After a disastrous outing at Phoenix Raceway for NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Kyle Larson, his lead atop the point standings dropped from 49 points over Denny Hamlin to just five points over Christopher Bell, and five other drivers were within striking distance (56 points) heading into the biggest wild card race of the playoffs at Talladega Superspeedway.
But the thing about a wild card race is that it's hard to predict, and it can truly go to anybody. So when a driver previously 0-for-58 in superspeedway/drafting races finds victory lane, maybe you can consider it an upset.
In this case, however, that driver was Larson, and it allowed him to extend his points lead to 73 with just two races remaining on the schedule. With 76 points available in each race, Larson effectively has a one-race lead with two races to go, and the title is his to lose.
It's not over, but it would take one of the worst collapses of all-time from the No. 5 team for somebody other than Larson to be crowned champion in 2026, which would make him the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson won five in a row from 2006 to 2010.
The updated DraftKings Sportsbook odds reflect that possibility.
Kyle Larson is the heaviest NASCAR Cup Series title favorite in years
When Larson took a 49-point lead over Hamlin with four races to go, his odds were the shortest for any driver at any point this season. Then after Phoenix, he was still the favorite, but he was simply among a cluster of drivers who were believed to have a very real chance to win the title.
Now it's Larson and six longshots.
Larson is listed at -1800 (bet $1800 to win $100). Behind him is Hamlin at +1100, followed by Bell at +2000, Chase Briscoe at +3000, and then the trio of Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney at +6000.
Those six drivers are all between 73 and 126 points behind Larson, and while there are lots of different possible combinations of outcomes, we feel justified in saying that all six are in must-win situations for both races at Martinsville Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway to even have a chance of erasing their respective deficits.
Larson's -1800 odds are the shortest championship odds for any driver at any point in a Cup Series season since 2013, when Jimmie Johnson entered the season finale with a 28-point lead over Matt Kenseth (under a different scoring format). His odds were so short that he was removed from the betting boards at select sportsbooks.
But that was also with just one race to go; he was listed at -500 with two to go.
Never during the original Chase era (2004 to 2013) was the championship ever actually clinched before the season finale, and in the Championship 4 era (2014 to 2025), there were guaranteed to be four title contenders heading into the season finale, with the highest finishing being crowned champion.
DraftKings Sportsbook's NASCAR Cup Series odds, which can be found here, are always subject to change.
Sunday's Xfinity 500 is set to be shown live on NBC from Martinsville Speedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET. Begin a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss the race that could very well prove to be the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship decider.
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