• Sunday, October 4th, 2026
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Briscoe takes Vegas trophy as Larson stretches championship lead

Chase Briscoe left nothing to chance in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon – the Joe Gibbs Racing driver sweeping both stage victories, leading a race best 175 of the 267 laps and ultimately besting the field by 1.376-second to take his second NASCAR Cup Series trophy of the season under temperatures in the mid-90s – one of the hottest race-day of the season.

The dominating win coming over the series championship leader Kyle Larson comes a week after Briscoe just missed beating Larson in the closing laps at Kansas Speedway. It moves Briscoe up two positions in the Chase championship standings with five races remaining on the season. It was redemption for him and the team, he conceded.

"I don't think I'd be able to get on the [team] plane [if I didn't win],"' the 31-year-old Indiana-native and driver of the No. 19 JGR Toyota said with a smile referring to last week's race outcome.

"So thankful to get this Toyota back in Victory Lane," he added. "It's been not a rough year, but just not the results we necessarily want. So, glad to get all our partners back in Victory Lane."

The margin of victory Sunday was larger and a bit misleading as Larson and 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick had chased Briscoe down in the closing laps – cutting his lead to less than four-tenths of a second with a lap remaining – only to have Larson hit the wall directly in front of Reddick on the final lap, final corner push toward Briscoe for a victory.

Larson was able to settle his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet enough to maintain his second-place position behind Briscoe. And after tagging Larson's bumper in the incident, Reddick was also able to regroup and manhandle his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota after it slid across the infield grass onto pit road – ultimately maintaining his third-place position.

"It was a fight," said a smiling Larson, who increased his championship points lead from 26 points to 40 over Briscoe's JGR teammate Denny Hamlin, who finished 16th. "I was surprised how far off we were that first run [of the race].

"My car got better but track position was so important, and we just chipped away at it all race long," Larson added. "Just tried to stay patient but my tires were pretty much burnt off by the time I got there [to Briscoe]. Just tried to do what I could to try to win. Felt like I moved up at the right time and did a decent job with it just was trying to push hard in [turns] three and four to build some momentum out and I don't know, and just got really loose and overcorrected in the wall. Thankfully I was able to limp it home and Reddick was able to come away third as well. That got exciting.

"I wish we could have won in this paint scheme honoring [Las Vegas native] Kyle [Busch]," Larson said of the first race back in Busch's hometown after the late two-time series champion passed away in May.

Team Penske teammates Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-five. Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott were sixth and seventh, followed by 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace, Trackhouse Racing's Shane Van Gisbergen and Team Penske's Joey Logano. Van Gisbergen is the only top-10 finisher not Chase-eligible.

The JGR driver Hamlin, who has won the last two Las Vegas races and started Sunday from pole position, rallied from a mid-race spin and finished 16th. His teammate, Ty Gibbs – whose 24th birthday was Sunday – finished 17th after starting on the front row. An early race pit stop penalty forced him into playing catch up and he finished 17th. Their teammate Christopher Bell, who also led laps in the No. 20 JGR Toyota, finished 23rd forced to wrangle his Camry without power steering the second half of the race.

"Was just trying to get back track position that we lost and just went up there got into the marbles and spun out," Hamlin said of his incident. "Obviously damaged the car so it was nothing like it was before.

"Just got to go on to the next race and see if we can't find a way to win. Charlotte will be good for us but today certainly didn't live up to what we expected."

Bell maintained his third place in the championship standings, but is now 55 points off the reigning series champ Larson's pace. Logano is fourth, 71 points back and Blaney is fifth, 80 points off the pace.

Five races remain to settle the 2026 trophy. The series returns to action next weekend with the Bank of America 400 (3 p.m. ET on USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on the Charlotte Motor Speedway – marking the first time the Fall event will be held on the oval since 2017 when Martin Truex Jr. won the race. Daniel Suarez won the rain-shortened race on the oval this May.