•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 to championship leader Kyle Larson, but moved up from eighth to sixth place and is now only four points behind Ryan Blaney. Last month, Briscoe completed his successful run after losing to Kyle Larson in Kansas, which he had to abandon halfway through. After his victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Briscoe took the lead at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday.
On the previous Saturday, all track activities at Charlotte were cancelled due to Hurricane Isaias, and NASCAR used a performance-based formula to determine the field. This week, this system put Briscoe’s recent success in the spotlight, placing him alongside Larson in the front row.
Larson started the race under pressure and won the first stage, but then struggled, falling to fourth in the playoff and behind Josh Berry in sixth place.
Alex Bowman lost control and overreacted, sending two playoff contenders out of the track. 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 during the pit stop. In the third stage, the drivers maintained a balanced pace as the tires were used for the longest period of time in this section, which is the last part 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 touching, continued. Briscoe finished the race with a 0.029-second margin, overtaking Larson.
