NASCAR Chase scenarios set after a wild day in New Hampshire

And then there were 18.

An eventful day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway saw nearly every Chase contender come and go from contention at some stage on Sunday. But in the end, the field left with similar storylines at play and only a few qualifying positions up for grabs heading into the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway.

The chaos for Chase hopefuls started before the green flag even flew at the Magic mile, as Carson Hocevar went for a spin under wet conditions that led NASCAR to briefly bring the field back to pit road. When the race finally got underway less than an hour later, pole sitter Tyler Reddick did the same thing off of Turn 4 and kicked off a crash that left both him and team owner Denny Hamlin rallying from the back of the field.

While they battled through their issues, bubble driver Shane van Gisbergen took advantage of the wet conditions to rise into the lead. It was a promising start that provided an opportunity for a big opening stage point haul, but it proved to be short-lived. NASCAR brought the field to pit road for slicks after 40 laps and van Gisbergen immediately tumbled down the running order

From there, the true contenders emerged. And early on, one of them proved to be Ryan Preece. The driver closest to the cutline overtook van Gisbergen to steal back one point in Stage 1, parlayed strategy to seven more points in Stage 2 and even briefly flirted with a chance to take the lead and win his home race in the final stage. Meanwhile, van Gisbergen dropped to the back of the top-20 and struggled, leaving him vulnerable to significant lost points.

Unfortunately for Preece, the early Stage 3 potential didn’t bear fruit. The Connecticut native struggled to maintain pace over the lengthy final run, fading to ninth by race’s end. Van Gisbergen ultimately fell to 20th, leaving Preece 31 points back and in need of a major point haul with some help to sneak into his first Chase appearance in Daytona.

The owner’s points battle will be much tighter. Without the impact of Preece’s 25-point penalty from Texas, his No. 60 team will enter Daytona just six points back from Trackhouse Racing’s No. 97 team.

Preece will be the only one with any realistic chance of sneaking into the Chase field in the regular season’s final week. His teammate and RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski has a mathematical chance with a 66-point deficit, but would need a win and significant misfortune for Preece and van Gisbergen. Ross Chastain and Erik Jones dropped out of contention altogether after suffering mechanical woes.

While there was notable fluctuation within the standings among Chase contenders, few saw their chances to make the playoff impacted in a major way. Kyle Larson won Stage 1 and clinched his postseason spot. Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Hocevar, William Byron and Daniel Suárez also locked themselves in.

Bubba Wallace wasn’t quite able to clinch his Chase berth outright after falling just short of victory, but has a 75-point advantage and needs just two points next weekend to be safe. Austin Cindric couldn’t replicate his Richmond Raceway top-five, but sits 44 points above the cutline after finishing 12th and generally controls his destiny.

The biggest impacts for those well clear of the cutline came in provisional seeding.

Ryan Blaney’s New Hampshire win all-but guaranteed him the second seed, placing the 2023 Cup champ 44 points clear of Ty Gibbs in third. Gibbs gained 20 points of wiggle room on Reddick, who had to fight to salvage eighth after his early spin.

Christopher Bell scored 43 points after another strong New Hampshire run to move two spots up to fifth, 11 points clear of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe. Larson’s stage win and a top-five helped him leap one point ahead of fellow Hendrick Motorsports star Chase Elliott for seventh.

Logano and Buescher had days to forget, but salvaged 14th and 18th to stay inside of the top-10. Hocevar suffered a pair of accidents outside of his pre-race slide, but remained comfortably 11th after Byron lost a left-rear tire and slammed into the outside wall.

Barring early chaos for Logano, Buescher or Hocevar, Byron will battle for 12th with Daniel Suárez, who sits six points behind him after a quiet 17th-place run, and Wallace, who finds himself another eight points back.

Every Chase contender outside of Hamlin will have something to race for in Daytona. With the format change for 2026, each qualifier above 16th is given bonus points based on their regular season points result before the final 10-race slate.

Hamlin earned the maximum 100 points with his regular season title. Second will start with an extra 75 points and third will get 65. From there, each spot further down the grid comes with a five-point drop.