South Point 400: Larson and Hamlin Bring the Title Fight to Las Vegas

Kyle Larson brings the championship lead to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but the South Point 400 sends him straight onto ground Denny Hamlin has recently controlled. Sunday's race marks the midpoint of the 10-race Chase, with Larson 26 points ahead of Hamlin and Christopher Bell another 24 behind. The immediate question is whether Kansas was the start of a sustained Hendrick surge or an opening Toyota can close in the desert.

Larson's Kansas victory was more than a late-race rescue. He led 235 of 267 laps and swept the stages, then had to recover the lead from Chase Briscoe in the closing laps. NASCAR's post-Kansas analysis describes a team that has found the intermediate-track speed needed to support its title challenge. Bell remains close enough to complicate that fight: he finished fourth at Las Vegas in March, won the first stage and has five top-five finishes in his last seven starts here.

Hendrick's own advance underlines how consistently Larson has opened the Chase. He is the only driver with four top-five finishes in its first four races, averaging 2.25 across that stretch. His Las Vegas record supplies another reason to take the momentum seriously: 881 laps led and eight stage victories, according to the team's race-week notes. Those numbers do not guarantee Sunday's outcome, but they explain why this is more than a defensive weekend for the points leader.

Hamlin won the 2025 fall race and returned to win at Las Vegas this March. SpeedwayMedia's weekend outlook lists three Cup victories here for both Hamlin and Larson, with Joey Logano ahead of them on four. That history puts several experienced winners directly into the championship conversation rather than leaving Larson with one obvious challenger.

The race is scheduled for 267 laps on the 1.5-mile oval, with stage finishes at laps 80 and 165. There are 102 scheduled laps after the second stage, enough room for the closing segment to develop its own story. Banking of 20 degrees in the corners gives the field a very different assignment from Bristol, even though both races count equally toward the same championship. Sunday's result will be the fifth of ten Chase scores, not an elimination-round reset.

Logano enters fourth in the standings, 67 points behind Larson. In Wednesday's media availability, he pointed to Austin Cindric's Kansas performance and Ryan Blaney's strong final run as evidence that Team Penske has potential on these tracks. His own afternoon was less convincing: he described roughly eighth-place pace before a late tire problem cost positions.

That distinction matters for Las Vegas. Copying a teammate's entire setup is not automatically the answer, Logano explained; the team must identify which changes actually produced the improvement. He said those discussions began immediately after Kansas. For Saturday's practice, his priorities include outright speed, how the car's balance changes over a run and whether he can move around the track. Those are useful questions for the whole field, not just the No. 22: a quick qualifying lap and a car that remains competitive deeper into a run are different tests.

Cup practice is scheduled for Saturday, October 3, at 4:30 p.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 5:35 p.m. ET. The South Point 400 is Sunday, October 4, at 5:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, with radio coverage from PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. That is 4:30 p.m. Central and 2:30 p.m. Pacific for the race.

The verified entry list contains 36 drivers. Practice results and the starting grid are not yet available, so no driver should be described as the pole sitter or as having demonstrated race-week pace. Saturday will supply that evidence before Sunday's title fight resumes.

FantasyJolt's pre-practice projections are available for the full field, alongside separate DraftKings and FanDuel estimates. Hamlin projects for 48.56 FantasyJolt base points at $14, Blaney for 48.23 at $13, Bell for 45.19 at $14 and Ty Gibbs for 45.09 at $12. These are base-point estimates before the A-through-E multipliers, not guaranteed finishing positions or a recommended five-driver lineup.

The early comparison favors examining Blaney and Gibbs alongside the most expensive options rather than assuming salary order is projection order. A FantasyJolt team still requires five drivers within $50, so paying for two premium drivers leaves a meaningful budget decision across the other three slots. Multipliers make the ordering of those five selections important as well as their combined salary.

Treat this as an early planning view. The estimates use historical performance, with local history currently ending August 23; they do not incorporate Kansas results, this weekend's practice or an official starting grid. DraftKings and FanDuel also use their own scoring systems, so their point totals should not be substituted for FantasyJolt's. Reassess the field once Saturday provides actual session information.