When the checkered flag waved, signaling the end of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, it officially meant that The Chase was more than halfway over. With six races down and four left to go before a champion is crowned, varying levels of momentum can be seen among the 16 drivers vying for the championship.
Along with the varying levels of momentum, are varying levels of optimism or pessimism from said drivers. Let's take a walk down pit road at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday evening, and see what the 16 Chasers had to say following the sixth race of The Chase.
1. Kyle Larson (Finished 6th)
Kyle Larson continues to build upon his NASCAR Cup Series point lead. The defending series champion finished one spot behind Denny Hamlin, who came home in fifth, but thanks to the Stage Points he racked up throughout the race, Larson grew his point lead from 40 to 49 points.
Does he feel comfortable he can close out his third NASCAR Cup Series championship, and become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2010 to win consecutive Cup Series titles?
"No. I won't feel comfortable until it's over," Larson said after climbing from his race car.
Larson explained, "Obviously, Briscoe winning and having a good day; you can take big chunks out if you win. So, we're going to go to some tracks where others are really good at coming up. Just gotta keep putting in days like we did today. We weren't like the fastest, but still good points."
2. Denny Hamlin, -49 points (Finished 5th)
On one hand, it has to be frustrating for Denny Hamlin, who was the pre-Chase favorite to win the championship, to see his potential to claim the Bill France Cup dwindle week-by-week. Hamlin had all of the momentum at the end of the regular season, but since the Chase opened up at Darlington Raceway, the No. 11 team just hasn't had the "it" factor.
Still, Hamlin is encouraged that even without top-notch runs, he and the No. 11 team have found a way to remain second in the championship standings with four races remaining.
"We haven't lit the world on fire by any means, and still hanging around," Hamlin stated. "So, it's again; it's all we've got right now. And obviously, we've got to clean a lot of things up to get the best out of our days. But you know, we normally counter with race-winning speed, but today, we just didn't have it."
3. Christopher Bell, -51 points (Finished 2nd)
After seven runner-up finishes on the season, Christopher Bell finally broke through for his first win of the campaign at Darlington Raceway, the opening race of the 10-race Chase. It seemed like the floodgates were about to open for Bell.
However, more wins have yet to follow the triumph in Darlington. On Sunday, Bell narrowly lost out on his second win of the season by the closest margin of the season (0.029 seconds). Instead of a second win, he was the first loser for the eighth time this season.
The second-place finishes seem to be wearing on Bell.
“I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to,” Bell said with a subdued tone in his voice.
While it would be easy to let off the gas, and concede, Bell likes the races that are coming up on the schedule, beginning with Phoenix Raceway next weekend.
“I mean, we should be really good at the next couple of races," Bell said. "Yeah, hopefully we can keep bringing these fast race cars and see what happens.”
4. Chase Briscoe, -65 points (Finished 1st)
For the second week in a row, Chase Briscoe found victory lane. And had it not been for a late-race fade at Kansas Speedway a few weeks ago, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver could have had three -straight wins.
Although, the finish to Sunday's race at Charlotte was a little too close for comfort for Briscoe.
“Yeah, when Christopher [Bell] got into me off of [Turn] 4, I kind of got sideways, and I thought I was going to wreck. I’m like, I am going to get beat to the line, so I assume he got really sideways too," Briscoe said. "My right front was coming apart. Another lap, I thought we were going to blow a right-front tire. I’m glad that we won, but I wish they weren’t so stressful. I don’t have very much hair to begin with, but I’m definitely losing it really quickly. Just an awesome day and really cool to end up in victory lane.”
5. Ryan Blaney, -85 points (Finished 3rd)
The theme of Ryan Blaney's Chase has been overcoming adversity. After back-to-back DNFs at Gateway and Bristol, Blaney was forced up against the ropes. But the Team Penske driver has come back swinging.
This week, Blaney again came back from adversity in the form of a pit road speeding penalty to finish third. Blaney was proud of the effort at Charlotte, and is hopeful with the tracks that he has coming up.
"Yeah, myself and I think this whole group, they go into every weekend thinking we can win, just having confidence in yourself," Blaney said. "And this group has been awesome to work with. I love my guys. But Phoenix has been good to us in the past. I don't know what's going to happen at Talladega. No one does. But then we've got Martinsville and Miami."
