chance to win, and prepare to do so, and I feel very confident in that moment.”

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Riley Herbst plans to run the full distance of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway despite an injury to his left wrist suffered in a crash last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, 23XI Racing confirmed on Saturday.

Herbst qualified 27th in the No. 35 Toyota for Sunday’s Xfinity 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: Martinsville lineup | At-track photos: Martinsville

Herbst’s left wrist and forearm remain wrapped after being involved in a late wreck in the YellaWood 500. On Lap 183, Joey Logano’s No. 22 Team Penske Ford broke loose and ignited a multicar wreck, during which Herbst hit the outside hard and ricocheted into the inside SAFER barrier, ending his day with a 26th-place finish. Herbst exited the car gingerly with assistance from the AMR Safety Team and was released from the infield care center.

At Martinsville, Herbst said he remains sore from head to toe and that his body is still stiff, but he is intent on competing in the penultimate race of the 2026 season. Team co-owner Denny Hamlin noted, however, that Harrison Burton is on standby if needed.

“I think that Riley’s gonna attempt to run,” Hamlin said Saturday morning. “I’ll let him talk about the medical side of things, but it’s, really, I think it’s a pain-tolerance thing for him and I suspect he’ll try to get it done this weekend.”

Herbst confirmed he tore a ligament in his left forearm but managed to complete 113 laps in Saturday’s practice session in addition to his two qualifying laps.

“I got lucky in that we tore part of the ligament that doesn’t need surgery,” Herbst told NASCAR.com and FOX Sports Saturday. “If I tore it on the other side of the ligament, it would have been done for 12 weeks, and we would have needed surgery. So, got lucky in that sense. Well, I got lucky in all the sense of it to walk away from that. So, yeah. Now it’s just about mitigating pain for nine weeks. …

“It’s all going to be about pain mitigation. Talked to a bunch of hand surgeons across the country, and they all had the same conclusion.”

Herbst admitted the last week was “scary,” particularly as he reflected on the incident itself.

“I don’t know if race car drivers are supposed to say scary, but usually wrecks, they happen within a blink of an eye, a snap of a finger, and that’s how that first hit was,” Herbst said. “I didn’t even know it happened by the time it happened. But the second one, I had I think I calculated two-and-a-half seconds to look at the wall and stare at it. So yeah, that’s the worst part of the whole ordeal.

“First hit, obviously, I don’t want to hit the wall at 160 [mph], so I hit the brake pedal and went to the floor and tried to downshift to slow it that way, and I was willing to kind of hurt my motor to try to take some of the impact. But the transaxle and drivetrain was already out of it after that hit, so I couldn’t downshift it either, and so I was kind of just along for the ride.”

The No. 35 Toyota that Herbst raced at Talladega was brought back to the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further evaluation following the incident. Herbst said: “Visually, it’s rough inside the cockpit, but I think everything did its job.”

The 27-year-old Las Vegas native stepped aside for the August race at Daytona International Speedway after dealing with lingering effects from a crash the week prior at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Herbst confirmed the next week that he had suffered a concussion. Burton drove the No. 35 Toyota at Daytona to a 12th-place finish.

Herbst sits 30th in the Cup standings in 33 starts with a career-high three top-10 finishes. With Corey Heim taking over 23XI Racing’s third full-time entry in 2027, Herbst is moving to Legacy Motor Club next season, where he will drive the No. 84 Toyota in 2027.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on by Zack Albert

Track: Martinsville Speedway
Location: Martinsville, Virginia
Track length: 0.526 miles
When: 2 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,233,037
Race distance: 500 laps | 263 miles
Stages: 130 | 260 | 500

Sunday’s starting lineup | Pit stall assignments

Signs of the season: Fall color, high postseason stakes

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Martinsville Speedway in the fall has often synced with seasonal traditions — autumn leaves, frost-on-the-pumpkin weather and on some given years, the spooky Halloween scenes that spanned Friday and Saturday preliminaries.

From a racing standpoint, for the second of the NASCAR Cup Series’ two annual visits, it’s meant pressure and in the previous postseason format, eliminations. Though it’s the first year of The Chase presented by Mobil 1 structure, some elements of the former playoff system still apply.

A more clearly drawn picture of the battle lines for this year’s Cup Series championship will be decided after Sunday’s Xfinity 500, the next-to-last race of the season. In previous years in the bracket-style playoff format, Martinsville hosted the race that decided the final four title contenders competing for the Bill France Cup in the season finale. Which championship-eligible drivers will square off in next weekend’s curtain-closer at Homestead-Miami Speedway will still be determined at Martinsville, but also how many of the seven who are still clinging to a mathematical chance.

RELATED: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Martinsville

That number could be just one. Kyle Larson built a commanding 73-point lead after prevailing in dramatic fashion at Talladega Superspeedway last weekend, notching his third win in what’s been a nearly flawless Chase run. His only blip through eight of the 10 postseason races came in a Phoenix DNF, and avoiding a repeat performance could put the championship out of reach.

