Who… should you be talking about after the race?
Entering the final race before the championship, William Byron was down, but he wasn’t out. Byron kicked off the weekend at Martinsville Speedway by winning the pole. While he had a mathematical chance of making the finale on points, Byron realistically needed a win to advance.
It would be easy to let that pressure get in the way, but Byron had an example —Ryan Blaney, who had pulled off the victory from a must-win position for the last two years — and would need to do it a third time.
Byron started from the pole, Blaney 31st, but by the end, it was clear that the win, and the final spot in the title race, would be decided between them.
Blaney charged to the front on a split-decision pit strategy in the final stage, but Byron was able to run him down, laying the bumper to the No. 12 on lap 457 and moving Blaney out of the way just enough to squeeze by him. Byron held the point on a late restart and won the Xfinity 500 by .717 seconds over Blaney.
Byron led three times for a race-high 304 laps. It’s his third win of 2025 and the 16th of his career. Byron will make his third-straight Championship 4 appearance in the season finale next week in Phoenix Raceway, joining teammate Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.
Just two organizations, Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, will be represented in the title race.
On the other hand…
Engine failures have become a rarity in the Cup Series in recent years, but Sunday (Oct. 26) saw three of them, including two for top playoff contenders. Both Briscoe and Hamlin, teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing, retired early after their engines expired, along with fellow Toyota driver Riley Herbst.
It’s possible that Briscoe and Hamlin were experimenting with something ahead of the championship race. They had nothing to lose since they had already advanced on wins. Herbst drives for Hamlin’s team, but he isn’t in a points battle.
If they were experimenting, it wasn’t a terrible gamble. If they had hit on something, it could mean a title. As it is, all they lost was a chance at the win on Sunday, right?
Maybe. But it’s the second race in a row outside the top 20 for Hamlin, a driver who has struggled in the past with the pressure of a title hunt, and a lack of momentum heading into the finale could be the difference in finally winning a title or going home empty-handed again.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
For the last four standing, it’s a complete reset, so there isn’t much to see there — it’s winner-take-all in the finale next week at Phoenix Raceway.
There are still positions to be decided, however.
While Christopher Bell and Blaney have a solid grip on fifth and sixth with a week to go, there’s a three-way battle for seventh among Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott, who are all within 16 points of one another. Reddick enters the week with the spot, but can he hang onto it?
Bubba Wallace is looking to wrap up his first top-10 points finish. Entering the weekend in 10th, he’s got a 12-point cushion over Ross Chastain, and Chastain will absolutely race him for it.
Where… did he come from?
Nobody gained more spots from start to finish than Blaney, who started 31st, a starting position that can set a driver up to get lapped early if he doesn’t move forward quickly, which Blaney was able to do, making it into the top 10 by the end of the first stage and leading twice for a total of 177 laps.
Blaney wasn’t the only driver to score a top 10 from a back-half start. Josh Berry started 27th, got the losing end in two different on-track incidents and still managed to finish 10th.
Finally, while he didn’t quite score a top 10, Shane van Gisbergen finished 14th—his third top-15 result in the last four oval races. Van Gisbergen finished six laps down in 34th in the spring race at Martinsville and looked totally out of his element. He’s figuring this oval thing out, and that makes him a much deeper playoff threat in 2026.
When… was the moment of truth?
Byron wasn’t afraid to use his bumper in pursuit of the win on Sunday. He executed a virtually letter-perfect bump-and-run to take the lead from Blaney on the final run. He didn’t crash Blaney, merely moving him out of the way, a legit late-race move to set up a win.
The risk for Byron’s reward is that he has opened the door for other drivers to make the same move on him at Phoenix and beyond. Drivers race each other in the manner others race them. It’s not about retaliation, it’s about knowing that someone is okay with pulling a move. A bump-and-run isn’t dirty, but it is aggressive, and Byron made a statement Sunday that he’s fine with aggression in pursuit of a title. His competition will remember that.
Further proof of that code was on display Sunday, when Carson Hocevar found himself being a bit of a pinball throughout the race. Hocevar has been ultra-aggressive all year and he reaped the consequences on Sunday when nobody gave him any quarter racing for spots. It’s a valuable lesson and one that was probably overdue. Hocevar wasn’t jettisoned into the wall, just raced as he’s raced others and got some lumps in the process.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
Well, there is this little thing going on that will decide the season champions in three series, but other than that…
The last time a driver in this year’s Championship 4 won at Phoenix was 2023, when Byron won the spring race. But he’s not the only title hopeful with a Phoenix win. Hamlin has two, the only multiple winner in the group, but his most recent was in 2019. Larson and Briscoe have one apiece.
Byron rides into the final race with the most momentum after Hamlin and Briscoe suffered engine failures this week.
Looking for someone outside the title picture to win? It can happen. Bell boasts wins in two of the last three races at Phoenix and Logano leads all active drivers in wins there.
Fans should also keep an eye out for the penalty report after Sam Mayer’s post-race antics after the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Saturday (Oct. 25). Upset with Jeb Burton for some earlier contact, Mayer hooked Burton on the cool-down lap after the race, resulting in a hard crash for Burton.
Mayer admitted his intent in his postrace interview. NASCAR may very well issue Mayer a “see you in Daytona” with a suspension from the final race — and that’s precisely what should happen. There is too much going on after the checkers, spotters aren’t expecting anything, and there’s no excuse for moves like Mayer’s.
How… did this race stack up?
Simply put, a new tire with promised fall-off didn’t pan out enough to help the racing at the front.
There was some very good action in the pack throughout the day, but save for Byron’s nudge to Blaney that turned out to be for the win, things up front were quiet. Generally, nobody could get close enough to the race leader to make a move unless he was mired in lapped traffic.
Hopefully, increased horsepower in 2026 will improve the racing at the front at tracks like Martinsville, where the Next Gen has struggled. The car has improved the racing at the intermediates, but at the cost of the sport’s most popular tracks.
Fans expect close-quarters racing through the field at short tracks and while Martinsville did deliver for a lot of the pack, the finish lacked any intrigue as Byron pulled away. Yes, he had the best car, and by that measure, it finished as perhaps it should have, but fans want to see someone be able to put up a fight, and at least be able to get close enough to use the bumper.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.