Kyle Larson could secure NASCAR Cup Series championship at Martinsville - USA Today

MARTINSVILLE, VA — It could all be wrapped this weekend in southern Virginia at the iconic short track, Martinsville Speedway.

Famous for its infield hot dog stand and awarding race winners handmade grandfather clocks, Martinsville opened in 1947 and has been hosting races annually for the top tier of NASCAR since 1949. Past winners at the 0.526-mile track that is shaped like a paperclip — with long straightaways and narrow turns — include Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Fred Lorenzen and Cale Yarborough among countless other Hall of Famers.

And on Sunday, Nov. 1, it could crown Kyle Larson as the NASCAR Cup Series champion for 2026.

Entering the race, Larson leads second-place Denny Hamlin by 73 points. If the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville ends with Larson ahead of the second-place driver by 77 points, he will have clinched the championship.

Larson’s edge in the point standings, boosted by his win last weekend at Talladega, is the largest any driver has had in the eight Chase races this season. And not only is he a former Martinsville winner — taking the checkered flag here in 2023 — but he’s finished inside the top-10 in his last eight races here.

Should Larson have a good day at the old-school short track, he would be the first driver since Matt Kenseth in 2003 to clinch the championship a week early. Kenseth, driving the No. 17 Ford for Roush Racing, accomplished the feat by finishing fourth at Rockingham. Hall of Fame drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty also clinched championships early in their careers, which means Larson has the chance to join some elite company.

Kenseth and those other legendary drivers pulled off those early championship clinchers during the era of NASCAR’s season-long Winston Cup points format. The Chase began in 2004, then was shelved from 2014-2025 in favor of a win-and-in, elimination-style postseason. This year, the Chase is back, meaning Larson could be the first to win the title early in this format.

But the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports isn’t taking anything for granted this weekend. If he has a bad day and someone like Hamlin, Christopher Bell or Chase Briscoe wins, the points could swing and Larson would face some real competition for the championship at Homestead.

“There’s still two races,” Larson said Sunday after his win at Talladega. “It’s so easy to look at it and be like, ‘Oh, the 5’s got it.’”

For Hamlin — the oldest active driver in the Cup Series and still seeking his first championship — he knows the pressure is on. Among active drivers, no one has taken more grandfather clocks home from Martinsville than Hamlin’s six.

If a DNF in last year’s fall race at Martinsville is removed from the equation, Hamlin has an average finish of 4.4 there since the fall of 2022 across seven races. To have a fighting chance against Larson at Homestead, Hamlin will need to be at his best at Martinsville.

“Winning is what we're thinking about when we go to that track,” Hamlin recently told USA TODAY Sports. “We have a lot of confidence going there. There's not another track on the schedule where we know what we can do when we get there. The past history would certainly support that. I've got so many races around there that I've got a great notebook on it.”

Regardless of what his competitors do, Larson needs to score 59 points at Martinsville to win the championship. To get to 59 points, Larson would have to win the race and run no worse than ninth in the first two stages.

If Larson doesn’t take the checkered flag, he needs to outperform contenders like Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe and hope the math shakes out in his favor.

Larson’s average finish so far in the Chase — including a disastrous DNF at Phoenix — is 6.5 through eight races. In the Chase format, that's the second-best run to only Tony Stewart who won five races in a 10-week span in 2011.

Aside from Larson and Hamlin at the top of the list, two Team Penske drivers and Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron are worth monitoring.

Byron is out of championship contention, but since 2021 he has three wins at Martinsville and an average finish of eighth place. Byron is still searching for his first victory of the 2026 season, but he won the fall race at Martinsville last year.

Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are still mathematically alive for the championship, but they need to have big days at Martinsville to have a puncher’s chance of overtaking Larson at Homestead. Logano needs to outscore Larson by 25 points on Sunday to stay alive, while Blaney has to outscore the No. 5 by 32 points.

Martinsville is arguably Blaney’s best track. Since 2019, he has two wins and an average finish of fifth place across 15 trips to the short track. In that span, Blaney’s No. 12 Ford has finished no worse than 11th here.

It’s a similar story for Logano, who has been a short track ace in the second half of the season, taking checkered flags at North Wilkesboro, Richmond and Bristol this year. Since 2018, Logano has an average finish of 6.2 at Martinsville with one victory.

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