Blaney continued, "The best thing we can do is one race at a time, just try to go do our job the best that we can, and hopefully, if we can do that, we can find Victory Lane a couple more times."
6. Joey Logano, -92 points (Finished 9th)
After a hot start to the Chase, Joey Logano has not kept the same impressive pace going in the last few races. As a result, he's almost 100 points behind Larson, who has gone on a tear in the Chase. Logano, a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, knows he has to win, and win fast after a ninth-place run at Charlotte.
“We’ve got to win now. We’re 90-whatever something back. We’ve got to do some special stuff from here on out to make up the 100 points," Logano admitted. "We got that damage early in the race. I don’t know what happened. They all stacked up in front of me, and I packed the nose in, unsealed the splitter, which surely didn’t help any. Maybe we could’ve been top five-ish if I didn’t have the damage. You know, it could’ve been worse, but we just didn’t get any stage points - that's the worst part.”
7. Tyler Reddick, -114 points (Finished 8th)
Tyler Reddick, who looked unbeatable in the early portion of the regular season, as he amassed five wins through the opening nine races of the campaign, has fallen on hard times. Reddick encountered damage in an incident with Gray Gaulding during the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he had a hard time rebounding from that.
He was able to get back to an eighth-place finish, but Reddick left Sunday's race with more questions than answers.
"I thought we had race-winning speed in the first run, and we just hit a lot of stuff in a very short period of time," Reddick explained. "I don't know if the track went away from where we needed to be or if it was just incidents along the way."
As for his championship hopes, Reddick seems to have come to terms with the fact that he'll likely not be hoisting his first Bill France Cup next month.
"Yeah, we're a little too far back. Just going to try to win a couple of races and get the program heading back in the right direction," Reddick said.
8. Austin Cindric, -145 points (Finished 17th)
Austin Cindric seemed poised to extend his top-five finishing streak to three races, as he had a lot of speed throughout Sunday's Bank of America 400 at Charlotte. Unfortunately, it all came unraveled on the final run of the event, and he faded to a 17th-place finish.
While Cindric and his team will dig into what went wrong at the end of the race, the driver was encouraged that he was able to pad his point total on the day with Stage Points accrued earlier in the race.
“It’s a shame that our final run of the race went the way it did. It was pretty uncharacteristic from the other portions of the race," Cindric said. "Past that, I thought that we had a pretty fast Menards/Libman Ford. Yeah, it’s just a shame that last run was by far our worst of the race. We’re going to have to go back and review that, but we still got some solid points.”
9. Ty Gibbs, -156 points (Finished 34th)
The potential championship path for Ty Gibbs has come undone in recent weeks. After back-to-back 17th-place finishes at Kansas and Las Vegas, Gibbs was swept up in an early crash, which caused toe-link damage on his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Gibbs lost several laps getting repairs, and finished a disappointing 34th on the day. Gibbs says the accident, which broke his toe-link was likely the result of another driver clearing themselves.
"I haven't seen the replay, but, you know, I went to the top and then got just drilled," Gibbs said. "So, not really clear there up front."
Over the last three races, Gibbs has had plenty of speed, but has had nothing to show for it, as he has dropped from fifth to ninth in the championship standings.
"Just fast, but not good finishes," Gibbs lamented.
10. Carson Hocevar, -180 points (Finished 14th)
Sunday's race at Charlotte Motor Speedway wasn't really anything to write home about for Carson Hocevar. Although, he did come away from the race without any fresh rivalries. Hocevar loved his car's speed on restarts, but said over the long-run, he just didn't have what it took to compete for a solid finish.
"We were just not very good all day. I was getting really good restarts. That was just salvaging our track position, and the runs just kept getting longer, and we kept getting slower," Hocevar said.
11. Bubba Wallace, -185 points (Finished 37th)
Bubba Wallace had a fast No. 23 Hardee's Toyota, evidenced by his 11 laps led over the opening 76 laps of the Bank of America 400. However, on the 77th lap of the race, Wallace was wiped out of the race in a crash not of his doing.
