Ty Gibbs won the NASCAR Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway, holding off Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell over the closing 60 laps. Crew chief Tyler Allen’s two-tire call on Lap 290 leapfrogged him past Bell during the final green-flag pit cycle for his second career Cup Series victory.
Ryan Blaney finished third after leading a race-high 129 laps from the pole, and points leader Denny Hamlin recovered from the rear of the field to finish fifth. He extended his points lead to 103 over Gibbs, who jumped from fourth to second in the standings with the win. Only four drivers are locked into the postseason now.
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The Iowa Corn 350 was the 23rd race of the 2026 regular season, with three events remaining before the Chase field is finalized, and Iowa has tightened it further. Chase Briscoe, who sits fifth, is separated from Bubba Wallace, who holds 14th, by just 98 points. Austin Cindric holds the last provisional Chase spot in 16th with 526 points, and 13 drivers remain in contention below the cutline.
With the Chase picture becoming increasingly difficult to predict, for several drivers, Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway damaged their positions considerably. Here are five NASCAR drivers whose Iowa Corn 350 fell apart.
Top 5 losers in the 2026 NASCAR Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway
No. 5 Chase Elliott – Hendrick Motorsports No. 9
Chase Elliott’s Iowa Corn 350 weekend went wrong early. He got loose during Saturday’s practice session, bottomed out, and hit the outside wall. The damage dropped him to a 32nd-place qualifying effort even after repairs. Further adjustments after qualifying forced a penalized rear-of-field start.
Elliott entered Iowa looking for a turnaround after going eight consecutive races without a top-10 finish. Sunday made it nine, with just one top-10 result for Hendrick Motorsports across the last four races combined. He remains the only HMS driver to have won in 2026, and at seventh in the standings, he is still the organization’s highest-placed driver. But he is 266 points behind Hamlin at the top.
No. 4 Carson Hocevar – Spire Motorsports No. 77
Carson Hocevar entered Sunday fifth in the NASCAR standings hoping to build towards the No. 1 seed. Instead, he spent much of the Iowa Corn 350 fighting an engine issue. The No. 77 Chevrolet was forced to pit early, fell multiple laps down, and was asked on the radio to “grind it out.”
Crew members later indicated the problem appeared tied to the valvetrain, with no in-race fix. Hocevar’s trouble compounded in Stage 2 when he spun exiting Turn 4, triggering a caution. Spire kept the car on track rather than retire it, and he came home 31st. It drops him three spots to eighth in the standings, now 279 points behind Hamlin at the top and just 147 points above the Chase cutline.
No. 3 Erik Jones – Legacy Motor Club No. 43
Erik Jones was eliminated from the NASCAR Iowa Corn 350 within the first five laps after Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota got loose beneath Jones’ No. 43. Reddick slid across the track and collected the Legacy Motor Club driver before both hit the outside wall. Neither car was repairable, ending the day for Jones in 35th.
For Jones, the timing could not have been worse. He arrived at Iowa 44 points below the Chase cutline, needing four strong races to climb from 18th. But the opening-lap crash erased any chance of building momentum in the first of those four opportunities. He drops two spots in the table to 20th with 476 points, now 50 behind Austin Cindric in the final Chase position.
No. 2 Tyler Reddick – 23XI Racing No. 45
The same Lap 4 incident that ended Erik Jones’ day also ended Tyler Reddick’s. The No. 45 driver had won five of the first nine races of 2026 and looked like the driver most likely to be the No. 1 seed in the Chase. But his form has fallen off sharply in the summer. Instead of using Sunday to rebuild momentum, Reddick earned his third DNF of the 2026 season and drops to fourth, 120 points back.
No. 1 Kyle Larson – Hendrick Motorsports No. 5
Kyle Larson’s difficult 2026 season found a new low point at Iowa. He started alongside pole-sitter Ryan Blaney and ran second through Stage 1, when the Lap 149 restart unraveled his afternoon. Shuffled into a four-wide situation with Shane van Gisbergen, John Hunter Nemechek, and teammate Alex Bowman, Larson was unable to hold his line low and made contact with Bowman’s No. 48.
The contact sent Bowman into the outside wall while also damaging Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet in the process. The damage also included a broken right-rear toe link, and even after repairs, crew chief Cliff Daniels found it unrepairable, forcing Larson back to pit road for further work and a costly multi-lap loss.
Larson eventually finished 33rd, 17 laps down, while Bowman was credited with a DNF in 34th. The result adds to his winless streak since Kansas in May 2025 and his worst average finish since his sophomore year. His Chase cushion has shrunk to just 132 points. The defending champion is no longer racing for seeding. He is now racing to protect his spot in the Chase.
Edited by Anurup Chakraborty