“Just continuing to do what we have been doing here throughout The Chase,” Larson said of his Sunday objectives. “We are executing at a really good level and having a solid day from start to finish. That is the hope. You never know how it is going to go. Obviously, there are some really good drivers here, so I don’t anticipate clinching anything. I just want to have a good day and not give up too much before next week.”

Larson will start in a promising spot, placing third in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session. He’ll be sandwiched between a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing aces in front of him with Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs occupying the front row, and two Team Penske drivers behind him with Joey Logano and Austin Cindric going fourth and fifth in that order.

Saturday marked Hamlin’s series-leading sixth pole position this season, plus his second consecutive and sixth overall at Martinsville, where he is a six-time Cup winner over the course of his career. After claiming the first starting spot, he emphasized that execution will be crucial while acknowledging “the chance is very, very slim,” even with help to erase his 73-point gap. “Obviously, I’m gonna be as aggressive as I can without, you know, being ridiculous,” Hamlin said.

For the rest of the remaining Chase hopefuls, the urgency is also real.

“Oh, we’re 100 (points) out. It’s all or nothing,” said Logano, a three-time champ who slots fifth in the standings. “If you want to win the championship, it’s you must win, and you must win two in a row, and that’s even needing some help on the other end. So yeah, you’re all or nothing. It’s Hail Mary. It’s all you’ve got. You know, if the goal is to win the championship, which it is, it’s going to take a lot to make it happen.”

MORE: Saturday qualifying recap | Cup Series standings

Sunday’s showdown will be a 500-lap affair, 100 laps longer than the springtime event won by Chase Elliott. That result was aided by savvy pit strategy, which should factor again into the high-stakes outcome.

The other major change in the seven months since the circuit’s last Martinsville visit is in the rules, which mandated the removal of energy-absorbing foam in the bumpers to soften the often-jarring impacts from contact, restart bumps and other stack-ups on short tracks.  That rules change, issued in June, promises to make those commonplace bump-ups at the tight 0.526-mile oval less harsh, but with a greater risk of damage since the crush factor increases.

“I’m going to have my spotter remind me of that all day,” said Christopher Bell, 74 points back in third. “That is a super-critical thing that has the potential to be a really big change for Martinsville. The way the restarts happen and the stack-ups, it’s going to have a really big impact on the race. Making sure that you’re mindful of that is going to be mission critical. I think it’s going to be a talking point for sure.”

The Cup Series field makes the rounds at Martinsville Speedway during the 2026 Cook Out 400, with views of the hillsides on the backstretch.
Jacob Kupferman | Getty Images

Seek the streak

Consistency sometimes comes in short supply at Martinsville Speedway, where finding a rhythm is a prerequisite and trouble can derail even the strongest runs. One driver, however, has set the recent standard when it comes to collecting top-10 finishes in bunches.

Joey Logano has assembled a brilliant string of top 10s at the tricky short track, spanning two generations of Cup Series cars, leading all active drivers and taking aim at three all-time greats here. The three-time champ is tied with Hall of Famer Lee Petty, and only Jimmie Johnson (17 straight top 10s here from 2002 to 2010) and Jeff Gordon (15 straight from 2003 to 2010) are ahead of him. How Logano and other current drivers stack up at Martinsville:

DriverTop-10 streakBest finish during streak
Joey Logano142nd (twice)
Kyle Larson81st (April 2023)
Chase Elliott51st (March 2026)
Christopher Bell32nd (March 2025)
Ryan Blaney22nd (Oct. 2025)
William Byron21st (Oct. 2025)
Josh Berry210th (twice)

Speed reads

Race-day essentials:

• Martinsville hub: Weekend information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more
• Sunday Setup: Crew chiefs sticking to the Martinsville plan | Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh looks for fall in the Virginia hills | View gallery
• Neil Paine: How Larson’s pursuers can close in at Martinsville | Read more
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from the Martinsville archives | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Larson a clear No. 1 with Chase field on his heels | This week’s ranks

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where a group of six hungry Chase presented by Mobil 1 drivers hope to pump the brakes on Kyle Larson’s championship clinch.

After Larson’s victory at Talladega Superspeedway last week – his third of the postseason – the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver heads to the hills of southern Virginia with a 73-point advantage over Denny Hamlin. If Larson scores 59 points in the Xfinity 500, no matter how his competitors fare, he’ll be crowned his third Bill France Cup and second in a row next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway as long as he starts the race.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Martinsville

Larson is rock solid at the 0.526-mile Hendrick stronghold, but many of his championship peers also have strong numbers at the iconic short track. Drivers like Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe need victories to maintain any hope at the championship, meaning all bets are off over 500 laps of close-quarters racing.

See drivers to keep an eye on for the penultimate race of the 2026 season, as well as Racing Insights’ full race projections.