While running fifth, Alex Bowman, the sixth-place racer, lost control of his No. 48 Chevrolet while running the lower lane underneath Wallace's No. 23 machine. Bowman skidded up the track into Wallace's car, which ended Wallace's day early.
“No warning. I saw it in the last second – the 48 come up and clip us. No hard feelings; that is just racing," Wallace said. "I was starting to drop, and it gets into a tight spot. To get on pit road smooth, we wanted to stay in front of him. He just got loose and got us."
Fortunately, Wallace, who took a couple of major impacts in the crash, was able to walk away from the carnage.
"The first hit wiped our brakes out. The second hit got me good. But we are good," Wallace explained. "Still got nine fingers and nine toes, so we are fine.”
12. Chase Elliott, -185 points (Finished 12th)
Chase Elliott's race at Charlotte Motor Speedway could have likely been one of his better races in the Chase, had it not been for multiple self-inflicted issues on pit road. On one pit stop, Elliott's No. 9 team left a wheel loose, and later, Elliott was flagged for speeding on pit road.
Elliott was just happy to salvage a 12th-place run at the end of the day.
"...we had a loose wheel there that one stop, and then I sped on the other. I really didn't think I was speeding, or I wasn't concerned about my [dashboard] lights, at least. So, that one surprised me, based on our pre-race run. But, yeah, you know, it was what it was at that point. Unfortunately, it was a bad time to do that. Kind of just starting the final Stage. But I thought to get back to 12th was pretty good, all things considered," Elliott said.
13. William Byron, -208 points (Finished 39th)
William Byron was another Chase contender who was a casualty of Alex Bowman losing control of his No. 48 Chevrolet on Lap 77 of the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Byron, who had been working his way back up the Chase Grid after a blown engine at the opening race of the Chase at Darlington, saw the progress undone. What did Byron see in the crash?
“It looks like the No. 48 just got loose and overcorrected it into the wall. I was running the top, and I lifted right away, but I couldn’t get low enough because he kind of came back off the wall," Byron said. "I hate it for this No. 24 Valvoline Blood Cancer United Chevrolet team. We had a top-five run going, so it’s just unfortunate.”
14. Daniel Suarez, -215 points (Finished 13th)
On a roller coaster day for Daniel Suarez, the driver of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was able to get back to a 13th-place finish in the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While it's a far cry from his win at the track in the Coca-Cola 600. Suarez was proud of the fight in his team to snatch a top-15 on a day that had gone south.
“It was a challenging day for us," Suarez admitted. "The track was really bumpy, and we fought balance issues throughout the race. We had a good Stage 1, but the two pit stops in the final stage put us behind and made it tough to get track position back. My guys never gave up and kept working to make our car better. We kept fighting all the way to the end, and I’m proud of the effort this team put in to get us back into the top 15.”
15. Chris Buescher, -216 points (Finished 10th)
Sitting 15th in the Chase Grid, championship aspirations are done for Chris Buescher, and the No. 17 RFK Racing team, but the driver just wants to close out the 2026 season with momentum so they can hit the ground running in 2027. After 11 races outside of the top-10, Buescher finally returned with a 10th-place finish Sunday at Charlotte.
“We’ve been needing a good, solid run, and we kind of inched up on it the last couple of weeks, but driving into the top ten, getting some stage points on the day - that’s some progress," Buescher said. "We’re not all the way there for sure, but proud of everybody who took this Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang and worked hard at it. You know, we had a pit stop mishap, and I’m proud of everybody for calling it out and catching it and not letting us go out there and have a bigger issue. Thanks to the 60 bunch for tightening it up.”
16. Ryan Preece, -227 points (Finished 15th)
Like his teammate, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece has no shot of clawing back into the championship picture, but like Buescher, it's all about building momentum for 2027 at this point. While Preece struggled mightily for the majority of Sunday's race, he was happy to get back to a respectable top-15 finish.
“The team worked really hard throughout the day to make the car better, but really we weren’t where we needed to be. We made the best of what we had, but certainly on days where you have a few of these other guys in the Chase, you want to capitalize more on that. So, we’re on to Phoenix,” Preece said.
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