The Cup Series field at Phoenix Raceway in 2024. Photo: Serrity / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Freeway Insurance 500 preview starts with one number: 49. That is how many points Kyle Larson carries over Denny Hamlin into Sunday’s race at Phoenix Raceway, the seventh of ten rounds in the NASCAR Chase. Christopher Bell is two points behind Hamlin. Chase Briscoe, winner of the last two Chase races, is 65 back. With no eliminations in the 2026 format, nobody is fighting to survive a cutoff. They are fighting for position before Talladega, the one race left that can wreck any plan.
F1 is idle until Austin next week and MotoGP is between Mandalika and Phillip Island, so this is the biggest race on the calendar in the next 72 hours, and the focus of this Freeway Insurance 500 preview. It is also the last “normal” race before the run-in: a short, flat oval where speed, tires and pit calls decide things, not the draft.
Freeway Insurance 500 weekend schedule
All times Eastern. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so local time is three hours earlier.
| Day | Time (ET) | Session | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri., Oct. 16 | 3:30 p.m. | Craftsman Truck Series practice | — |
| Fri., Oct. 16 | 4:35 p.m. | Truck Series qualifying | — |
| Fri., Oct. 16 | 7:30 p.m. | Zero Carbon Bioethanol 150 (Trucks) | FS1, FOX One, NRN, SiriusXM |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 2:00 p.m. | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series practice | — |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 3:05 p.m. | O’Reilly Series qualifying | — |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 4:30 p.m. | Cup Series practice | — |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 5:35 p.m. | Cup Series qualifying | — |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 7:30 p.m. | Timberland PRO 200 (O’Reilly Series) | The CW, ESPN App, MRN, SiriusXM |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | 11:00 p.m. | Desert Diamond Casino West Valley 100 (ARCA West) | — |
| Sun., Oct. 18 | 3:00 p.m. | Freeway Insurance 500 (Cup Series) | USA Network, HBO Max, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Ch. 90 |
Times are from NASCAR’s official weekend schedule. Check the NASCAR.com schedule page on race morning in case anything moves.
Phoenix Raceway: the circuit
Phoenix is a 1-mile asphalt oval in Avondale, Arizona, opened in 1964 and owned and run by NASCAR. Turns 1 and 2 are banked at 9 degrees and Turns 3 and 4 at 11 degrees. The frontstretch has only 3 degrees, the backstretch 9. The odd feature is the dogleg on the backstretch side, a sweeping kink in the infield. Since the start/finish line moved there, restarts happen with the field bending through the dogleg. That makes the restart lane choice and the run into Turn 1 matter as much as anywhere on the schedule.
It is also the track the teams know best. Phoenix hosted the championship finale every year from 2020 to 2025. The Cup field already raced here in March. Sunday is 312 laps, split into stages of 60, 125 and 127 laps, with stage breaks on Laps 60 and 185. The purse is listed at a little over $11.2 million.
Championship situation: how the 2026 Chase works
The 2026 format replaced the knockout playoffs with a 16-driver, 10-race Chase. Points reset when the Chase starts and the regular-season champion gets a 25-point head start. Nobody is eliminated, and the driver with the most points after Homestead-Miami on Nov. 8 is champion. Wins are worth 55 points instead of 40, and stage points are unchanged. We covered how that math plays out in our post-Las Vegas standings breakdown.
Top of the Chase standings after Charlotte (gap to leader):
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Larson | Hendrick Motorsports | 2,367 pts |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | Joe Gibbs Racing | −49 |
| 3 | Christopher Bell | Joe Gibbs Racing | −51 |
| 4 | Chase Briscoe | Joe Gibbs Racing | −65 |
| 5 | Ryan Blaney | Team Penske | −85 |
| 6 | Joey Logano | Team Penske | −92 |
| 7 | Tyler Reddick | 23XI Racing | −114 |
| 8 | Austin Cindric | Team Penske | −145 |
| 9 | Ty Gibbs | Joe Gibbs Racing | −156 |
Four races remain: Phoenix, Talladega (Oct. 25), Martinsville (Nov. 1) and Homestead (Nov. 8). A perfect weekend, with a win and both stages, is worth about 75 points. That means anyone in the top five can realistically take the lead over the next two weeks. Behind Ty Gibbs, the gaps are big enough that drivers like Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace, 185 back, probably need a win more than they need points.
Freeway Insurance 500 preview: key storylines
Larson’s cushion, and his first off week of the Chase
Larson came into Charlotte with five straight top-five finishes in Chase races. He led the first 45 laps, won Stage 1 and led 97 laps in total, but finished sixth after the late restart went the other way. Even so, his lead grew from 40 to 49 points. As we wrote after Las Vegas, he keeps adding to the lead on weekends when someone else wins. Phoenix suits him: among active drivers he has the best average start (6.75) and best average finish (10.04) here.