DRIVERS TO WATCH

KYLE LARSON: To beat the defending series champion, you’re gonna have to knock him out – and Martinsville is a hard place to do that. Larson’s finished inside the top 10 in each of the last eight races at “The Paperclip,” including an April 2023 win. He owns an average finish of 5.8 in nine Next Gen starts, and that Martinsville success has translated to other short tracks as of late. Larson’s finished top 10 in 11 of the last 15 races at this track type, including a P6 finish at Richmond Raceway over the summer that, in hindsight, kickstarted his stellar Chase run. He’s just one of three drivers all time with seven top-six finishes in the first eight postseason races, and a strong run Sunday could strengthen his grasp on yet another Cup Series championship.

DENNY HAMLIN: The Chase certainly hasn’t gone to plan for this grizzled veteran, but a victory at Martinsville — one of his best tracks — could extend the title conversation one more week. Hamlin’s six wins in Ridgeway, Virginia, are most among all active drivers, and he owns a total of 15 short-track triumphs. He’s the only driver who has finished inside the top 10 in all six short-track races thus far on the schedule. Hamlin has led north of 3,000(!) laps at Martinsville, his most among all tracks, and has top fives in five of the last six races. The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver needs to be within 22 points of Larson to control his own destiny come Homestead-Miami Speedway.

JOEY LOGANO: This year’s short-track king is hungry for one more to cap the 2026 season. Each of Logano’s three victories this year has come at this track type, starting with a summer North Wilkesboro Speedway dub that all but turned his season around. Logano has finished inside the top 10 in the last 14 Martinsville races, the third-longest streak in track history, and has never recorded a DNF in 35 starts. Sunday marks his 650th career start, and another win would make the No. 22 Team Penske driver just the second to win on the day he celebrated that milestone (Richard Petty, Dover, 1974). Logano remains mathematically eligible to win the championship, but at 100 points back, Racing Insights pegs his odds for a fourth title at just 0.1%.

FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR XFINITY 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC)

POSITIONNUMBER DRIVER
111Denny Hamlin
25Kyle Larson
39Chase Elliott
412Ryan Blaney
522Joey Logano
624William Byron
720Christopher Bell
860Ryan Preece
954Ty Gibbs
1019Chase Briscoe
111Ross Chastain
122Austin Cindric
1323Bubba Wallace
1421Josh Berry
1545Tyler Reddick
1648Alex Bowman
176Brad Keselowski
1877Carson Hocevar
193Austin Dillon
2034Todd Gilliland
217Daniel Suárez
2297Shane van Gisbergen
2317Chris Buescher
2471Michael McDowell
2538Zane Smith
2641Cole Custer
2788Connor Zilisch
2843Erik Jones
2916AJ Allmendinger
304Noah Gragson
3147Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
3233Austin Dillon
3342John Hunter Nemechek
3410Ty Dillon
3535Riley Herbst
3651Cody Ware
3766Josh Bilicki
Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Kyle Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team led by crew chief Cliff Daniels are under no false illusions: One whale of a fight still lies ahead if they’d like to clinch the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship.

Ahead of Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Daniels was met in the media center alongside the leaders of the three-headed monster of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas he’s trying to fend off: No. 11 team leader Chris Gayle, No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens and No. 19 shot-caller James Small.

MORE: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Martinsville

The playbook for the JGR trio is simply to attack with its fleet of Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe. Out front, Daniels is emphasizing another clear direction for Larson and Co.: Don’t let up now.

“Our game plan hasn’t changed a lot the last handful of weeks, even with the ups and downs, and I think that that’s probably true for all of us sitting here,” Daniels said. “We’ve all seen, and we’re all very aware of how quickly the points can swing. So every week, you’ve just got to be focused on maximizing your day and whatever that’s going to take. This is certainly a race where the 11 (Hamlin) can go lead all 500 laps, and we’ve still got to have a strong day. So our game plan really hasn’t changed much.”

Gayle, Hamlin and the No. 11 team are the closest within range to put heat on Larson’s back bumper, but even they are a distant 73 points back entering Sunday’s 500-lapper. The good news is they have quickly found success together in their three races at Martinsville: one win (2025 spring), a second-place finish (2026 spring) and a staggering amount of laps led (274 in 2025 spring; 292 in 2026 spring). Gayle’s job is to deliver another Toyota Hamlin’s way, packed with the feel Hamlin needs to effectively navigate Martinsville’s 0.526-mile layout.

“When I came over in ‘25, he thought he was in a spot where he didn’t have exactly what he needs, so it was an opportunity to kind of experiment with something a little different, which we obviously did out of the gate,” Gayle said. “And I think we’ve just kind of exploited what we’ve done there more each time, and I think that direction has been correct for us. But yeah, definitely. I mean, from our perspective, it’s a really clear (goal): Go get all the points, be as aggressive as possible to stay in contention going into next week.”

The Goodyear Racing tires used this weekend are the same ones utilized in each of the last two Martinsville races. Larson has fifth- and ninth-place finishes on this tire at Martinsville; Hamlin’s runner-up effort in the spring was preceded by a blown engine last fall.

Larson and Daniels have been quite strong at the 0.526-mile oval, rattling off eight consecutive top-10 finishes. But Daniels is still hesitant to rely on that past success, especially considering this right-side tire is the same compound that was used at Phoenix Raceway on Oct. 18, when the No. 5 team suffered its worst race of The Chase at Phoenix Raceway, averaging a 23rd-place running position before crashing with a flat tire.

