{"id":128702,"date":"2025-09-08T11:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T11:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128702\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T11:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T11:37:07","slug":"nascar-has-new-points-leader-after-gateway-playoff-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128702\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR has new points leader after Gateway playoff race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"89\">Sunday afternoon&#8217;s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway was the second race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, and it was Joe Gibbs Racing&#8217;s Denny Hamlin who joined teammate Chase Briscoe by punching his ticket to the round of 12 with the victory.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8c\">Briscoe became the first driver to advance to the second round by winning the playoff-opening Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway the previous Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8f\">Because of the points reset (plus playoff points) ahead of the playoffs, Briscoe&#8217;s Darlington win <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/nascar-new-points-leader-southern-500-01k420sm2h57\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shot him to the top of the point standings<\/a> for the first time in his five-year Cup Series career.<\/p>\n<p>Now Hamlin is on top for the first time this year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8l\">Hamlin, who leads Briscoe by five points, is the sixth different driver to lead the <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/nascar-cup-series-standings\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">point standings<\/a> this year. He joins a list that includes Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron (regular season champion), Kyle Larson, and Chase Elliott, as well as Team Penske&#8217;s Ryan Blaney.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8o\">Of course, Byron, who has led the point standings for much of the season, is still on top of <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/full-nascar-cup-series-point-standings-no-playoffs-01k3g0trzbbt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">total points without playoff resets<\/a>, boasting a 42-point lead over Larson, with Hamlin two points behind Larson in third place.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8r\">In the playoffs, Byron finds himself in sixth, 38 points out of the lead, but more significantly, 39 points above the round of 12 cut line.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8u\">Larson is the top driver not yet locked into the round of 12, sitting 49 points ahead of the cutoff.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8x\">Of course, as far as Hamlin &#8220;leading&#8221; the point standings, once a driver wins a playoff race, his point total basically becomes irrelevant for the remainder of the round, given the nature of the format.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"90\">However, the five playoff points scored due to the win are added to that driver&#8217;s point total ahead of all future rounds (other than the Championship 4, where the top finisher of the four remaining title contenders is simply crowned champion).<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"96\">The Bass Pro Shops Night Race is set to be shown live on USA Network from Bristol Motor Speedway beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET this Saturday, September 13. Begin a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fubo.tv\/welcome?irad=343747&amp;irmp=1412332&amp;subId1=FS-2024streaming\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\">free trial of FuboTV now<\/a> and don&#8217;t miss the final race of the opening round of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday afternoon&#8217;s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway was the second race of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-128702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}