It finally happened.
It took a month and a half, but Kyle Larson posted his first clunker of the 2026 Chase, and the championship plot thickened.
A tire issue sent the Cup Series points leader into the wall with 30 laps left in the Freeway Insurance 500 and doomed him to 34th place on Oct. 18 at Phoenix Raceway. During the previous six weeks, Larson sped to two wins and did not slouch lower than sixth.
But with the troubles at Phoenix, his standings cushion slimmed from 49 points to five.
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Oh, yeah. And Tyler Reddick won the race.
Here three takeaways from a door-opening day in the desert.
1. Tyler Reddick returns to Victory Lane at Phoenix
Reddick faded into relative obscurity throughout the summer and early fall. But after his first victory in six months — and his circuit-leading sixth of the campaign — he climbed right back into the hunt.
The 23XI driver sits seventh in the standings but only 56 points back.
After a two-tire pit stop, he made his clinching move during the final restart with 19 laps to go, vaulting from fifth to first. He passed Chase Briscoe for the lead.
“Good strategy,” Reddick said. “I think (crew chief Billy Scott) had a really good idea of what we needed to do there, going off what our balance was. Just got really fortunate. I didn’t have a good launch, but there was a hole, and I was able to get through it.”
Reddick led the final 18 laps.
2. Kyle Larson leads standings, but buckle up
“It’s a bummer, but we just weren’t good,” Larson said.
He started 22nd, didn’t earn a single stage point and faced the untimely blown tire that ended his afternoon.
Coming into the Phoenix race, no one stood within 48 points of Larson. Now, five challengers do, and Reddick isn’t far behind that margin.
Christopher Bell looms five points back. Briscoe is 24 back.
Denny Hamlin, who encountered a flat tire and elicited a speeding penalty on pit road, had the second-worst result of any Chase driver (28th) at Phoenix. He trails Larson by 31 points.
And the Penske boys, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, are 40 and 44 points behind, respectively.
How do they summarize that opportunity?
“It’s definitely obtainable now,” Blaney said. “We just have to go to work.”
“It’s going to be a battle,” Bell said.
3. NASCAR schedule update: Talladega usually means chaos
Oh boy. Just when the Chase reaches its wildest moment so far, Talladega Superspeedway arrives.
Expect further shakeups.
NASCAR heads to the 2.66-mile tri-oval for the third-to-last race of the season, the YellaWood 500. Carson Hocevar captured the spring checkers at ’Dega, which probably means nothing.
It’s one of the pack-racing tracks where anything can happen and unpredictability reigns supreme.
The green flag will fly a few minutes after 2 p.m. on Oct. 25. The action will air on NBC.
After that, the circuit will swing to Martinsville before crowning a champion at Homestead-Miami.
Did we mention the need to buckle up?
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR takeaways: Chase is wide open after Kyle Larson's Phoenix trouble
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