Author Archives: PressBox

Corey Day won Saturday’s Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in a late-race duel with Carson Kvapil, taking the checkered flag by 0.287 seconds after the two traded the lead four times in the final 12 laps. Day started on the pole, won Stage 1 and led a career-high 136 of 201 laps for his third NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory. He regained the lead with two laps left and held on to the finish.

Kvapil finished second and moved to second in the championship standings, 19 points behind leader Sheldon Creed. Jesse Love finished third, while Brent Crews was fourth, Taylor Gray fifth and Sam Mayer sixth after recovering from a pit penalty. Mayer won Stage 2 and led 40 laps. Day moved up to fifth in the standings with five races remaining, and the title chase stayed tight, with Creed still on top and several contenders clustered near the front.

Justin Allgaier’s night ended in a Lap 55 crash with Brandon Jones, and he finished 34th, dropping from second to fourth in the standings. Jones finished 35th. Creed, who entered Las Vegas as the points leader and lined up on the front row with Day, finished 13th. The race capped a weekend in which nine of the top 10 starters were Chase contenders, underscoring how wide open the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship remains.

Denny Hamlin won the pole for the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, putting his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the front row for Sunday’s Cup Series race with a lap of 28.910 seconds at 186.787 mph. Ty Gibbs qualified second, just 0.017 seconds behind Hamlin, and Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Tyler Reddick completed a Toyota sweep of the top five. Joe Gibbs Racing also locked out the top four starting spots for the first time in Cup qualifying, and Hamlin earned his fifth pole of the season and the 53rd of his Cup career.

Kyle Larson, who entered the race as the points leader after winning at Kansas, qualified sixth and led Hamlin by 26 points entering the fifth race of the Chase. Austin Cindric and William Byron qualified seventh and eighth, while Bubba Wallace, Carson Hocevar, Daniel Suarez and Ryan Preece completed the top 12. NASCAR listed no drivers as did not qualify.

The South Point 400 was scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sunday and air on USA Network and HBO Max, with coverage also on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Hamlin said starting up front mattered at Las Vegas because clean air is critical, and he said his team’s adjustments for the hot conditions worked well. Josh Berry and Noah Gragson were set to start from the rear after being listed as DNS.

Las Vegas honored Kyle Busch during NASCAR’s return to the city for the first time since his death in May at age 41 from severe pneumonia and sepsis. A street near Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s Bullring was renamed Rowdy Road, and a tribute marker was unveiled at the track as part of the Kyle Busch Classic, the centerpiece of the weekend’s remembrances.

The tribute weekend also included Friday night’s Kyle Busch Classic at the Bullring, where Brexton Busch competed in the Legends race. The Busch family gathered at a memorial rock honoring Kyle Busch, and Kurt Busch said the Bullring event was full of emotions and memories. Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet also carried a Busch-inspired tribute scheme.

Busch was inducted this week into the West Coast Stock Car Motorsports Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, where Samantha Busch and Brexton Busch accepted the honor. They spoke about his work ethic, mentorship and lasting impact on the sport. Kurt Busch, a Las Vegas native and the 2004 Cup champion, was scheduled to serve as the honorary pace car driver for Sunday’s South Point 400, returning to his hometown track and to the site of his first Cup victory in the 2020 South Point 400.

Josh Berry and Noah Gragson crashed minutes apart during Cup practice at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as teams dealt with multiple tire issues while trying to sort out air-pressure setups for qualifying and Sunday’s South Point 400. Berry lost control in Turn 1 after an apparent tire failure and hit the Turn 2 wall hard, forcing Wood Brothers Racing to switch the No. 21 Ford to a backup car.

Gragson also had trouble when the right-rear tire appeared to go down, sending the No. 4 Ford backward into the Turn 2 wall. Neither driver was reported injured in the incidents. The practice session served as a key test for teams weighing how much air pressure they could run before qualifying and the race.

Sheldon Creed will leave Haas Factory Team after the 2026 season and join Sam Hunt Racing in a multi-year deal beginning in 2027, making the move the latest shift in a busy NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver market. The announcement came Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with Creed set to drive the No. 26 Toyota GR Supra for Sam Hunt Racing in 2027.

Creed arrives at his new team as the current series points leader, holding an 11-point edge over Justin Allgaier with six races left in 2026. He has won three races this season, the first three victories of his career, with trips to Victory Lane at EchoPark Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway. He also has 12 top-five finishes and 19 top-10 finishes this year.

Creed said he was excited to join Sam Hunt Racing and work with crew chief Kris Bowen. Sam Hunt said the move had been years in the making and thanked Toyota Racing and TRD for their support. Haas Factory Team said Creed will depart at the end of the season and that it will announce its 2027 lineup later, while also noting Sam Mayer is leaving and Dean Thompson is set to join as the team plans to expand to three full-time entries with two more seats still open. The 2027 season is scheduled to open at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 20, 2027.

Treyten Lapcevich said Newport Speedway would be his final race with Chad Bryant Racing, ending a two-year partnership that unraveled in the aftermath of the Martinsville brawl. Lapcevich said the team’s role in the post-race incident led to his departure, and he thanked Chad Bryant for the past two years. He also said he would continue driving the No. 77 Late Model Stock car with support from Rette Jones Racing, while his family would handle crew duties for the car.

The split followed the fallout from the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville, where Lapcevich and Corey Heim battled on track and later made contact on the cool-down lap. NASCAR recently suspended Chad Bryant, crew member Steven Civatarese and Ryden Lapcevich after the confrontation. Treyten Lapcevich and Heim were not penalized, and Lapcevich said he was not involved in the physical incident and did not condone what happened.

Lapcevich finished fourth at Newport, where Caden Kvapil won the championship. He said his plans for the rest of the 2026 season remained undecided, though he was focusing on the Late Model Stock drivers championship and partner commitments. Lapcevich entered the final two races of the season third in points, 55 points behind leader Carson Kvapil, and said later updates on his 2026 Late Model Stock schedule would come later.