Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford, and crew celebrate in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway – Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
by NASCAR.com staff
Ryan Blaney zoomed to victory in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event, rallying from a sluggish pit stop at the Stage 2 break to win his second straight race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford led 115 of the 301 laps in the Dollar Tree 301. His third win of the season was his second at the 1.058-mile Granite State oval and the 20th of his Cup Series career.
Bubba Wallace finished second in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, losing a bit of ground when he locked up the brakes with five laps remaining and finishing 0.586 seconds behind at the checkered flag. Josh Berry finished a season-best third, with Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson completing the top five in that order.
Stage 2: Blaney takes stage after Hocevar and Zilisch set off a multicar incident
Ryan Blaney marched to the Stage 2 win, flexing strength as Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race inched past the halfway mark. Blaney led 38 of the first 185 laps in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, clinching his series-best seventh stage victory of the 2026 campaign.
Josh Berry was second in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford at the green-checkered flag. Bubba Wallace placed third, Ryan Preece was fourth and Stage 1 winner Kyle Larson rounded out the top five at the end of the second stage.
The race had started with the 36-car field on wet-weather Goodyear tires after showers soaked the 1.058-mile oval in the morning and early afternoon. The track dried out through the first stage, with racing slicks replacing the treaded tires at Lap 40, and normal green-flag conditions prevailed through Stage 2.
The most significant yellow flag slowed the pace early in the stage, when Carson Hocevar’s collision with Connor Zilisch sent Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet spinning on the frontstretch on Lap 84. Joey Logano and Austin Dillon also spun in the wake of the incident, but all four cars continued.
Later in the stage, Hocevar raced Zilisch hard, banging fenders with the rookie’s No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevy before rooting him out of the groove in Turn 1. Zilisch finished Stage 2 in 21st place, with Hocevar 31st.
Two contenders found trouble in the round of pit stops just after the conclusion of Stage 1. Christopher Bell left pit road early after service, before front-tire changer Blake Houston was able to clear the nose of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota. Houston tumbled to the track, and Bell stopped after running over the air hose. He made an additional stop to tighten the right-side tires.
William Byron was penalized in the same pit cycle after he exited pit road with a chassis-adjustment wrench still attached to his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Stage 1: Larson leaps as Cup Series field manages soggy New Hampshire
Kyle Larson sealed a Stage 1 victory, weathering challenging conditions as Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race got underway in damp conditions at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Larson led 14 of the 70 laps in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, notching his fifth stage win of the 2026 season.
Christopher Bell finished second at the Stage 1 break in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Carson Hocevar was third, with William Byron fourth and Josh Berry completing the top five.
The field rolled off pit lane for a scheduled start at approximately 2:15 p.m. ET, with each of the 36 cars equipped with Goodyear wet-weather tires. Rain, however, intensified during those pace laps, and Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet spun out of Turn 4, prompting competition officials to halt the field on pit road to resume track-drying efforts.
Polesitter Tyler Reddick led the field to green, but his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota spun from Turn 4 on the first lap, sparking the first yellow flag and blocking the path of series points leader Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher. John Hunter Nemechek also continued after a solo spin and wall scrape on Lap 22 with his No. 40 Legacy Motor Club Toyota.
Ross Chastain was the race’s first retiree, taking his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet to the garage with drivetrain issues. Chastain will finish last after completing just 41 laps, squashing his faint postseason hopes.
Race officials announced Friday that the start time would be moved one hour earlier, facing the potential threat of inclement weather in the forecast. Persistent rain in the late morning and early afternoon pushed the actual green flag back closer to its originally scheduled time.
The 16-driver Chase postseason field will be locked in after Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).