NASCAR Grind: Five Drivers Fight for Title With Three Races Left

Monday Morning Pit-Stop arrives as your weekly NASCAR column on OutKick.com and Fox News Digital. If you want a standard recap, head over to insufferable ESPN... assuming they still know what NASCAR is about.

And then, there were three.

That is right. Three races remain in the 2026 season. I usually drop the line about how it feels like we just finished the Daytona 500, but that doesn't hold water this year. This is the longest season across all of sports. It is a grind. Name another sport that starts its calendar in February and ends after Halloween. You cannot. That schedule does not exist anywhere else.

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So yes, it is a grind. These guys are grinding right now. They have been doing so for eight months straight, and we only have three races left to crown a champion.

Following the race in Phoenix, five drivers hold a legitimate shot at the title: Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney. None of those men won yesterday, by the way.

Nope. Tyler Reddick took victory yesterday at Phoenix for the first time since Kansas... back in April. As I stated earlier, there is a point to all of this! The NASCAR Cup Series season stands as the longest in all of sports. I bet you forgot that Tyler Reddick started the year with three straight wins, didn't you?

Sunday's return to Victory Lane was probably too little, too late regarding a title run, but it does give him a puncher's chance. We will see what happens next.

Speaking of punching... wait until you see what Zane Smith did to Carson Hocevar after the race finished. Do these two HATE each other, or is there simply no reason left?

Also, I have seen many folks comparing modern college football to peak NASCAR when it comes to recent decisions about playoff expansion. Some believe college football is following the same ill-fated path NASCAR took way back in the day. Honestly, that is not the worst comparison available. We will dive into this further later.

Four tires, enough fuel to get us through three more races, and maybe a neck brace for Carson Hocevar... Monday Morning Pit-Stop, the 'Wreckers After Checkers' edition, is LIVE!

Zane Smith says hello to Carson!

Let's spin the wheel and get this class started with beef. We love beef around here. It keeps me in a job, and it keeps this column an award-winner... allegedly.

All the beef this season has revolved around Carson Hocevar. Pretty much all of it. If there has been an issue, Carson was somehow involved.

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Whether it was Ryan Blaney attacking him last month at Bristol or Brad Keselowski vowing to wreck him after Darlington, it has been the Garage versus Carson in 2026. Hell, I am not sure he even has one single ally in the entire garage. Not one.

Least of all, by the way, is Zane Smith.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, hates Carson more than Zane Smith:

This rivalry goes back a while.

Lordy. You do not see that often, do you? Zane hits the gas and absolutely plows into Carson's backside (hey now!)... and it was all for literally no reason at all. Carson, as you can see in the first video clip, did nothing wrong. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

Ross Chastain got into Hocevar, which sent Hocevar up the track into Zane Smith. Clear as day.

"I don't give a f–k," Smith said when he was told that info after the post-race fender-bender.

Alllllll righty then! Clearly, this had nothing to do with the contact during the race, and everything to do with Zane Smith simply looking for a reason to start a fight with a driver he admittedly despises.

And I mean DESPISES.

Take a look at this little clip from last summer:

"I just don't like him as a human," is such a simple insult. Simple, and hilarious. You have to respect that, despite who you root for on the track. Calling him a "goon" was also funny.

I may not agree with what Zane did yesterday, but I do think he's funny.

I also want to give a big shout-out to his wife, OutKick OG McCall Gaulding. She has made no secret about her disdain for Carson Hocevar and has been incredibly open about it. I don't plan on getting into the specifics right now, but if you are interested, I touched on this last month after the Bristol events.

What matters more to me is that McCall also really excels at pumping out Instagram content... like this post from last week where the second slide features McCall wearing what appears to be only a T-shirt featuring her and Zane giving the double-bird.

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Amazing. McCall has been an OutKick legend for years now, way before she became this Instagram superstar. We know how to spot talent around here, and we identified McCall early. Clearly, she's still got the fastball here in 2026. Keep your head on a swivel, Carson!

OK, let's put the pedal to the floor and rapid-fire this third-Monday-of-October in a big Talladega week. First up? Yes, Tyler Reddick won yesterday for the first time in months. Yes, it was a season-saving win given it keeps him in the championship discussion. No, it probably won't be enough ... But never say never: There you have it. The standings with three races to go, including this weekend's Big One in Talladega. Anything can, and will, happen at 'Dega.

What happens if Larson and Bell, Briscoe and Hamlin are all caught up in a wreck early in the race? It sort of blows the door wide open for anyone behind them, right? Again, it's unlikely, but not completely out of the question. This is always my favorite race of the season. I expect this weekend to be no different.

Next? On the way out, I'd like to give everyone in class some homework for the week, and it revolves around this now-viral X post in the wake of college football's decision to move to a 24-team playoff: NASCAR went from the second most watched sport to nothing by implementing postseason gimmicks and chasing a mainstream audience. They tried to undo it but they had their lowest ratings ever for the 2025 title race. I never thought we'd see another sport be so shortsighted. Thoughts? First impressions?

I don't think NASCAR's massive ratings decline is because of the implementation of a playoff (The Chase) back in 2004. I don't. Ratings were just fine in '04, '05, '06 and '07. I think NASCAR had a lot working against them, a lot of it self-inflicted, and some of it not.

- The Car of Tomorrow was a disaster of epic proportions. People HATED it, and some never came back. This car ain't much better, by the way. - The schedule became stale, and NASCAR waited a long time to ever even tweak it. - TV ratings in general started plummeting across the board over the decades. It was a slow decline, and then a massive one, and then NASCAR kinda-sorta steadied the ship before things started dipping again over the past two seasons. - Here's the list of NASCAR drivers to retire over the last 15 years: Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. I'd keep going, but do I really need to? LOOK at those names. - The virtue-signaling from the insufferable COVID summer of 2020 turned a lot of people off, rightfully so. The "noose" incident at Talladega that same year was an unfathomable error on NASCAR's part, and one they STILL won't talk about. Folks don't forget crap like that, and they shouldn't. - College football and the NFL are at absolute peak popularities right now. They rule all. NASCAR goes directly against both for the final two months of its season, which is insanely stupid. I've begged them to end the season on Labor Day weekend. They refuse to listen (dummies!).

Those are just a couple things that come to mind, by the way. I'm sure y'all have more. As always, let me know! [email protected]. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP See ya at 'Dega.