NASCAR
Who Can Make a Rally in the O’Reilly Series Case?
12 drivers enter the nine-week Chase for the O’Reilly Series championship, but only one will be crowned 2026 champion. With a dozen suitors going for this prized crown, more than a few underdogs exist who hope to make waves. Here is the bottom half of Saturday’s Chase grid, and their title chances ahead starting at Darlington Raceway. Veterans, rookies, winners, and newbies alike are each represented here. All of them own similar championship aspirations against their long odds.
Corey Day – 2,045 points
Hendrick Motorsports has not ran a full-time O’Reilly Series team in two decades. Rookie Corey Day has put the No. 17 Chevrolet in victory lane twice this year. The young protégé now enters The Chase at the seventh seed. Still very much in his formative early days of pavement racing, the dirt track star has learned a lot this year alone. Having perhaps NASCAR’s deepest wealth of knowledge in his team, this maiden Chase run will see Day shoot for the stars.
“My team is capable of [wins] and more to tell you the truth,” Days said. “So no, I wouldn’t say I’m surprised at it. That was the goal was to have multiple wins and be in The Chase and have a consistent season. And I feel like we’ve done that. It’s been a kind of a rough summer to tell you the truth. But I know that we can get a turnaround here for sure.”
“I think just going to all these different racetracks week after week has been tough. We go to superspeedways and then you go to a mile-and-a-half, then a short track, then a road course. It’s hard to get in the swing of just working on one track. The summer was nice to have two road courses back-to-back. I feel like I was able to progress on those because of that. So I’m excited though for The Chase. I feel like we get some pretty similar tracks back-to-back that I’ll be able to hopefully learn a lot on.”
“The biggest thing for me is just kind of how the races play out. How to how to not get myself in trouble or or do too much early in a race. I feel like I struggled with that to start just with my sprint car background. I’m used to going 100% from the drop of the green flag. And you don’t necessarily have to do that in these cars. So, that’s been a big learning thing for me.”
As he said above, Day lacks experience on all nine tracks ahead with minimal races under his belt. This was not a detriment to Day earlier this season though. Driver 17 won his debut races at both Talladega and Dover. The 20-year-old rookie is still in his first full year of pavement racing. Despite this, Day still has a chance at NASCAR’s second-highest championship. The only multi-race winner on this list, Day expects to put the 17 closer to the top of the charts in the next nine weeks.
Corey Day’s No. 17 HendrickCars.Com Chevrolet Camaro on the grid at Darlington Raceway before the Sport Clips/VFW Help a Hero 200 on Saturday, March 21, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
Sammy Smith – 2,040 points
Ranked third of four JR Motorsports cars in the O’Reilly Chase is Sammy Smith. Driver No. 8 has yet to win this season, but has been close on multiple occasions. The 8’s best result to date was a pair of third-place results, slotting him as the eighth Chase seed. Lurking in the top-10 on most of his flawless days this year, Smith hopes to cap off his time in the No. 8 with a bang.
“My time with JRM has been great,” Smith said. “I appreciate everyone over the last three years at JRM, just whoever it has been – my crew chief, team members, personnel that have helped me and supported me throughout my time there. And obviously looking forward to the next chapter of my career, but looking forward to finishing out the year strong. I believe we can go win a few more races. Obviously we haven’t won yet this year. But striving for that first win and trying to go chase a championship is our goal.”
“I think [our ceiling] is high. I don’t think we’ve really shown our potential and that’s been frustrating. But also at the same time going into The chase, I feel like we can really go out and shine. So I think for us, this system has fitted me better that it seems like the last four years. I feel like every year in the the Playoff format, I’ve really ranked around the same area. We seemed to find ourselves right there one or two spots out of the final four every year. So, I believe we’ve got really nothing to lose. We’re eighth in points. I need stage points and I need to win races. So that’s really my mindset.”
