The NASCAR season ends this Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a clear favorite and a major drama in the driver lineup. Kyle Larson leads the Cup Series by 67 points and needs just 9 points to lock up his second straight title. Meanwhile, Carson Hocevar will not race in the No. 77 car after his team suspended him for the finale.
Spire Motorsports made the call on Tuesday, citing respect and integrity after Hocevar spun himself to cause a caution at Martinsville. The team said the driver crossed a line that left them no choice but to put someone else behind the wheel. Justin Haley will take the spot for the final race on November 8.
A Two Driver Fight in Trucks and Xfinity
While the Cup Series looks like a coronation, the lower tiers offer tight races that could go down to the wire. The Craftsman Truck Series features a two-man battle between Kaden Honeycutt and Layne Riggs, separated by just 20 points. Honeycutt controls his own destiny if he scores 55 points, while Riggs needs 75 points to overtake the lead.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has five drivers left in the hunt, led by Justin Allgaier with a 22 point cushion. Allgaier needs 54 points to win, but he currently loses the tiebreaker to all four challengers. Jesse Love and Corey Day both need a perfect 76-point day to win the championship regardless of what the others do. Carson Kvapil and Sheldon Creed need help from the drivers ahead of them to stay alive.
Hocevar Owns His Mistake
Hocevar admitted his actions were wrong in a statement released by the team. He wrote that he let down the people who gave him the chance to drive a Cup car. The 23-year-old driver has been one of the most popular figures this season, known for his aggressive style and big smile. But he also had a run-in with Austin Cindric earlier this year and was involved in a brawl at Bristol in September.
Spire Motorsports explained that the decision was not about money or points. “A decision like this has a lot of variables and a cascading effect across an organization like ours,” the team said in a statement, according to WECT. They added that the easy path would have been to let NASCAR handle it, but they believe in respect.
Hocevar accepted the penalty without making excuses. “I crossed the line with my on-track actions and gave [owner] Jeff [Dickerson] and Spire Motorsports no option but to put someone else in the 77 car this weekend,” he wrote. This move shows that teams still hold the line on sportsmanship, even when it costs them a popular driver in the final race.
Larson Needs Only a Point to Win
Kyle Larson enters the weekend with a massive lead that makes him a heavy favorite. Racing Insights lists his odds to win the title at 99.4 percent. Only four times this season has he finished with three or fewer points. In his 12 starts at Homestead, he has never scored fewer than 18 points.
Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin remain mathematically alive, but they face long odds. Bell must win the race and earn at least 14 stage points to have a shot. Hamlin needs to win and earn 17 stage points. Both drivers also need to finish high in Stage 1 to stay in the hunt. Larson has secured every tiebreaker he could need to win the title.
The championship race takes place on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC. Practice sessions start on Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET, with qualifying on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET. Fans can watch the action unfold as NASCAR crowns its 2026 champions for all three national series.