•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 reduced 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. After his victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Briscoe took the lead at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday. On Saturday, all track activities at Charlotte were canceled due to Hurricane Isaias, and NASCAR used a performance-based formula to determine the field. This week, the system put Briscoe’s recent success ahead of Larson, who was 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 in the first stage. Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and Bubba Wallace from 23XI Racing were out of 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 in this section, where the tires were used for the longest time. 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 each other, continued. Briscoe finished the race with a 0.029-second margin, overtaking Larson.
