2026 Fall Martinsville: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The 2026 Fall Martinsville race, the penultimate race of the season, was an opportunity for Kyle Larson to clinch the championship. For Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, it was their chance to redeem their championship hopes to challenge Larson next week at Homestead. For drivers without a win this year, it was an opportunity to avoid spending the off-season worrying about the size of their losing streak.

2026 Fall Martinsville: The Good

William Byron and the 24 team combined winning strategy with flawless execution. The critical decision goes to crew chief Rudy Fugle, who opted to split the first stage by pitting on lap XX. A majority of drivers followed that strategy. The exceptions were — notably — the championship contenders. That group included polesitter Denny Hamlin, third-place Christopher Bell, and points leader Kyle Larson.

The latter groups’ strategy proved a mistake, as they were quickly passed by those on faster tires. Kyle Larson went a lap down after the first stage when leader Byron passed him.

But that strategy would not have worked on its own without a mistake-free drive. Byron was a machine, leading

Other Good Stuff

• Shane van Gisbergen earned his third top-five at an oval track this year.
• Kyle Larson finished ninth, with no stage points and did not clinch the championship. He had a 67 point lead and needs only eight points to take the championship next week.
• Chase Elliott ran a solid second. He was on the same strategy as teammate Byron
• NASCAR: Larson could have blown out everyone else tonight, giving ammunition to people looking for reasons to deem the New Chase a failure before the first attempt even finished.

The Bad

Larson didn’t so much earn his advantage for Homestead as he benefited from his competitors’ mistakes.

Bell was gifted a chance to seize the lead when he was already on pit road and a caution came out. That possibility evaporated when he was hit with a speeding penalty. He admitted that he had missed his lights, but that mistake put him in the rear of the field, alongside Hamlin when the next Bad Thing happened.

Joey Logano got underneath Bell, sending Bell spinning into Hamlin. Hamlin also spun. All three cars were able to continue, but that incident made the rest of the race an uphill climb for the two Joe Gibbs teammates trying to preserve their seasons at The Paperclip.

Hamlin, Logano, Ryan Preece, Larson, Chase Briscoe and Chris Buescher opted not to pit during Stage 1. The fall-off in lap time as tires degraded was greater than anticipated, and the drivers on new tires were able to catch the drivers who stayed out.

Bell finished P4 in the first stage. and P10 in the second stage. Hamlin, Larson, Briscoe, Logano, and Buescher did not earn ANY points in either stage.

Other Bad Things

• Preece had one of the fastest cars in the field, finishing third in Stage 1 despite being on old tires. He lost a right-rear wheel on Lap 225, which incurred a two-lap penalty and ended his chances of winning the race. He ended up with a 23rd place finish.
• Larson crew chief Cliff Daniels started the race by stating that they would pit whenever Hamlin did, so they followed the same strategy that failed Hamlin and the others. But they were, surprisingly, never able to bounce back from the slow start. Daniels is one of the best at adjusting a balky car, but the No. 5 team struggled all evening.
• Hamlin was also unable to come back from a bad start. He’s an emotional driver and was demonstrably unhappy about the staying-out strategy. He struggled to pass cars on his way back to a sixth-place finish, loudly decrying Bubba Wallace for being hard to get around.

2026 Fall Martinsville: The Ugly

NASCAR weakened the front bumpers of the Gen-7 car because driver mouthpieces showed that the inter-car bumps at tracks like Martinsville were much larger than expected or desired. Chase Briscoe told SiriusXM NASCAR radio that his mouthpiece has measured 25-g accelerations at Martinsville just from the normal bumping and banging.

Given the law of physics that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction, one must wonder why NASCAR didn’t also weaken the rear bumpers. Perhaps they couldn’t because the rear bumpers also protect the fuel cell. Maybe they just didn’t consider the fact that strong rear bumpers could become offensive tools the same way that front bumpers had been.

We saw two examples: Carson Hocevar brake checked Austin Cindric four times (by my count, at least). That created substantial damage to the No. 2 car’s radiator and led to its early exit from the race. Hocevar claimed afterward that he had not intended to wreck Cindric and that it was just an example of the way things happen at Martinsville. Cindric declined the opportunity to talk to the media.

The second example involved Penske’s long-shot champion contender Ryan Blaney and his Wood Brothers’ teammate Josh Berry. Blaney was none too happy about the damage running into Berry caused. He spent 58 laps in the garage and finished in 35th place. Berry also denied that contact was anything but an accident. Berry finished fourth. He leaves Wood Brothers next year for Legacy MOTORCLUB.

That’s your 2026 Fall Martinsville review of the good, the bad and the ugly of this week’s race.