Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, TN — September 19, 2026
Rain washed out qualifying for the NASCAR Craftsman and O’Reilly Series races at Bristol Motor Speedway. However, both races were run to completion, and the results shuffled the Chase standings.
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
For Jake Garcia, it was a case of stealing thunder. For the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase drivers, it was blunder after blunder. Driving the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150, Garcia took control in the third stage of Thursday night’s UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway and went on to win for the first time in his 94th start.
In the Chase opener for the series, Garcia led three times for 104 laps. On Lap 230 of 250, he wrested the lead from Stewart Friesen with an inside pass and held it the rest of the way. Garcia took the checkered flag 1.305 seconds ahead of Bayley Currey, who passed Friesen for the runner-up spot on Lap 247.
“I’m really proud of all my guys,” said Garcia, who started 12th on metrics per the rule book. “They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today (in practice), but qualifying got rained out, so we got a good strategy that helped us come from the back, get some track position… and just kind of took off from there.”
Garcia ended a drought for ThorSport dating to Ty Majeski’s victory in the 2024 Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway, but it was hardly clear sailing to the finish. Garcia lost the lead to Friesen on a Lap 220 restart and spent the next 10 laps trying to regain it.
“Had some adversity on that last restart, but fortunately the truck was fast enough to overcome that,” Garcia said. “ThorSport Racing’s a really strong team, especially historically, so just proud of all my guys on the 98 team to be able to end that winless streak.”
Currey finished second in his first Truck Series start of the season. With Friesen third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth—at age 16 the youngest driver in series history to score a top five—no Chase driver finished better than sixth (Giovanni Ruggiero).
“I’ve still got it, I guess,” said Currey, who was driving the No. 5 TRICON Garage entry. “Just huge, huge thank you to everyone at TRICON, – just a great opportunity and glad we were able to make the most of it.
“I thought I was going to fumble it there at the end, but we were able to fight there and bring it home P2. Obviously wanted to win, but coming off the couch, I’m all right with it.”
In fact, the top four seeds in the Chase all experienced uncharacteristic difficulty. Top-seeded Layne Riggs started from the pole and won the first two stages wire-to-wire, leading the first 135 laps.
But Riggs was sixth out of the pits for the start of the final stage, and on Lap 156, he radioed to his crew that his No. 34 Front Row Racing Ford had a loose right rear wheel. Riggs pitted for four tires on Lap 161 but lost two laps to the leaders and never recovered.
After contact with the damaged No. 1 car of Nick Leitz late in the race, Riggs was forced to pit road again and finished 32nd, 16 laps down.
The two stage wins proved to be a godsend for Riggs, who retained the Chase lead by three points over Kaden Honeycutt. The driver of the No. 11 Toyota finished eighth despite an unscheduled pit stop with a loose wheel under caution late in the race.
“There was a lot of fighting tonight,” Riggs said. “I’m just thankful that we had a fast enough truck that we won the first two stages and got some points, but we just came down pit road and had an absolute catastrophe of a stop.
“I don’t understand how we were that slow on the stop, and we didn’t get the wheels tight… I’m very frustrated. I feel like we had the truck to beat again.”
Third-seeded Chandler Smith suffered both a speeding penalty at the Stage 2 break and a tire losing air late in the final run. Smith finished 24th and leaves Bristol third in the standings, 30 points behind Riggs.
The Chevrolet of fourth-seeded Christian Eckes suffered early front-end damage and finished 30th. Eckes dropped four spots to eighth in the Chase standings, 58 points out of the lead.
Behind Ruggiero, William Sawalich, Honeycutt, Majeski and Grant Enfinger completed the top 10.
Results of the UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase Standings After Race #1 at Bristol Motor Speedway
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Like a stealth bomber, Sheldon Creed waited until the last minute to make his move. Thanks to an astute call from crew chief Jonathan Toney, Creed had new tires for an overtime restart on Lap 304, and he used them to full advantage in winning Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The victory, Creed’s second in three Chase races, left the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team on top of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series postseason standings, 11 points ahead of top-seeded Justin Allgaier in second.
But the result left Allgaier angry after finishing fourth and left Jesse Love disconsolate and apologetic after running Allgaier into the outside wall after a Lap 286 restart.
Benefitting from a caution with three laps left in regulation, Creed lined up in the inside lane beside race leader William Sawalich on Lap 304. Getting an excellent launch on his new tires—after Toney had called him into the pits for fresh rubber on Lap 280—Creed got a great start and seized the lead.
Sawalich moved to the top of the track in an attempt to counter, but Creed prevailed, beating Sawalich to the finish line by 0.253 second at the end of the two-lap overtime. Creed, who picked up his third victory of the season and third of his career, was credited with leading only the final three laps.
“Just a great call by my crew chief and engineer to put tires on,” said Creed, who lined up eighth for the penultimate restart on Lap 286 and quickly advanced to second. “Great pit stop by my guys to get me out first and be the first one on tires.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really good all night with the balance of our car. Hats off to these guys. They just never give up. I just think the (overtime) restart there, I tried to time the 18 (Sawalich) well. With a lot newer tires, it was just easier for me to get going. I got clear and I was just kind of watching up top.”
Creed has finished first, second and first in the three Chase races, as the O’Reilly Series faces a week off before resuming in the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Oct. 3.
Allgaier was the leader for the Lap 286 restart, but in a bid for the lead, Love ran the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet into the outside wall shortly after the race went green. As soon as the race ended, with Allgaier in fourth and Love a disappointing 17th, Allgaier strode to Love’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing car to express his dissatisfaction.
“(I was) just questioning why,” said Allgaier, who won the first stage despite creasing the nose of his race car during contact with the back bumper of Nick Sanchez in heavy traffic. “The race car we had was so good tonight. I’m just disappointed at coming out of here the way we did.”
Love, the defending series champion, was contrite and upset over a decision that cost both him and Allgaier the chance for a victory.
“Honestly, I got caught up in the moment racing with him,” said Love, who is fourth in the Chase standings, 41 points behind Creed. “I knew on the last restart (Lap 286), I had to get a good launch, and I was able to accomplish that. I came off (Turn) 4, we were side-by-side, and I needed to run my best corner, and instead I got caught up with racing him, and in turn that led me down a path to make an enemy I needed not to make.
“I made a terrible decision that took ourselves out of contention to win.”
Rookie Brent Crews ran third, with Corey Day securing the fifth spot. Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Parker Retzlaff, Dean Thompson and Sammy Smith completed the top 10.
Carson Kvapil led a race-high 156 laps but pitted with smoke trailing from the back of his No. 1 JR Motorsports entry with 44 laps left. Kvapil finished 24th, four laps down, but held the third position in the standings, 37 points behind Creed.
Love led 80 laps before the run-in with Allgaier, who was out front for 49 circuits. The only other drivers to lead laps were Sawalich with 13—interrupted by the Lap 297 caution that changed the course of the race after Ryan Sieg slammed the outside wall in close quarters with Day and Retzlaff—and Creed with three.
Results of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase Race 3 from Bristol Motor Speedway
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase Standings
