•Chase Briscoe won the Charlotte race, which was the closest to the end of the 2026 NASCAR season, taking his second consecutive victory. With this result, he reduced the 19-point gap to championship leader Kyle Larson, but moved up from eighth to sixth place and is now just 4 points behind Ryan Blaney. Briscoe completed his successful run after missing out on the victory last month in Kansas, when he lost to Larson. After his win at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, he took the lead at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday. All track activity in Charlotte was cancelled 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 in the front row alongside Larson, highlighting his recent success. Larson started the race under pressure and won the first stage, but then struggled and dropped to sixth place behind playoff driver Josh Berry. Alex Bowman lost control and overreacted, sending two playoff contenders off the track in the early stages of the race. Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and Bubba Wallace of 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 the restart when he passed between Blaney and Larson during the pit stop. In the third stage, the drivers maintained a balanced pace with the longest tire use in this section, which was 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 0.029 seconds ahead of Larson. Briscoe’s front right tire began to wear down in the last six laps and the car stopped turning when it approached the last lapped traffic. After the race, the driver said, “I felt like I was going to break the wall at any moment.” “He just stopped turning. So I don’t know what those finishes are like in the end. I really need to stop making things so exciting.” Blaney, Berry and Denny Hamlin finished fifth behind Larson. Bell, Blaney and Hamlin moved forward at a minimal level ahead of Larson; Larson finished the race in sixth place.