Smith has not seen a top-10 in his last six starts, showing a bit of a summer slump for the 8. 10 top-10s on the year and past experience on all of the tracks ahead should benefit the Iowa native. Smith should also be assisted by lights-out JRM speed that’s been in near-weekly contention all year. Eighth is a very fitting place for the 8 to start out The Chase, but Smith may just turn heads over these nine weeks.
Sammy Smith’s No. 8 Pilot Chevrolet Camaro on the grid at Daytona International Speedway before the Winn Dixie 250 on Friday, August 28, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
Parker Retzlaff – 2,035 points
The little engine that could, Parker Retzlaff and Viking Motorsports are Chase racing. This pairing did beat out some much larger teams in making their first postseason showing. The No. 99 Chevrolet is ranked ninth on the grid, and hopes to continue moving goalposts for new expectations. Starting out surrounded by title-contending teams, the underdog run could continue over the coming weeks.
“I think we had a couple really good weeks to kind of build a buffer again,” Retzlaff said. “At one point during the season, we got to 17 above the cut line. I think that was the closest we were past the first five weeks or whatever. Being there just knowing and having the guys with the confidence that we could do it helped every week of just kind of not doing anything extreme. I feel like in years past I have let myself get on that side of it of pushing really hard to try and make up for something. You end up putting yourself in a worse position. This year, I think it’s just having people behind me to keep me kind of calm and just kind of grow a little bit as a driver helped a little bit of not having that happen.”
“I think the ceiling is a lot higher than where we’re at right now. We just need to work on the little stuff throughout the year. I think that that’s where all the big teams kind of push themselves a little bit ahead, all the little stuff that you can do, and we just got to keep building there. It’s only the second year of Viking Motorsports being in business, and overall just there’s still a lot of stuff that we can probably clean up and make a little bit better. Overall next year we can try and put two cars in The Chase and just keep getting better.”
Maybe the easiest team to root for in any NASCAR Chase, Retzlaff and Viking are certainly playing with house money among the big dogs. The Cinderella Chase run could outlast many people’s expectations. Retzlaff has three top-10s in four drafting races this year, so Talladega is definitely circled for this crew.
Parker Retzlaff’s No. 99 South Carolina Outcast Chevrolet Camaro on the grid at Darlington Raceway before the Sport Clips/VFW Help a Hero 200 on Saturday, March 21, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
Sam Mayer – 2,030 points
A past O’Reilly Series championship contender, Sam Mayer’s 2026 has been marred by bad luck. Six DNFs are an unfortunate record among all O’Reilly Chase contenders. This dismal stat plummets Mayer’s average finish to 17.5. The Haas Factory Team No. 41 does have five top-fives and 10 top-10s, though, capped off with two third-place runs. If Mayer can stay out of trouble, this car is capable of top-10s if not better. Mayer knows that clean races can lead to fruitful days ahead.
“The biggest thing is obviously execution,” Mayer said. “There’s been a couple things that maybe have been out of our hands. But there has been a couple things that we almost did to ourselves too. For us, it’s just execute. We got to have nine perfect races to make it even close to having a championship run. If we want to go out there and compete for a championship, the time is now to execute.”
Mayer did see four top-10s in a five-race stretch over the summer, but has no result better than 13th since then. This team is in need of a major points day or two if they even want an outside shot at the title, starting out 10th on the grid. Mayer has shown the ability to win clutch races before in the Playoffs, so all hope is not yet lost for this Haas team.
Sam Mayer’s No. 41 Audibel Chevrolet Camaro on the grid at Darlington Raceway before the Sport Clips/VFW Help a Hero 200 on Saturday, March 21, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
Taylor Gray – 2,025 points
Carrying the flag in Daytona for Joe Gibbs Racing was Taylor Gray, who came out on top after a tight points battle with two teammates. The No. 54 is now in his second-straight O’Reilly Series postseason, looking to better last year’s seventh-place points finish. Gray knows what he has to do over the next nine weeks to be positioned for a deep title run.
