NASCAR regular-season finale at Daytona: Where to watch, live stream, lineup, race preview, pick to win

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When the green flag fell in the Daytona 500 in February, many miles and a great deal of time awaited the Cup Series field, with each driver and team knowing there were 26 races ahead to try and win a race and give themselves an opportunity to race for the Cup championship. 25 races later, the Cup Series returns to Daytona for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 — and for many, only 400 miles are left to try and make their seasons amount to something.

Entering Saturday night’s regular-season finale, 14 drivers have clinched a spot in the playoffs, leaving two spots on the 16-driver playoff grid still up for grabs. Those spots are currently held by Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman, but their hold on a postseason spot is tenuous at best. One week ago, Austin Dillon’s win at Richmond bumped the cut line down further, sending Chris Buescher from the plus side of the cut line to must win territory in Daytona. And with the great equalizer of the draft at hand — and Harrison Burton’s upset victory a year ago as precedent — nearly anyone in the field can completely change their season at the end of Daytona’s annual summertime classic.

2026 NASCAR schedule: League announces major additions with San Diego, North Wilkesboro and Chicagoland

Steven Taranto

Where to watch the Coke Zero Sugar 400

When: Saturday, Aug. 23, 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: Daytona International Speedway — Daytona Beach, Fla.
TV: NBC
Stream: fubo (Start watching, save $20!)

NASCAR playoff clinching scenarios

Tyler Reddick can clinch a playoff spot by winning the Coke Zero Sugar 400, or if there is no new winner in Saturday night’s race. In the event that there is a new winner from below the cut line, Reddick will clinch with 28 points.

Alex Bowman can clinch a playoff spot by winning the Coke Zero Sugar 400, or if there is no new winner in Saturday night’s race. In the event that there is a new winner from below the cut line, Bowman can only clinch with help — specifically, by surpassing Tyler Reddick in the regular-season standings.

The following drivers cannot earn a playoff spot on points and must win the Coke Zero Sugar 400 to make the playoffs:

#4 – Noah Gragson
#6 – Brad Keselowski
#7 – Justin Haley
#8 – Kyle Busch
#10 – Ty Dillon
#16 – A.J. Allmendinger
#17 – Chris Buescher
#34 – Todd Gilliland
#35 – Riley Herbst (R)
#38 – Zane Smith
#41 – Cole Custer
#42 – John Hunter Nemechek
#43 – Erik Jones
#47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
#51 – Cody Ware
#54 – Ty Gibbs
#60 – Ryan Preece
#71 – Michael McDowell
#77 – Carson Hocevar
#99 – Daniel Suarez

NASCAR news of the week

• Speaking to CBS Sports in Nashville earlier this week, Chase Elliott shared that Kyle Busch reached out to apologize over inadvertently spinning and crashing Elliott last week at Richmond after he had driven through a multi-car crash in Turns 3 and 4. Elliott said he appreciated Busch reaching out, and knew the incident had been an honest mistake on his part as he had been getting his bearings back after being collected in the multi-car wreck.

  “I was never mad at him. I knew it was a mistake right when I saw it,” Elliott said. “… Sometimes it’s just very difficult to regain that whole picture really fast like that. There was a lot going on and I totally get it.” 

• While Elliott was on a Media Tour in Nashville to promote the upcoming Bristol Night Race, the Nashville Banner reports that Speedway Motorsports is near a deal with the Metro Board of Fair Commissioners to overhaul the historic Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and revitalize it for NASCAR’s national series. While efforts to revitalize the Fairgrounds Speedway have proven difficult to advance, Metro Board chair Jasper Hendricks shared that the proposed deal differs from an earlier one in that it involves no financial obligation from the city.
• Trackhouse Racing has made changes to its competition department, confirming to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports that competition director Tony Lunders is no longer with the organization. Lunders will be replaced by Todd Meredith, who was hired in July as the team’s new president of racing operations. Despite five wins this season, Trackhouse’s three teams have struggled with consistency, particularly when it comes to single-car speed in qualifying.
• ThorSport Racing has announced that three-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Matt Crafton will retire from full-time racing at the end of the 2025 season, ending a career that has seen him compete in the Truck Series for a quarter century — virtually all of which came as the driver of ThorSport’s No. 88. Crafton will step away after competing in Trucks full-time from 2001 to 2025, and 2024 series champion Ty Majeski will take over Crafton’s No. 88 beginning in 2026.

  Crafton is the Truck Series’ all-time leader in multiple statistical categories, in part due to his remarkable longevity. As of the start of the playoffs, the 2013, 2014 and 2019 Truck champion has 15 career wins, 135 top fives, 331 top 10s, 16 poles and a career average finish of 11.8.

• NASCAR’s secondary series will have a new title sponsor in 2026 and beyond, as NASCAR announced this week that O’Reilly Auto Parts will assume the role that belonged to Xfinity for the past 11 years. The Xfinity Series will be known as the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series beginning in 2026, becoming the fourth title sponsor of the series following Busch Beer (1982-2007), Nationwide (2008-2014) and Xfinity (2015-2025).
• NASCAR officials are openly discussing a potential increase on the amount of Xfinity and Truck Series race that full-time Cup Series drivers can run, opening the door for an increase in Cup driver moonlighting in NASCAR’s other national touring series. NASCAR has limited Cup driver participation in their feeder series over the last decade due to concerns about competitive balance, impact on talent development and entertainment value, limiting drivers with more than three years of Cup experience to five Xfinity races and five Truck races in a season.
• NASCAR has announced the 2026 schedules for each of their national touring series, including the full Cup Series schedule. In addition to a previously announced street race at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, the other major changes to next year’s Cup schedule include the readdition of North Wilkesboro and Chicagoland as points races after long absences, the return of Homestead-Miami as the Cup championship race, and the All-Star Race’s move to Dover Motor Speedway.
• NASCAR Xfinity Series star Connor Zilisch has been medically cleared to return to racing after surgery to repair a broken collarbone suffered in a Victory Lane fall at Watkins Glen, and he will start Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Daytona without having missed a single race in the series. Zilisch, who is competing for the regular-season championship, will have Parker Kligerman on standby as a relief driver if necessary.
• Humpy Wheeler, one of NASCAR’s most legendary promoters and the longtime Charlotte Motor Speedway president and general manager, died Wednesday of natural causes at the age of 86. Wheeler, whose various innovations and showman’s approach to promoting races at Charlotte, had come to be known as the “P.T. Barnum of motorsports” and is credited with many contributions to the sport and the elevation of both its regional and national profile. In May, Wheeler had been named to the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2026 as the recipient of the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR.

Humpy Wheeler, NASCAR Hall of Famer and longtime president of Charlotte Motor Speedway, dies at 86

Steven Taranto

Pick to Win

Christopher Bell (+2000) — Consistency at Daytona is hard to come by in this day and age, but Christopher Bell seems to have the place figured out. Bell had finished third in three of his last four Daytona starts entering this year’s Daytona 500, a race in which he was racing for the lead and the win with five laps to go, only to get turned into the wall and crashed by a bad bump draft.

Bell has yet to win an official race on a superspeedway in his career, but he does have a win in his Duel race prior to the Daytona 500 in 2024. It feels like Bell should eventually break through at this track as long as he continues to put himself in position to win late in the going.

This news was originally published on this post .

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