Hamlin and unfinished business
Last November, Hamlin led 208 of 319 laps in the Phoenix finale and still lost the race and the championship on the final pit cycle. Among active drivers he leads Phoenix in starts (42), top fives (18), top 10s (25) and poles (four). He finished fifth at Charlotte and sits second. With Talladega next, the case for banking a big result now rather than counting on a superspeedway is easy to make.
Briscoe’s streak inside the Gibbs camp
Briscoe won at Las Vegas and then beat teammate Bell at Charlotte by 0.029 seconds. It was the closest finish of the Cup season and the second-closest in Charlotte history, with contact in the tri-oval at the line. He might have three straight wins if Larson had not beaten him at Kansas. Phoenix is where he scored his first career Cup win, in 2022. He also won the most recent Talladega race. A fourth straight win would put him in the title fight.
Three JGR cars, one crowded front row
Joe Gibbs Racing holds second, third and fourth. Bell led 176 laps here in March and has two Phoenix wins (2024 and 2025). After Charlotte’s door-banging finish between Bell and Briscoe, watch how the Gibbs drivers race each other in the final stage. Team orders mean little when all three think they can win the title.
Blaney goes for three in a row at Phoenix
Blaney won the 2025 finale in overtime after a two-tire call, then won again in March for his first win of 2026. He is 85 points back after finishing third at Charlotte, and a third straight Phoenix win would cut that gap quickly. His Penske teammate Joey Logano leads all active drivers with four Phoenix wins, three of them in the postseason, and he has led more laps here than any other active driver (1,169).
Drivers and teams to watch
- Kyle Larson (No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet): the points leader, and the best active average finisher at Phoenix. Another top five here would stretch the lead before Talladega.
- Denny Hamlin (No. 11 JGR Toyota): the best long-run car here last November. If he converts this time, he could leave Phoenix as the leader.
- Christopher Bell (No. 20 JGR Toyota): led 176 laps in March and lost Charlotte by inches. He has the speed to win.
- Chase Briscoe (No. 19 JGR Toyota): on a two-race win streak, and arguably the fastest car of the Chase.
- Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano (Team Penske Fords): Penske has won three of the last four Phoenix races, and both drivers are within 92 points.
- William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet): Byron’s car was heavily damaged in the Lap 77 crash at Charlotte. He has two Phoenix poles and a win. He also runs a special Axalta scheme, reported to be Axalta’s final event as a primary sponsor.
- Connor Zilisch (No. 88 Trackhouse Chevrolet): the only rookie on the 36-car entry list. Not in the Chase, but a possible factor on track.
Strategic variables
Qualifying and track position
Phoenix rewards starting up front. Top-10 starters have won 60% of Cup races here, top-five starters 41.67%, and only 4 of 60 winners started outside the top 20. Saturday qualifying also sets pit stall order, and a good stall matters with only a handful of green-flag cycles. For a sense of how one qualifying run can shape a weekend, see how Kansas set the Las Vegas qualifying order.
Tires: two versus four
In March, Goodyear brought the same tire combination used in the 2025 finale: left side D-5254, right side D-5256. Teams get eight new sets for the race. The short-track package has been tuned to increase fall-off, and crew chiefs said in March that falloff was close to what they expected. They also said tire wear makes splitting fuel stints worthwhile. Blaney’s 2025 title-race win came on a two-tire stop, so expect at least one contender to try it on the final caution.
Stage points versus the win
With wins now worth 55 points, a driver who runs well all day but finishes third can still lose ground to an opportunistic winner. Teams far behind Larson are more likely to give up stage points for track position late in Stage 2. The leaders will want to keep scoring in every segment.
The Talladega effect
Talladega comes next, and nobody can count on a good result there. NASCAR has already trimmed the spoiler and changed the stage lengths for Talladega. That raises the value of a strong Phoenix result: teams want points banked before a race where one crash can cost 30 or 40 points.
Where to follow official coverage
- TV: USA Network, Sunday at 3 p.m. ET (Leigh Diffey, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte in the booth)
- Streaming: HBO Max carries every Chase race
- Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90
- Live timing, results and standings: NASCAR.com and the official NASCAR app
- Tickets and track information: PhoenixRaceway.com
That is our Freeway Insurance 500 preview. Backfire Racing will have the result and updated Chase math after the checkered flag. In the meantime, catch up on the rest of our NASCAR coverage and the Chase archive.
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