“Gosh, Phoenix was such a bad miss for us that you still always have that asterisk of the short-track package on this tire,” Daniels said. “And we’ve certainly had a decent notebook here at Martinsville for a while. Our teammates have been strong. The 9 (Chase Elliott) and the 24 (William Byron) have been really strong here historically and consistently. And we’ve also consistently been a top-10 car. So we’re not straying too far from home [on car setup]. Still have to evolve as the sport does, as the field does of things that you learn and apply. So yeah, we’ll see, but certainly trying to put it all together this weekend.”

The No. 11 team is thinking about the next steps forward as well. Those adaptations proved to work well in Saturday’s qualifying session as Hamlin wheeled the No. 11 Toyota to the Busch Light Pole Award, his second pole of The Chase and sixth of the season. Larson will start third.

“If you bring back the exact same thing, typically that doesn’t work well for you, right?” Gayle said. “You knew regardless of how many laps you led (in the spring), we didn’t win the race, and there were things we could still improve on. And so you’re always looking to find setup changes, tweaks that improve those things that you still need help with, right? And so I think that’s been our big focus.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was a mere five points behind Larson when he climbed into his No. 20 Toyota last week at Talladega Superspeedway — poised to keep the defending series champ honest and hopeful this may well be the year he hoisted a NASCAR Cup Series championship trophy.

But a pit-road miscue early in the Talladega race put him down a half dozen laps and forced a day of playing catch-up while Larson pulled off an amazing overtime victory, passing 11 cars on the final lap for his first-ever superspeedway win. Bell finished 35th and now trails Larson by 74 points entering Sunday’s penultimate Chase presented by Mobil 1 race at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Martinsville

The upside, however, is the way Bell’s team has handled the disappointment and turned it into “no-pressure” motivation for this final two-race run on the season.

“Last week was a trying moment for our team,’’ Bell said Saturday at Martinsville. “I was really happy with how we all came together. It would have been really easy to tear each other down in that moment and none of us did. I was really proud of our group for last week and how we handled it.”

And, he added, “It’s certainly a mentality shift. Where we are at now, we know that the only way forward is to go out here and win two stages and a race and go to Homestead and win two stages and a race. In reality, we have nothing to lose, so now the pressure is off. It’s just a matter of going out there and throwing Hail Marys. We’re to that point now, so that’s what we are going to do.

“Just the way we all handled it was remarkable.’’

Bell won the 2022 Martinsville fall race, was a runner-up in the 2025 spring race and has had seventh-place finishes here in the last two races. He’s also a former winner (2023) with four top-11 finishes in six starts at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the series goes to conclude the season next week.

Posted on by Holly Cain

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin claimed the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), giving the championship contender a single-season, career-high six poles and at least the green-flag advantage on the field with two races remaining to determine the NASCAR Cup Series title.

Hamlin’s No. 11 JGR Toyota turned in a 98.492 mph lap around the historic 0.526-mile oval nestled among the southern Virginia fall foliage Saturday afternoon, just bettering his JGR teammate, Ty Gibbs, in the No. 54 JGR Toyota by 0.049 seconds.

Five of Hamlin’s last six race victories have come from pole position, and his work Saturday puts him in front of the seven drivers still mathematically title-eligible.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson (98.114 mph), who leads the standings by 73 points over Hamlin, will roll off third in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Team Penske Ford teammates Austin Cindric (97.987 mph) and championship-eligible Joey Logano (97.962 mph) round out the top-five qualifiers.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Martinsville

“It always makes strategy easier when you’ve qualified up front,” said the 45-year-old Virginian, who now has six career poles at his home-state track and 54 in his decorated career.

“I felt very good about it,” Hamlin said of the fast lap. “I knew coming off Turn four it was enough, and it’s a really good feeling.”

Hamlin has six victories at Martinsville — most among active drivers. His last came in the spring 2025 race. He started from pole position and finished runner-up to Chase Elliott, Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, this spring.

“That was a great lap, truthfully hit all the marks I wanted to hit and the car did all the things I needed it to do on that first lap,” Hamlin said. “Really great job by the race team, great adjustments there, and we’ll see what we’ve got tomorrow.

“We’re going to give it all we’ve got, and all we’ve got is all we’ve got. I wish I had a little bit more, but we just need to control our own destiny tomorrow, and that’s getting the best day we can and let all the chips fall from there.”

Larson won at Martinsville in 2023 and is on a streak of eight consecutive top-10 finishes there, including runner-up showings in 2022 and 2024.

“It was solid. I was hopeful for the lap time to show a little faster,” Larson said of his qualifying work. “Happy to start on the first couple rows and hopefully we can stay in the hunt all day.

“I think everybody else is convinced that we’re going to lock it up here this weekend, but to me, I don’t look at it that way. Obviously Denny’s starting ahead of me, and he’s really, really good here, and was a point away from a max points day earlier this year.

