The NASCAR Cup cars race this Sunday, Oct. 11, on the 1.5-mile oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The NASCAR trucks race Friday, Oct. 9, and the O’Reilly series races Saturday, Oct. 10, at the same track.
Sunday features the sixth race in the 10-race playoffs that will determine who is the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series champion. Last weekend in Las Vegas, before a marginal crowd, Chase Briscoe dominated the action. He won both race stages and the race. He beat Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, Shane van Gisbergen and Joey Logano.
The last three laps saw Larson and Reddick catch Briscoe. Larson’s last-chance move to take his third win in five playoff races ended when he smacked the wall coming off the fourth turn. He was able to maintain second place as Reddick hit his slowing car and spun into the grass. He crossed the line in third.
Larson added to his playoff standings with his second-place finish. He currently has 2,318 points, with Hamlin second with 2,278. Hamlin started the race on the pole but spun early and damaged his car, relegating him to a 16th-place finish. Christopher Bell raced up front before car problems dropped him to 23rd at the end. He has 2,263 points.
Continuing with the point standings, Joey Logano is fourth at 2,247. Blaney has 2,238. Chase Briscoe moved up to sixth in the standings with 2,234 points, 84 behind Larson. Reddick is seventh with 2,212. Ty Gibbs fell to eighth with 2,208. Cindric is ninth with 2,190 points and Bubba Wallace fell to 10th with 2,181.
The rest of the 16 playoff contenders look like this: Carson Hocevar, 2,160; William Byron, 2,158; Chase Elliott, 2,155; Daniel Suarez, 2,123; Chris Buescher, 2,122; and Ryan Preece, 2,118.
Preece is 200 points behind leader Larson. Only the first four drivers in the current standings are less than one full race of points behind Larson. A good finish this weekend would make Larson look like a sure winner of the championship. We have seen this before. Stay tuned.
Corey Day won the O’Reilly race Saturday in Vegas, beating Carson Kvapil, Jesse Love, Brent Crews, Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Jeremy Clements and William Sawalich. Day led 136 laps but was second when the last lap started. He used the wall coming off the fourth turn to pass Kvapil for the win. It was his third win of the year and first in the nine-race O’Reilly playoffs.
Season-long point leader and reigning champion Justin Allgaier was caught up in a crash not of his doing and finished 34th, dropping him to fourth in the playoffs, 30 points behind surprise playoff leader Sheldon Creed. Creed leads with 2,259 points. Kvapil is 19 points back in second, with Love 21 points back in third. Allgaier is fourth and Day fifth, just 41 points in arrears. With five races to go and 76 points possible each race, any one of the top seven drivers still has a mathematical chance of winning the championship.
Formula One raced Oct. 4 in Malaysia in the 16th race of the year. Max Verstappen won for the first time this year, driving for Red Bull. Point leader and presumptive F1 champion Kimi Antonelli was second, with Lewis Hamilton third for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc fourth, also for Ferrari.
There are eight races left in the 2026 season. Antonelli sits at 320. George Russell, Antonelli’s Mercedes teammate, has 236. Hamilton has 214 and Leclerc has 191. Lando Norris, last year’s champion for McLaren, and Verstappen are tied for fifth in the championship fight at 188 points each. F1 goes to Singapore this weekend.
The Sports Car Club of America, owners of Thunderhill Park, ends its race season Oct. 17-18 on the three-mile track just off Highway 162, west of Willows. More than 200 entries will vie for race wins and class championships starting at 9 a.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free.
Cycleland ends its outlaw kart season this weekend, Oct. 10-11. The track is located on Highway 99 south of Chico. The end is near!