Who… should you be talking about after the checkered flag?
Thanks to a number of factors, it was an easier day than perhaps it should have been for Chase Briscoe. Las Vegas, Nev., may be a gambling town, but Briscoe didn’t have to make a gamble of his own, sweeping the stages at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before cruising to the win, leading a race-high 175 laps en route to winning the South Point 400.
Briscoe had a fast car, but he also benefited from the misfortunes of his competitors: polesitter Denny Hamlin’s stage one spin, early handling woes for defending series champion Kyle Larson, alternator problems for Tyler Reddick and an early penalty for Ty Gibbs, all of whom he’s competing against for the title.
But while it may be better to be lucky, Briscoe was also good. While Larson and Reddick had faster cars in the closing laps, Briscoe used traffic to his advantage and was able to make quicker work of lapped cars than Larson or Reddick. He used the Next Gen car’s ability to aerodynamically block the cars behind him, and while Larson and Reddick tried to make a run at him, he held them off fairly easily. On the final lap, Larson hit the wall coming to the checkers, collecting Reddick. They were able to maintain their positions and stage a wilder finish than the race deserved, but it was all Briscoe on the final lap.
It’s Briscoe’s second win of 2026 and the seventh of his career.
On the other hand…
The Chase presents its own learning curve, and only a few of the drivers in contention have the advantage of having been through the format before 2014. Despite a decent start, Gibbs has found the curve to be a steeper one than he might have expected after a breakout season in which he won twice and scored a career-best 12 top fives with five weeks left to pad those totals.
Gibbs started on the front row on Sunday, but a pit road speeding penalty on lap 35 trapped him near the back of the lead lap for most of the day, and he could never pass enough cars to march toward the front. Gibbs finished on the lead lap in 17th, scored no stage points and never climbed back into any kind of contention.
What… is the big question everyone should be asking after the race?
It was another week, another big mistake on pit road for Team Penske. The No. 2 crew of Austin Cindric fumbled a right front change early, dropping the jack before the right front change was complete and compounding it when the jackman fell over the tire changer.
It’s the same crew that seemed to hinder Ryan Blaney on a near-weekly basis earlier this year, and swapping cars hasn’t helped. It seems as though the team should have tried something earlier this year, perhaps including bringing in some new blood.
Except … there isn’t any new blood.
A look at Saturday’s results shows a possible reason for that. There were just two Fords in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field, and those aren’t exactly among the top teams in that series. The top Ford organizations, Team Penske and RFK Racing, do not have development teams in that series, while Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing do. Is Ford’s lack of NOAPS presence hurting its Cup teams in terms of crew development?
Ford does have a solid Truck program with Front Row Motorsports, which has had a loose relationship with RFK, but they aren’t a full partner of the organization and with Layne Riggs in the thick of a title race, they’re not going to give up crew members to a team who doesn’t provide them with anything. And that leaves the Cup teams at a disadvantage to others with development crews getting race experience every week.
Where… did he come from?
After struggling with a car that looked utterly out to lunch in the first half, you could easily make a case for Larson here. The No. 5 bled positions during the first stage, losing a lap to make a major adjustment under green that didn’t seem to help a whole lot. Yet thanks to a combination of good pit strategy and the right adjustments, Larson rebounded to finish second despite bouncing off the wall coming to the checkers.
But the most surprising appearance in the top 10 this week was Shane van Gisbergen. While his oval game has improved drastically in 2026, SVG hasn’t made much noise over the last several weeks, missing the Chase thanks to an 11th-hour win by Ryan Preece.
But on Sunday, van Gisbergen showed his chops, taking advantage of good track position in the final stage to finish ninth, his first top 10 since North Wilkesboro Speedway in July. He was the only non-Chase driver with a top 10 on Sunday, his seventh of 2026.
When… are we going to talk about the points?
We’re past the halfway mark in The Chase, and the picture is becoming a bit clearer. Despite struggling early and losing a lap for lengthy adjustments in the first stage, Larson’s rebound late allowed him to open his lead over Hamlin to 40 points. While that’s a good margin and makes Larson the favorite should he have decent runs in the final five races, Hamlin’s title hopes are still alive. A win with maximum stage points would put a solid dent in that lead if Larson has a stumble.
Christopher Bell hung on to third despite racing without power steering in Sunday’s brutal heat and finishing 23rd, and his stage points meant he only lost five markers to Larson. Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney remained in fourth and fifth, 71 and 80 points out, respectively. They’re still in the hunt, but one of them would need a couple of maximum points days to have a shot at Larson. Briscoe gained two spots and is just four points behind Blaney after his win, so he has an outside shot as well.
Tyler Reddick is seventh, and at 106 points out, his title hopes are hanging by a thread despite a strong showing in Las Vegas. Gibbs slipped two spots to eighth, Cindric had another solid day to remain ninth and Bubba Wallace stayed in 10th. For this group and anyone behind them, the best strategy for here on out is to keep hunting for points and learn how The Chase game is played for next year.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
The Chase isn’t the only thing back in the championship game this year — Charlotte Motor Speedway returns to the oval, and while that does leave too many 1.5-mile tracks in The Chase, it was the right call. Charlotte has been one of the better tracks for the Next Gen in terms of putting on a good show, and it can be very different in October than it is for the Coca-Cola 600 in May. This is a Sunday afternoon race, not the night race that the fall Charlotte race used to be, which should make for a slick track if the weather is warm.
That’s a great move. While there should be a road course in The Chase (that was always a bone of contention the first time around), it should be a real road course, and that gap will be filled next year with Watkins Glen International moving to September. Charlotte’s infield road course (Roval isn’t a real word, kids) was fun for a couple of years, but the oval is its best side.
Daniel Suarez won the Coca-Cola 600 earlier this year. The last fall race on the oval was in 2017 and was won by Martin Truex Jr. The only active drivers with a win in a fall oval race at Charlotte are Logano and Brad Keselowski.
The only active driver with more than one victory on the Charlotte oval is Keselowski with two. Reddick has the best average finish at 9.5 but has yet to win.
Since the Next Gen debut, Charlotte has seen five winners in five races (Ross Chastain, Hamlin, Blaney, Suarez and Bell), and Bell leads the average in that span with an 8.0 to Reddick’s 9.0.
How… did this race stack up?
Why is NASCAR looking so hard at changing O’Reilly Series bodies in the next two years? While it’s true those cars haven’t seen a major change in a few years, it smells a lot less like the cars needing an upgrade and more like NASCAR is tired of them outperforming Cup every week.
This weekend featured a fantastic race on Saturday. NOAPS cars can make passes and come back with a crossover, while the Next Gen stalls out in the wake of a leading car. Sure, restarts are fun, but you can only have so many restarts and still have a race that’s anything more than a crash fest.
Yes, the Cup race had some great drama at the end with Reddick and Larson’s tangle, but the reality is that they were not going to catch and pass Briscoe even with faster cars, and even getting beside him in the laps remaining was a longshot.
Compared to Cup races on intermediate tracks, it was mediocre. But compare it to Saturday, and it was a nothingburger.
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.
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