The two-week Olympic break is over and the NASCAR Cup Series does not take another weekend off until after the champion is crowned Nov. 10 at Phoenix Raceway.
As the series heads to Richmond Raceway for Sunday’s race (6 p.m. ET on USA), here is a look at some of the key storylines entering this final stretch, which features four regular-season races and 10 playoff races:
1. Race for regular season title
Kyle Larson heads into Sunday’s night race with the points lead after his victory two weeks ago at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The points lead has changed each of the past two races. Chase Elliott took it from Larson after Pocono. Larson took it back at Indy.
Larson leads Elliott by 10 points heading into Richmond. Tyler Reddick is 15 points behind Larson. Denny Hamlin sits fourth in the standings, 43 points behind Larson.
Hamlin has either won or finished second in five of the last seven Richmond races. That type of success could allow him to close the gap on Larson, Elliott and Reddick if any falter at Richmond.
This race is worth watching because of the impact it could have in the playoffs. Never before has the first and second round both had a road course event and a drafting track race, meaning there could be a wild swing in results and points scored.
That’s what makes the race for the regular season title so important. The regular season champion earns 15 playoff points. The runner-up receives 10 playoffs points. Third gets nine playoff points and fourth gets eight playoff points.
The playoffs have shown that every point matters when it comes to who advances.
2. Race for the final playoff spot
Ross Chastain holds the final playoff position, but he’s only seven points ahead of Bubba Wallace.
Wallace has three top 10s in the last four races. Chastain has not finished better than 15th in the last four races.
Richmond, though, has not been a good track for Wallace. He’s never scored a top-10 finish there in 12 career Cup starts. His best finish at Richmond is 12th. Chastain finished third there in April 2023 for his best finish at the track. Chastain has two top 10s in 11 starts at Richmond.
Chris Buescher isn’t too far ahead of either. He’s 10 points ahead of Chastain and 17 points ahead of Wallace. But Buescher won this race at Richmond a year ago and finished ninth there in the spring.
Buescher said this week that he will be focused on the win and not points.
“I don’t want to go to a racetrack and have a mindset that we’re not there to win, that we’re there to try and capture a handful of points to protect ourselves,” Buescher said. “I don’t like it. I feel like, to me, it feels like you’re going to the racetrack giving 85 percent and that’s not how I want to go about it.”
Buescher has said throughout his career how he dislikes the point racing mentality. It goes back to his early days of racing.
“From the time I was 12, 13 years old we made very specific decisions that we were not going to race for points,” Buescher said. “We would be leading track championships or local regional points divisions and would intentionally miss races and go somewhere else to make sure that we didn’t find ourselves in that box.
“The mindset was that if you race at your same three local tracks and worked hard to win the points there that ultimately you were racing against the same people every week. Yes, you had something to put on a resume at the end of the year, but what did that local resume accomplishment really do for you in the grand scheme of things? If we wanted to be better, we needed to be around different racers.”
3. Tire options for crew chiefs, drivers
For the first time in a points race, Cup crew chiefs and drivers will have a choice of tires. They will have the prime tire (featuring yellow lettering on the tire) and also the option tire (featuring red lettering on the tire).
Teams will be given one prime set of tires and one option set of tires for the 45-minute practice session Saturday.
A prime set must be used for qualifying and it will then be transferred to the race allotment. Teams will have eight sets of tires for the race — six prime sets and two option sets.
The prime tire is the same that was used at Richmond earlier this year. The option tire is the same that was used by Cup teams at North Wilkesboro Speedway for the All-Star Race.
The option tire is intended to be faster earlier in a run. Once it wears, it is intended to be slower than the prime tire in a long run. That wasn’t the case at North Wilkesboro, although much of that was due to the track having been repaved. The Richmond surface is much different than North Wilkesboro’s racing surface.
“I think it will be a different feeling than North Wilkesboro once we get in the race,” Noah Gragson said of the option tire. “We didn’t really see that softer compound tire fall off (at North Wilkesboro). … We’re probably going to see a little difference with the track surface being an old worn out track surface at Richmond compared to North Wilkesboro.”
4. What’s next with Silly Season?
Already this season, Stewart-Haas Racing has announced it will cease operations, Chase Briscoe will take over Martin Truex Jr.’s ride next year with this Truex’s final full-time season, and Front Row Motorsports expanding to three cars next year.
The most recent news was that Corey LaJoie would not return to the No. 7 team at Spire Motorsports after this season. Crew chief Rodney Childers is joining after this year. The organization has not named a new driver for that ride.
Trackhouse Racing and 23XI Racing are expected to get the other charters that Stewart-Haas Racing will not need after this season. Reports have stated that Riley Herbst could be headed to 23XI Racing in a third car and that Shane van Gisbergen is likely to drive a third car at Trackhouse Racing.
Front Row Motorsports also has yet to announce a driver for its third car.
Also, the 2025 schedules for Cup, Xfinity and Trucks have yet to be released by NASCAR. The Cup schedule is expected to see a new venue for the clash, a possible international race and changes to the races in the playoffs.
So, still much to be revealed before the season ends.
5. Numbers to know
0 — DNFs by Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. this season. They are the only drivers without a DNF at this point of the year.
3 — Consecutive wins on short tracks by Kyle Larson.
5 — Consecutive top 10s by Tyler Reddick, the longest active streak heading into Richmond.
6 — Drivers who have ended winless streaks of 42 or more races this year: Brad Keselowski (110-race winless streak), Austin Cindric (85), Alex Bowman (80), Daniel Suarez (57), Joey Logano (49) and Chase Elliott (42).
16 — Short track wins by Kyle Busch, most among active drivers.
43 — Race winless streak for Busch, the longest of his career.