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Phoenix Watercooler Recap
Just when we thought Talladega would be the wild card in the Chase, Phoenix went ahead and blew the championship wide open.Kyle Larson entered Sunday with a 49-point advantage. He left with just five. Now we really have a Chase.
After six consecutive races of seemingly finding ways to turn bad afternoons into good ones, Larson finally experienced the kind of disastrous day his competitors had been waiting for. A flat tire ended his afternoon, and suddenly seven drivers are separated by just 56 points with three races remaining.
Meanwhile, Tyler Reddick returned to Victory Lane for the first time in 23 races, holding off Ryan Blaney by 0.801 seconds to win Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway. It was Reddick’s sixth victory of 2026, ending a lengthy drought after winning five of the season’s first nine races. “That’s way too long,” Reddick said afterward.
The No. 45 team had shown speed throughout the weekend, but Reddick didn’t take the lead until Lap 295. Following the final restart, an opening allowed him to move past Chase Briscoe, who was trying to hold the lead on older tires.
Reddick capitalized, led the final 18 laps and never looked back. Blaney tried to chase him down, finding additional speed by moving toward the outside groove late, but simply ran out of time. “Seven more laps maybe,” Blaney joked afterward. The runner-up finish denied Blaney a third consecutive Phoenix victory but helped cut his championship deficit from 85 points to 40.
The race itself was anything but straightforward. Pit strategy shaped the afternoon from the opening stage, with teams repeatedly choosing between two and four tires to gain track position. Joey Logano swept both stages and led 84 laps, while Christopher Bell led a race-high 85. Logano appeared capable of winning before a pit-road setback cost him track position. He eventually finished sixth but collected enough points to move within 44 of Larson.
“The good part is that we were fast and led a bunch of laps and won two stages,” Logano said. “The bad part is we gave away a win.”
Tire trouble became another major factor as the race moved into its closing stages. Denny Hamlin had worked his way back into contention after an uneven opening half, but a blown tire on Lap 221 forced an unscheduled green-flag stop. A speeding penalty compounded the problem, leaving the No. 11 trapped a lap down and ultimately relegated to 28th. Larson’s afternoon was even worse.
After qualifying 22nd, the championship leader briefly climbed into the top five through pit strategy, but the speed simply wasn’t there. He finished both stages outside the top 10 and struggled to make progress through traffic. Then, on Lap 283, a tire failure sent Larson hard into the Turn 1 wall. His race was over. “We never found the improvements we needed,” Larson said. “I didn’t expect to be good, but I didn’t expect to be that bad either.”
Larson had acknowledged Phoenix as one of the No. 5 team’s weaker tracks before the weekend, and this time even the execution that had repeatedly saved difficult afternoons couldn’t overcome the problems. He finished 34th and scored just three points.
It was exactly the opening his championship competitors needed. Bell finished fourth after another afternoon spent near the front, trimming his deficit to just five points. Briscoe finished eighth and now sits 24 behind, while Hamlin remains fourth, 31 back.
And the implications could have been even greater. Had Bell, Briscoe or Hamlin won, Larson would have surrendered the championship lead. Instead, Reddick’s victory allowed him to escape Phoenix still atop the standings. “We’re right there in it,” Bell said. “We’ve been able to qualify well and run up front in stages.”
Bubba Wallace also watched an opportunity disappear. He led 52 laps and controlled portions of the final stage before a speeding penalty during pit stops under Larson’s caution dropped him back. Wallace eventually finished 17th. In all, Phoenix produced 21 lead changes among 10 drivers and six cautions for 43 laps. It was a race where tire management, strategy and pit-road execution continually changed who was in position to win.
But the biggest change came in the standings.
For weeks, Talladega had been circled as the race that could blow the championship wide open. Superspeedway racing brings the constant threat of the Big One, where a single mistake can collect a dozen cars or more and turn a championship contender’s afternoon upside down through no fault of their own. The thinking was that if Larson could simply get through Phoenix with his cushion intact, Talladega would be the real test. Phoenix had other plans.
Seven drivers now sit within 56 points of the championship lead. Bell is just five back, Briscoe 24, Hamlin 31, Blaney 40, Logano 44 and Reddick 56.
Three races remain.
Larson spent the first six races of the Chase building what looked like a comfortable advantage, only to watch nearly all of it disappear in one afternoon. Now the championship is anybody’s race among a suddenly crowded group of contenders. And the track everyone feared most is still waiting.
William Lynch
Founder & Editor, Turn 3 Media
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