“I’m more looking at how to keep it up front to leave myself a buffer for next week. We’ll see how the race plays out, but that’s kind of my mindset. But Denny’s definitely a much better short track racer than me. So just trying to stay in the hunt.

RFK Racing driver Ryan Preece (97.896 mph) was sixth fastest, followed by Hendrick teammates Alex Bowman (97.840 mph), defending race winner William Byron (97.770 mph) and Elliott (97.714 mph). Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry (97.709 mph) rounded out the top 10.

Hamlin’s JGR teammates Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell round out the top four in the championship standings and will start 11th and 14th on the grid. They are 79 (Briscoe) and 74 (Bell) points off Larson’s pace.

Practice recap

Ryan Preece paced the field in Saturday’s 50-minute session to kick off on-track activity for the Cup Series this weekend. He put down a quick time of 96.612 mph in the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford.

Ford claimed the top three spots with Josh Berry (96.224 mph) and Todd Gilliland (95.927 mph). Ty Gibbs (95.898 mph) and Ross Chastain (95.854 mph) rounded out the top five. Denny Hamlin (95.801 mph), Carson Hocevar (95.757 mph), Chase Elliott (95.690 mph), Michael McDowell (95.641 mph) and Christopher Bell (95.627 mph) completed the top 10 in practice.

MORE: Practice results

Larson struggled in practice and was only 29th fastest with a 94.822 mph best lap and was not close to the top 10 in any consecutive lap average charts.

Chastain had the best 10- and 15-consecutive lap average, while Hocevar topped the board in 20- and 25-consecutive lap average.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Denny Hamlin knows time is running out to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship. With an expiring contract at the end of the 2027 season, this is likely one of only two remaining opportunities for Hamlin to claim the Bill France Cup.

That means he will likely need a clutch performance in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hamlin enters the 500-lap race second in the standings of The Chase presented by Mobil 1, 73 points behind series leader Kyle Larson for the championship lead.

MORE: Martinsville schedule | At-track photos: Martinsville

Hamlin has had mixed results when it matters most. Hamlin earned a crucial victory in a must-win scenario at Phoenix Raceway in 2019 that propelled him into the championship fight at Homestead-Miami Speedway a week later. More recently, Hamlin dominated the championship race at Phoenix last November before pit strategy upended hopes of hoisting his potential first championship trophy. But there are also 20 years of championship battles sitting on Hamlin’s resume that Hamlin never clinched.

This year, Hamlin entered The Chase as the No. 1 seed with a 25-point advantage over No. 2 seed Ryan Blaney and 55 points ahead of No. 7 seed Kyle Larson. With two races remaining in The Chase, Hamlin sits second, nearly a full race of points behind Larson.

The good news for Hamlin is that Saturday’s qualifying session at Martinsville marked Hamlin first clutch moment of the weekend, nailing his time-trial lap to earn the Busch Light Pole Award for the sixth time this season.

“Was that good enough for you?” Hamlin joked in a press conference.

What matters is it was good enough to best the Cup Series field on Saturday, earning the top starting spot for Sunday’s feature race, one which will help clarify the championship picture ahead of the season finale Nov. 8 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“I felt very, very good about it,” Hamlin said of his qualifying lap. “I mean, it was good enough where I did not need to see a lap time. I knew coming off Turn 4 it was enough. And so that’s a really good feeling. I’m just the jockey on the horse that made today happen.”

WATCH: Hamlin chats about pole-setting lap

The reality of the situation, though, is that the complexity of clutch moments has perplexed Hamlin at times — sometimes, they’ve resulted in greatness; sometimes, they’ve resulted in failure.

“I think that we’ve performed great in certain aspects, and I think that there’s been other times where we’ve kind of stubbed our toe when it was a big moment,” Hamlin said. “Certainly, 2010 was one that really sticks out to me where patience could have been a little bit more executed there. And there’s always been races here and there. The difficult part is you don’t know when those key moments are until afterwards, right? And because of the sport and the formats and things like that, you just never know when those key moments are. And if we come up 18 points short, it’s going to be like, ‘God … Phoenix.’ You know? But what can I do about a flat tire?

“So there’s always moments that are clutch moments, but you just don’t know until the exact moment of when that is. And I thought that last year at Phoenix, we did what we had to do. And it didn’t work out in the end, but that was what the format asked us to do, and we did it. It was just an unfortunate caution at the end that changed things, and that’s our sport. This is not a 1-v-1 situation. This is a 1-versus-36, and driver No. 18 that has nothing to do with anything in the championship can play a factor in what your result is, and so that’s what makes it a little different and hard to define exactly what a clutch moment is.”

In contrast, his business partner and longtime friend Michael Jordan was one of the most clutch athletes of all time, leading him to six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. What they share is an uncanny competitive nature that drives them toward their goals. But Hamlin does not worry about disappointing Jordan, his fellow 23XI Racing co-owner, if Hamlin falls short in his championship pursuits.