“I think consistency, right,” Gray said. “Going and getting stage points is going to be key, but winning races is going to be really important as well. Being the 11 seed, it’s kind of gotten us in a spot where we don’t really have anything to lose, right? So what, are we going to lose one spot in The Chase? So, just got to go fight every weekend as hard as we can, right? And keep doing what we’ve been doing, bringing speed to the racetrack and executing races.”
“I saw some stat last week, I’ve had issues in 17 or 18 races in the regular season. To be able to still go into Daytona to have a fighting chance at a Chase spot, I feel like shows how much speed we do have. But to your point, we have to execute races. We need to go score stage points, which we haven’t done a good enough job at doing that this year. But really need to just focus on winning races.”
Taylor Gray and Toyota No. 54 did have one flawless race earlier this year at Kansas, showing elite pace on an intermediate oval. The coming Chase run features three 1.5-mile tracks, plus Martinsville where Gray won last year. Definitely starting out on his back foot, Gray hopes to cut down this points deficit early to deliver Joe Gibbs Racing another title-worthy performance.
Taylor Gray’s No. 54 Operation 300 Toyota Supra on the grid at Darlington Raceway before the Sport Clips/VFW Help a Hero 200 on Saturday, March 21, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
Rajah Caruth – 2,020 points
The last man in the 2026 O’Reilly Series Chase, Rajah Caruth saw highs and lows aplenty last week in Daytona. JR Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevrolet started on pole, led laps, and was running second with three laps left. What appeared to be a stress-free ride into The Chase quickly hit a hurdle, however, when Caruth spun off the bumper of Justin Allgaier. Despite finishing 32nd, Caruth did earn just enough points to make the cut as the 12th seed.
“I’m ready to rip, I’m ready to rip,” Caruth said. “I think the great thing about when I was going back and forth between JRM and the 32 this year is that I was still doing sim for the 88. So I had an understanding for kind of what they were going to the racetrack with. With that being said, it’s not like a huge shock for going to these tracks for the first time in the 88. I had that time with them earlier in the year kind of helping with whatever options they brought to the racetrack. So it’s a clean slate for sure, but I’m excited for this opportunity, thankful to make it. I mean, a lot of people helped me make The Chase on the driver standings. There’s probably some times this year where I threw away 15 points or five points here, seven points there, 12 points another time, but glad it worked out. Now we can go chase some greatness.”
“The ceiling is whatever you make it, man. We’re racing for the Owners’ Title too, right? The 88 is third in Owners’ Points. That’s an important thing to remember. But compared to the format in previous years, sure winning is great, but the valleys are way more hurtful than they were before. So it’s going to be important where if you’re having a seventh-place day to not make it a 12th or 15th or 20th-place day. And then also to not throw away a second or third trying to get a win and then ending up outside of the top-10. It’s going to be even more important for that in The Chase. I really feel good about our chances. Not only will our cars be fast, but I’m confident in myself and the lessons I’ve learned early this year and ready to put it all to to the test.”
Caruth has the steepest path of anyone ahead in the O’Reilly Series Chase, but improvement could come. The next nine weeks of 2026 could see Caruth turn more heads with a few breakout runs, and possibly contend for a maiden O’Reilly win. The No. 88 has laps led in all five drafting races this season, so Talladega this fall could be a banner day ahead for the 24-year-old.
Rajah Caruth’s No. 88 HendrickCars.Com Chevrolet Camaro on the grid at Daytona International Speedway before the Winn Dixie 250 on Friday, August 28, 2026. Photo Credit: Peter Stratta/TSJSports
These six drivers all admittedly have long shots ahead at contending for the 2026 O’Reilly Series title. Nine weeks are plenty of time for a lot of moving and shaking to take place, however. New championship threats could likewise emerge in this span. The race is on starting at Darlington, where the Fleetio 200 will be the first step on the championship path. Chase race one goes green Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Written by Peter Stratta
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