After 12 years as the championship format, the NASCAR playoffs were done away with after the 2025 season in lieu of bringing back The Chase, with a few modifications.
Along with the end of the playoff system came the retirement of the term “Championship 4,” which has become a taboo phrase among NASCAR fans after the way the 2025 championship weekend played out in the NASCAR Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Yet despite all that, a Championship 4 of sorts may well be emerging within The Chase format. Through three of the 10 Chase races, four drivers have started to break away from the rest of the pack: Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell. That quartet will be the central topic of discussion in this week’s edition of Stat Sheet.
17 – Points Separating the Top 4
What started as a gap of 25 points between first and second in The Chase standings has tightened up significantly. Now, only 17 points stand between the new points leader Larson and fourth-place Bell.
By contrast, there are 27 markers from Bell going back to fifth place Ty Gibbs at 42 behind Larson. While Gibbs, Ryan Blaney (-52) and Tyler Reddick (-61) do not have an insurmountable climb in front of them, it will be exceedingly difficult to make up ground on the top four the way they are performing. It will almost certainly require multiple race wins.
40 – Career Cup Wins for Joey Logano
Speaking of winning, Logano has done no shortage of that in his lengthy Cup career.
While Hocevar and Gibbs got into each other in the closing laps, Logano drove his No. 22 Team Penske Ford around them on the inside to lead the final seven laps and win at Bristol Motor Speedway, picking up his third win of the 2026 season and the 40th of his Cup career
With that victory, Logano joined an exclusive club of 21 drivers with 40 or more Cup Series checkered flags.
Of the 19 drivers in front of Logano on the wins list, 17 are in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and the other two are Hamlin and the late Kyle Busch, who are not eligible for induction yet.
After Saturday night (Sept. 19), one thing is for certain: Even-year Logano is a real thing, and he is right in the thick of the title hunt.
2.67 – Kyle Larson’s Average Finish in the Past Three Races
For the first time this season, a non-Toyota driver is leading the points, and his name is Larson. With his pass on Hocevar for second place right before the checkered flag at Bristol, Larson owns the top spot by the slimmest of margins, a single point over Hamlin.
The runner-up showing is the latest in a string of fantastic finishes for Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team to start The Chase, all of them top fives. At the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, he came home in the fifth position. Then, Larson captured his long-anticipated first win of 2026 at World Wide Technology Raceway before claiming second at Bristol.
Those three results amount to an average of 2.67 for Larson in The Chase so far, the best among the 16 championship-eligible drivers by nearly two full spots over Logano.
8 – Career Wins for Denny Hamlin at the Next Three Tracks
In the middle of the chart, you may have noticed Hamlin sitting eighth among Chase drivers with an average finish of 11.67 across the past three races.
Leaving Bristol, Hamlin finds himself not leading the Cup points for the first time since late June. However, as previously mentioned, Hamlin’s points deficit is but a single point behind Larson, so it’s definitely not time for the No. 11 team to hit the panic button. Far from it.
That’s particularly true when you look at the next three tracks on the schedule and Hamlin’s success at those tracks. At Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway (the oval, not the ROVAL), Hamlin has a combined eight career Cup wins, four of which have come in the Next Gen era (2022-present).
Out of the other 15 Chase drivers, only Logano has the same number of overall wins and only Larson matches Hamlin in Next Gen wins. Coincidentally, all three drivers are part of the pseudo Championship 4 that has formed after Bristol.
12.2 – Christopher Bell’s Average Finish at Kansas
The fourth member of the current top four is Bell, currently 17 points behind Larson.
While Bell has won only once at the next three tracks, he can definitely hold his own at the intermediates. Driver No. 20 boasts an average finish of 12.2 in 13 career starts at Kansas, trailing only Larson (11.7) and Chase Elliott (9.8).
That form carries over to Las Vegas with a 14.8 average finish that is eighth among active drivers. Finally, Charlotte is one of Bell’s strongest tracks, where he has an average finish of 11.8 that is second-best of active drivers behind only Reddick (9.5).
22 – Points Lost on Layne Riggs’ Chase Lead in the Truck Series
Concluding with a visit to one of the lower series, Layne Riggs started the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase the same way Hamlin and Justin Allgaier began The Chase in their series: with a bad result.
Multiple issues throughout Thursday night’s (Sept. 17) Team EJP 175 at Bristol relegated Riggs to a 32nd-place finish. As a result, Riggs’ 25-point lead has been whittled down to just three over Kaden Honeycutt.
With a 30-point gap back to Chandler Smith in third, the big two of the Truck Series 2026 remain the duo to beat at that level.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 and is currently an editor and a weekly writer of Stat Sheet. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
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