“No, I don’t think so because I think he knows me well enough off the race track, and he knows my competitive spirit (and) knows that I never go through a period of not putting in the work or not having the drive,” Hamlin said. “I think that no matter what the on-track results may be week in, week out, he knows that we’re the standard when it comes to preparation and work, and that’s what he was really big on.”

RELATED: Hamlin can’t catch a break in The Chase

Denny Hamlin drives at Martinsville.
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media

The situation Hamlin now faces is a two-week stretch of must-be-great racing. Despite an extraordinary regular season that resulted in four wins and scoring more points than anybody during the 2026 regular season, the No. 11 team has not been extraordinary during The Chase. So has Kyle Larson come and snatched this title run away from Hamlin, or has Hamlin let it get away?

“I truthfully believe it’s a little bit of both,” Hamlin said. “I think about the what could we have done different? I know at Las Vegas, I definitely could have done something different. I was certainly disappointed with the outcome in Darlington when Michael [McDowell] got in the back of us and took us out of that one. And the flat tire [at Phoenix]. I mean, we can argue whose fault that is, but I think that it’s just one of those things. But you also can’t discredit what the 5 team has done in this eight races, right? And I think what we all underestimated is that a greatness [in] eight races can really kind of change what the narrative is on your entire season, right? I think that even when you listen to Kyle and his team pre-Chase, they would have said, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve got what it really takes.’ And all of a sudden, eight races later, that’s just a dominating performance.

“So I think they certainly deserve all the credit and all the accolades that they’re likely going to have in the next few weeks, and certainly shouldn’t be discredited because it’s been, as you guys say, a historic run when you look at the numbers, right? And so that matters. And I don’t know. We just haven’t executed as good as what we did. I don’t know that our speed was off, except for maybe two races in this Chase from the regular season. But our execution has not been as good, and that is certainly a factor of why we’re talking about him locking up at this point.”

There is reason to be optimistic that the No. 11 team is prepared for Martinsville, a track where Hamlin is the winningest active driver with six victories. Hamlin was one spot away from a perfect 76-point day at Martinsville in the spring, falling short of the win to Chase Elliott. In order to chase Larson down for the championship lead, another day like that might be what it takes to win the championship.

And yet, the large gap to Larson may have lessened the mental stress Hamlin faces entering Sunday’s race.

“I think it’s the first weekend where there’s truthfully little pressure because I think the expectations are just so low,” Hamlin said. “I think that everyone believes that it’s kind of a foregone conclusion [that Larson will win], and I’m not saying that they’re wrong by any means. I said so myself on Monday. But it’s just, what’ve you got to lose at this point? What is the difference in second in points versus fifth? That just doesn’t really matter to me at this point in my career. So yeah, I think it’s a low-pressure, high-opportunity for the 11 team to go out there and do what we need to do this weekend.”

Winning pole for Sunday’s race added another layer of relief for Hamlin, simplifying the mission even further.

“We don’t really have to make something happen when you start up front or have track position. It’s only to just execute at that point,” Hamlin said. “Now again, you’re going to have to have the car that is capable of winning, but you’re ahead of the chains. That’s the best way I can explain it. You’re not third-and-8. You know this is a third-and-2 situation. […]

“Our job is to stay out in front of the 5 and then just make them think, ‘that’s one more point. That’s one more.’ And just maybe, this thing trickles down to a reasonable number.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — RFK Racing announced Saturday morning that the organization has reached the next stage of its severance from driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski, freeing him to continue his driving career elsewhere and concluding his ownership ties.

News of their mutual agreement landed Saturday morning at Martinsville Speedway, site of Sunday’s Xfinity 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the next-to-last race of the NASCAR Cup Series season. The RFK statement also noted that Keselowski will continue as a “passive investor” with the team, bringing his roles in the competition department and governing board to an end.

RELATED: Weekend schedule | At-track photos: Martinsville

“We thank Brad for his many contributions to RFK Racing and wish him the best of luck with the remainder of his racing career,” the RFK statement concluded.

Keselowski, a two-time Martinsville winner, offered the first substantial update in nearly four weeks regarding his split from RFK Racing and his direction for the 2027 season during a Saturday morning media availability, scheduled just a half-hour after the team’s announcement. He acknowledged that the recently struck agreement had swayed the potential tenor of his news conference, and he showed crossed-out sections in his prepared remarks as he stepped down from the Press Pass desk after a wide-ranging 35-minute media session.

Both Keselowski and RFK president Chip Bowers had addressed the parting of ways at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, four days after the team’s Sept. 29 announcement that the 42-year-old driver would leave the team’s No. 6 Ford at season’s end. Bowers indicated Keselowski had reached the end of a five-year driving contract, and that the organization was ready for him to turn his primary focus toward competition leadership at RFK. Bowers also said Keselowski intended to keep driving in 2027 and potentially beyond. The two parties differed on this matter, and apparently on several other topics in reporting from The Athletic that surfaced two weeks ago.

The former Cup Series champion (2012) said Saturday that those differences “were not adversarial,” and he confirmed news first reported by the Sports Business Journal that he had attempted to purchase RFK Racing outright, a bid that was rejected by the other ownership stakeholders — team founder Jack Roush and Fenway Sports Group.

