William Byron won the NASCAR penultimate race at Martinsville, leading 362 of 500 laps to secure his first victory of the 2026 season and maintain his six-year winning streak. Byron's championship hopes had been mathematically eliminated weeks earlier, but Hendrick Motorsports delivered the win anyway.
Byron swept both stages and led by over 300 laps compared to the next driver. He held off his Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott in the final stage. Elliott finished second, followed by Ty Gibbs and Josh Berry. Shane van Gisbergen placed fifth with what he called his best oval finish.
Kyle Larson, Byron's Hendrick teammate who entered as the championship leader, fell off the lead lap after poor strategy decisions in the first stage. He finished outside the points and failed to score any stage points. Denny Hamlin, who entered second in the standings, also fell victim to strategy errors and finished sixth.
The championship picture remained tight heading into Homestead. Larson leads by 70 points over Hamlin and 67 over Bell, who finished tenth. Larson said he wants to score stage points early then race aggressively for the win in the finale.
"I mean, it all could have been a lot worse tonight," Larson said. "Go to Homestead next week with a comfortable gap, but still not locked up. So we'd love to get a couple of good first stages and then pound it in the third stage."
Byron noted the difficulty of managing tires through traffic. "Chase is so good at managing his tires," he said. "I felt like I was going to have to do a really good job just to keep my tires happy through lap traffic."