•Chase Briscoe, who won the Charlotte race, which was the closest to the end of the 2026 NASCAR season, scored his second consecutive victory. With this result, he narrowed the 19-point gap ahead of championship leader Kyle Larson, but moved up from eighth to sixth place and is now just 4 points behind Ryan Blaney. Chase Briscoe, NASCAR
Briscoe completed his successful journey, which he had to stop halfway last month after losing to Kyle Larson in Kansas, by winning the race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week and then taking the lead at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday.
All track activity in Charlotte was canceled due to Hurricane Isaias on the previous Saturday, and NASCAR used a performance-based formula to determine the field. This week, the system put Briscoe’s recent success in the forefront, placing him alongside Larson in the front row.
Larson started the race under pressure and won the first stage, but then struggled and fell to sixth place behind playoff driver Josh Berry.
Alex Bowman lost control and overreacted, sending two playoff contenders out of the race. Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and Bubba Wallace from 23XI Racing were eliminated from the race.
In the second stage, Christopher Bell started as the powerful Joe Gibbs Racing driver, won the stage and took the lead, but lost the lead during a restart when he passed between Blaney and Larson in the pit cycle. In the third stage, the drivers maintained a balanced pace in this section, where the tires were used for the longest period of time towards the end of the race. Bell approached Briscoe in the last two laps of the finish and made a move to take the lead in the final corners; this battle, which resulted in the two cars colliding, continued. Briscoe finished the race with a 0.029-second margin, overtaking Larson.