Keselowski said Saturday that negotiations for renewing his driving contract began with RFK Racing after last season’s end, and he had expressed an intent to continue his roles as a driver and competition leader. “Unfortunately, what became very clear in the negotiation is my partners saw that differently, and we were not able to come to agreement,” Keselowski said, noting that their positions created “a strong impasse.”

Keselowski said the current deal had been a month in the making but was reached after clearing “a number of hurdles” approximately one hour before he met with reporters. Moving forward with his release granted, Keselowski used his time to let prospective team owners know about his newfound availability.

“There are a number of opportunities in front of me in the Cup Series for 2027 and beyond. There’s no doubt about that,” Keselowski said. “I’ve had a number of outreaches. I’m not going to get into the details of what those are at this time, but I’m eager and willing to execute one of them and to be part of the 2027 season as a manager in NASCAR and a driver. As I said before, I truly believe I have what it takes to do that at the highest level with winning races and contending for championships, both as a driver and a team leader. So, I’m certainly not ready to retire or walk away in any means from this sport.”

Keselowski said he has three steps to complete before the 2027 season arrives, and first and foremost among those is landing a Cup Series ride — opportunities he was not able to pursue before the verbal agreement was made final. The Michigan native said that any potential landing spot did not necessarily have to include an ownership stake, though he indicated “that it is something I do value, for sure,” while noting the bullish interest in the sport for potential owners to invest in. He also left the door open to returning to his roots — as a driver and owner — in the Craftsman Truck Series, saying that striving for an unprecedented “Triple Crown” sweep of NASCAR’s national series championships carried a certain appeal.

His other two offseason objectives included securing business partners and sponsors, which he said he cannot contractually take with him from RFK, and selling his 20% stake in the organization — a level that he reached “in the last few months.”

Keselowski said he is now free to entertain offers from other teams and manufacturers across any NASCAR series. That includes Dodge, which has been linked to a 2027 return in NASCAR’s top division and which celebrated alongside Keselowski during his Cup Series title march 14 years ago.

“I would say that everything is on the table,” Keselowski said. “I have not had a meaningful discussion with Dodge or Ram. I’m certainly very open-minded to it, alongside all of the OEMs. I haven’t given up on a relationship with Ford in the future as well, along with the other two OEMs of Chevrolet and Toyota. Everything is on the table right now for me.”

Keselowski missed out on The Chase presented by Mobil 1 postseason field this year, placing 18th at the end of the Cup Series’ regular season, while teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece advanced. The 2026 campaign has been an eventful one, marked by an offseason leg injury that kept him out of the preseason Clash exhibition and hobbled him with a walking cane in the season’s early stages, plus the departure of crew chief Jeremy Bullins, who will make the shift to Legacy Motor Club in 2027. His winless streak now stands at 93 races since he last prevailed at Darlington Raceway in the 2024 Goodyear 400, notching his only Cup victory under the RFK banner.

MORE: Power Rankings | Memorable moments: Martinsville

Despite the uncertainty, Keselowski has shown signs of going out with a trend-bucking flourish. With Buescher and Preece joining in, Keselowski’s group implemented a rogue Stage 1 strategy last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, countering the field’s fuel-saving gambit and turning the RFK trio into crowd darlings. Though Keselowski shared the credit, he laughed at the suggestion that the bold Talladega move was a final blaze of glory in the third-to-last race of the season.

“I will say it had a lot to do with a team of people that was willing to make a move that was different and the culture that comes within that to not be afraid of the consequences if it didn’t succeed,” Keselowski said. “I appreciate the gutsiness to do that. It didn’t happen just as a complete accident. There were a lot of really smart people studying a lot of data and analyzing the situation in real time and then having the guts to make a call.”

Said Preece: “That will never happen again, I promise you. People, instead of being tunnel vision on the task at hand in the moment, will see things differently.”

Buescher ranks 16th in the standings — one spot behind Preece — as he makes his 400th Cup Series start on Sunday. While Buescher has been winless this year, Preece has broken out with a victory in the preseason Chase exhibition in February and a clutch win in the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway.

Both drivers insisted that the ownership shift hasn’t produced a distraction.

“Right now, certainly there’s change with that news, but where we’re at, we have been able to get into The Chase and trying to figure out how to drive forward through that,” said Buescher. “The Chase has not been as competitive as we would have liked, and to be honest with you, that has been priority. That has been where we’ve been at, trying to figure out how to make that part of it more successful right now, and let the offseason stuff come around in the offseason, which is extremely close, right? So yeah, I mean, there’s change with it; there always will be, but I think everybody’s been able to stay pretty focused on what’s immediately ahead of us right now.”

Though the RFK Racing chapter of Keselowski’s career is about to close after Sunday’s 500-lapper here and next weekend’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his legacy will include returning a storied team to its winning ways. The three-driver lineup has yielded seven Cup Series wins in his tenure, and Keselowski says he’ll continue to show his support for Buescher and Preece after his departure.

