•Chase Briscoe won the Charlotte race, which was the closest to the end of the 2026 NASCAR season, and 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 just 4 points behind Ryan Blaney. Briscoe completed his successful run, which he had to abandon halfway last month after losing to Larson in Kansas, with a victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, and 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 ahead of Larson, highlighting his recent success. 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 when he hit Bubba Wallace’s car, pushing him out of the race. The first stage ended early when Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and Wallace from 23XI Racing were eliminated.
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 a 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 was near 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 touching, continued. Briscoe finished the race with a 0.029-second margin, overtaking Larson.
