DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers have completed the 24 races that make up the regular season, and now the Chase field is complete.
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Twelve drivers are ready to to race for a championship, starting next weekend at Darlington Raceway.
The Chase field features No. 1 seed Justin Allgaier, who leads the series with six wins. It also features Carson Kvapil, Sheldon Creed, Jesse Love, Corey Day, Brandon Jones, Austin Hill, Sammy Smith, Parker Retzlaff, Rajah Caruth, Sam Mayer, and Taylor Gray.
Eight of these drivers entered the regular-season finale at Daytona with secure spots in the Chase field. Allgaier, Kvapil, Creed, Love, Day, Jones, Hill, and Smith didn't have to stress about crashing and missing out on a chance to pursue a championship. Though Smith still ended the night in the garage after an incident in stage 2.
The remaining four spots remained very much up for grabs as the drivers prepared to complete 100 laps around the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Retzlaff had a 46-point cushion while Mayer had a 19-point cushion. William Sawalich and Brent Crews, the other two drivers above the cutline, only had a one-point advantage over Gray. This quickly evaporated due to two separate incidents in the first two stages.
TROUBLE FOR TWO CHASE CONTENDERS! 😱@97patrickstar goes around, and collects @sam_mayer_ and @Brentcrews.
Stage 1 is claimed by @_AustinHill. pic.twitter.com/Kx2VEZtTnC
— NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (@NASCAROReillyAP) August 29, 2026
The first crash occurred with three laps remaining in stage 1, which immediately ended the stage due to a recent rule change. Patrick Staropoli spun and sparked an incident that damaged the cars of Sawalich, Mayer, Crews, and Daniel Dye.
Crews headed to the garage for repairs, and he fell 31 laps behind the leaders. This dropped him below the cutline. Mayer continued with the race in a damaged car, so all he could do was just ride around in the pack and hope that he didn't fall victim to another incident
"My team probably helped me the most just by not telling me everything," Mayer told FanBuzz. "Like they answered my questions when I asked, but they just let me kind of go out and do my thing and told me what the best situation was for us.
"But I mean, the bummer part about this whole thing is this Haas Factory Team 41 had a lot of speed today, and we really never had the opportunity outside of stage 1 to really show that."
The bigger incident, which eliminated Sawalich from Chase contention, occurred with just over 10 laps remaining in stage 2. Smith spun into the outside wall and sparked a crash that collected Sawalich and Day.
ANOTHER DRIVER ON THE BUBBLE CRASHES!@WilliamSawalich suffers heavy damage after @sammysmithSS got turned into the pack. pic.twitter.com/R3sE87rM9P
— NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (@NASCAROReillyAP) August 29, 2026
The hard incident destroyed the radiator in Sawalich's Toyota, so he could not continue in the race. He saw his championship dreams fade away due to an incident out of his control.
But while these bubble drivers dealt with major issues at Daytona International Speedway, another did everything that he needed to lock up his spot in the field.
Caruth won the pole for the Friday night race. He then locked up nine points in stage 1 and then 10 more in stage 2. This took him from 15 below the cutline and 14th place to 35 points above the cutline.
Caruth mounted a major comeback early and set himself up to pursue a championship after he spent the regular season splitting time between JR Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing.
More importantly, he created enough of a cushion during the race that he essentially locked himself into the Chase before a push from Allgaier with three laps to go sent him into the wall.
RAJAH CRASHES! 😱
A heartbreaking spin and collision with the wall for @rajahcaruth_, who is battling to make The Chase. pic.twitter.com/7jjaIMfhwi
— NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (@NASCAROReillyAP) August 29, 2026
"We were in a great spot, us three, and I wanted to obviously go and race for my first win," Caruth said after a meeting with Allgaier and team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. "But also realizing the situation, right, and we were in a great spot with how fast our cars were.
"Just like it's been for a lot of this year for me, just knowing the time and place to do things and the awareness. So lessons learned, but bummed about the end. But great, great lessons learned and things I can apply."
Retzlaff and Gray didn't have the points-heavy performances as Caruth, but they did enough to lock up spots in the Chase.
They just delivered a quiet performance and avoided the incidents that collected other drivers. This helped Retzlaff lock up his spot during stage 2, and it helped Gray remain ahead of Sawalich and Crews.
"The beginning of the race, it was super important that we missed those two wrecks," Gray told FanBuzz. "It honestly propelled us into a good spot to where we were able to play the safe route and just kind of ride around in the back to be able to fight another day and go to Darlington and fight within the top 12 in points.
"So, unfortunate. I hate to close races out like that, but the big picture was a bit brighter than being able to go run really good tonight and maybe getting caught up in a wreck there in those last green-white checkereds."