“First of all, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ryan and Chris,” Keselowski said. “Both of those guys are stand-up guys and phenomenal race car drivers. I feel incredibly fortunate to have those guys as teammates and as a part of RFK’s racing story. They’re going to do well for years to come. Their attitude and work ethic is underappreciated in my opinion by a lot of people, and their success is not a surprise to me. I feel grateful and thankful that I got to work with them and help them realize their potential, but, to be clear, they’ve done the work and they deserve the credit. As far as my future with those two go, as a passive investor by the very definition, there really isn’t one, but I clearly will always be rooting and cheering for their success.”

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Twenty points separate Kaden Honeycutt and Layne Riggs — the only two drivers still eligible to win the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship after Friday’s slugfest at Martinsville Speedway.

The title fight saw its fair share of ebbs and flows around “The Paperclip” as Riggs dominated the majority of Friday’s 200-lap contest, leading 156 circuits and sweeping the stages for an extra 20 points in his pocket in The Chase presented by Mobil 1.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Martinsville

Riggs nearly rocketed to the victory, but a poor restart after the ninth and final caution of the night knocked him to third as his Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith and ThorSport Racing’s Ben Rhodes surged to the front of the field. Further back, a worse restart for Honeycutt plummeted the No. 11 Toyota from sixth to 14th after late contact with 16-year-old phenom Tristan McKee bumped Honeycutt up the track with little time remaining.

After entering Friday’s race with a 43-point advantage, Honeycutt now holds a slimmer, far less comfortable lead heading into the Nov. 6 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway (6:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). All others behind Honeycutt and Riggs were eliminated from championship contention Friday night.

“[There’s] definitely nowhere safe. I’ve seen a lot of points made up tonight,” Honeycutt said. “He made up I think 23, if I’m correct. We had a mediocre night and he had some good stage runs there. And Homestead is a great track for us. I’m looking forward to going back to mile-and-a-half and be strong there.”

Honeycutt and Riggs have exchanged blows all Chase long — Honeycutt has won two of the six postseason races and Riggs has won once. Their mindset is identical heading into the finale.

“Just go win it,” Honeycutt said.

“We’re going to go win it,” Riggs said.

Honeycutt has the upper hand, if only slightly, heading to South Florida. He intends to build that gap from the drop of the green flag.

“(I) feel like if you just go out there and just play with the 20-point gap, you’re not maximizing your day. And our team’s all about winning,” Honeycutt said. “And if we can go out on top by winning the race and executing next week — my pit crew did an excellent job again tonight, as they usually do to help me out, and yeah, we’ll just go and do that.”

Layne Riggs leads a Truck Series race at Martinsville.
David Jensen | Getty Images

Riggs, the series’ winningest driver with seven victories in 2026 and the No. 1 seed entering The Chase, has seen the advantage of winning firsthand. Winners are paid a minimum of 55 points, a 20-point advantage over finishing second, which pays 35 points.

“With this format having 20 bonus points, it’s pretty much a winner-take-all again, in my opinion,” Riggs said. “Instead of having four [drivers], it’s it’s two this time. So we’re gonna go win. That’s all I can go do. Go win — at least go match him in stage points. We can’t have a bad qualifying effort or have something bad on pit road. Gotta go there and execute. And as you saw tonight, he’s not as dominant as some people think. He had a little issue, which kind of helped us out as well. But man, it would have been nice to win for me. We would have been in the plus right now.”

Riggs lamented his lane choice for the final restart of the evening, taking the top lane against the judgement of his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team.

“I wanted to take the top. My team kind of differed against that,” Riggs said. ‘They didn’t want me to take the top. And you put the control of your race in the guy on the inside of you’s hands. He can use you up. Who knows if he would have played nice or not? Congrats to Chandler on the win. It’s been a little while for those guys, but man, those bonus points really would have been nice. And even more than that, I wanted a grandfather clock really, really bad. We led so many laps. I’m just disappointed.”

Honeycutt was also frustrated with McKee following the race, exiting his Tricon Garage entry and walking over to McKee’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on pit road to better understand what happened. In short, McKee couldn’t get to the bottom of the racetrack because Ty Majeski was to his left. Honeycutt was unaware in the moment.

“I hate what happened into (Turn) 1,” Honeycutt said. “I saw the replay and Ty was down there. Tristan was trying to give him some room, and I closed off the hole a little bit and I never got the call I was three-wide. So yeah, just a sucky deal for sure. But got bailed out there. Thankfully the 38 won and helped us out a little bit for next week.”

McKee, who at 16 years, 2 months and 27 days old became the youngest pole-sitter in NASCAR national series history earlier on Friday, understood Honeycutt’s initial reaction and indicated all was good between the fellow competitors.

“Yeah, I don’t think he was really mad at me; just probably more mad with the situation of the championship deal,” McKee said. “There was nothing I really could have done differently there. I mean, I’ll go back and look at it, obviously. … I mean, sorry to the (No.) 11 guys, but there’s nothing I really could have done, and he understands that I think. He wasn’t too mad, obviously.”

mckee honeycutt
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media