Kyle Larson walked into Phoenix Raceway on Sunday 18 October 2026 with a 49-point cushion at the top of the standings. He walked out with five.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver was running outside the top 20 when his right-front tyre let go entering Turn 1, firing the No. 5 Chevrolet into the outside wall. The crew tried to patch the car back together in the garage but could not get him back on track, and he was credited with 34th place.
“Not a good one,” Larson said after leaving the infield care centre.
“I was just trying to salvage anything in the top 20 would have been great and then I just blew a right front, I guess, like a lot of people were. It’s just a bummer but we can still do it.”
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Denny Hamlin had been having a very different day. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran was running inside the top five, with Chase Briscoe’s No. 19 directly ahead, when his right-rear tyre failed in the final stage.
“I was just right there with the [No.] 19 when the tire blew for third,” Hamlin said.
A pit road speeding penalty on the following stop ended any chance of recovery. He was classified 28th, one lap down.
Reddick’s six-month wait ends
Tyler Reddick took his first win since April, and his sixth of the season, after his crew called for two tyres instead of four on the final pit stop. The 23XI Racing driver passed Chase Briscoe for the lead with 17 laps to go and held off Ryan Blaney by 0.801 seconds, with Chase Elliott third and Christopher Bell fourth.
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“That’s way too long,” Reddick said of the drought. “For us, this group never lost motivation, never lost the drive to keep searching.”
Seven drivers now covered by 56 points
NASCAR returned to a points-based Chase for 2026, dropping the knockout rounds and the Championship 4 shootout that had decided the title for twelve years. All 16 Chase drivers stay eligible through the November 8 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and the driver with the most cumulative points across the ten-race postseason is crowned champion.
That makes Phoenix a swing race rather than an eliminator, and the swing was savage. The top seven are now separated by 56 points:
- Kyle Larson, leader
- Christopher Bell, 5 points back
- Chase Briscoe, 24 points back
- Denny Hamlin, 31 points back
- Ryan Blaney, 40 points back
- Joey Logano, 44 points back
- Tyler Reddick, 56 points back
Next up is Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday 25 October, a 2.66-mile pack-racing oval where a single multi-car wreck can flip the order again, before the Chase moves to Martinsville on 1 November and the Homestead finale on 8 November.
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