NASCAR Cup Series: FireKeepers Casino 400 Highlights 🏁 NASCAR on FOX

And drivers, start your engines! And M.I.S. Down the straightaway or else he and maybe more cars go by. Oh, we got a spin. Contact. Man. Third straight week, he's had a problem early in the race. We see him on the left-hand side of your screen. Right in front of Denny. Right here, he gets to the outside and gets loose. So, when you peak to the outside, the right side of the car in front of you, so he's on the outside of the 47, that will make your car extremely loose. Outside row, about 12 rows back. Hosovar, Reddick, front row. They're coming through the restart zone. Green again at Michigan. Very similar to the first start of the race, where Hosovar gets clear. Oh, we got another car spinning around. Yep, going around down the back straightaway. Oh, man. Going to make contact with the inside wall here. He got up the racetrack into, like, the fourth groove. Got in the dirt. Gosh, man, oh, my God. Going to have only 31 laps to go in the stage when we return to the green flag. Hosovar, Reddick up front. Bottom right. In the middle of the mess. Start for the inside line here now. Larson with a good push on the 45 of Reddick down into turn one. Can Reddick clear? Reddick is going to clear. He's going to come up the racetrack, take the line away. He does. Great restart by Reddick on the bottom right. You see Brad stuck in the middle. That's what's so crazy. It looked like he was doing everything right. What this might feel like. Reddick has led the whole race in clean air, so good chance for him with two laps to go to get an understanding of how the balance changes here behind these lap cars. And J.J. Yale in the 44 goes a lap down. And the next guy he'll see, Ross Chastain, hard to imagine the one going a lap down in a 45-lap stage when we've had a couple of cautions, Steve. We have had a ton of yellows, and I think we're going to see, you know, I think Reddick was kind of just cruising, but now the 54 is turning the pressure up, thinking they could maybe get an extra point at the end of this stage. Chastain, he'll get the free pass, even if he gets past here, but that will start him all the way at the tail of the field, which can be a bit of a battle. There's no speed in that one. None at all. Track house is not great, right? We had the 88 wrecked out, and then Shane Van Gisburg is in 31st as they're coming up. And this lap car, too, Steve, is giving this 54 a little bit better chance. Sturdy in the air a little bit for the 45 of Reddick. There's going to be a race to the line right here. Where's the 45 going to go? Will he chop? He does. He does a nice job. Look at the 54 lose the nose. Reddick's like, I know what you're thinking. It got tight behind Chastain. Ross going to stay on the lead lap. Reddick going to win stage one, gives his second. Unbelievable. Comes home third. Junior had the stat of the day. First stage win this year for Tyler Reddick. Remarkably had a goose egg coming in. Gibbs, Wallace up front. They're making their way to the restart zone. We're green in stage two. Great push there. The advantage, I'll have to say it's more than that. To me, it seems like legacy is just continuing to improve, Kim. That's right. A couple weeks ago when I talked with the team, they were about 60 points back from a chase position. And Eric told me if we get through the next couple weeks and tighten up that deficit to 20 or 30, we'll feel like we're really fighting for a spot. Well, they entered this weekend minus 36. They're right there knocking on the door. Great battle for the lead. Carson Hosovar driving to the inside of Bubba Wallace. And right there with him is Ty Gibbs. Fourth caution of the day is out at Michigan. We have a new leader. We'll get to that in a second. First, the reason for the caution, another Michigan-born driver. Problems for Brad keselowski. Yeah, rough day for RFK. The 17 had to come in, put the hood pin back in. Now we're on board with Brad. You hear the left rear tire goes down. Very fortunate to not hit the wall. And you see the speed difference. NASCAR has no choice but to throw the caution. What makes it hurt even more is the fact he was running 12th and having a decent day. And what we've seen from the cars that had issues in qualifying is even though he got back to pit road, you would imagine there's some sort of underbody damage. Now we'll see if that's hurt the speed of the 6 or not. Stops and a whole lot going on. Let's ride and listen. So you're going to see right here Priest coming in. 54 leaving. And when you ask, all right, so who's at fault right there? The car coming in has the right of way. That is how it works. When you stop in your box, as a crew chief, I'm getting you out of the box. And right there, Dale, you hope the 60 lets you out. But Priest has no reason to let you out. And to be honest, he has no idea that you're changing 2 or 4. When you say, why didn't Priest get out of the way? Well, if you were on the left side, I would say, well, maybe Priest should have thought you were done with your pit stop. But when you drop it on the right side, how does Priest have any idea that that's only tires you're taking? You know, so then the driver of 54 had this come back to the team. It's f***ing killed, dude. What the hell? What the f***? Come on! One lane. There's no f***ing lane. Gosh dang it. You heard that right there. You said one lane. There's no lane. So Ty's frustrated. It doesn't sound like it, Ryan Priest. He said, like, I went out one lane and I hit the car that was there. These things happen at tracks like this because we had two tires, four tires, a whole different strategy. And it just gets the timing really messed up. Yeah, Ty had somewhat of a similar issue in Texas earlier. Be interesting to see. They did not come to pit road. He's second here. That was extremely hard contact. And they didn't bring him to pit road to see what things are, you know, maybe bent. He must feel good about where the steering wheel is. Usually when you've got a bent toe link or any kind of, you know, issue, the steering wheel changes position. It's easy to know, okay, we've got a problem. Chastain, excuse me, Chase Elliott wins the race off pit road. Takes the outside lane, restarting next to his teammate, Kyle Larson. Row two, Bubba Wallace, Ty Gibbs. Fanning out three wide off of turn two. Kyle Larson gets the jump on the restart. Out in front of his teammate, Bubba Wallace right there with him. Solid restart, Tyler Reddick. We'll see just how much damage that 54 now has as the 9 pokes out of line. Yeah, pretty interesting to see him drive down in there, try to take that spot away. He's going to be able to do it. About a third right here of Tyler Reddick's. Found the speed in this 45, trying to get back to the front. Takes the spot away from his teammate, Bubba Wallace, down the front straightaway. Went to the bottom of the racetrack. Now he zeroes in on the 5 of Larson. How about the day for 2311? All three of their drivers got stage points, stage one, last week at Nashville. Doing the same today. Reddick got his first stage win of the year. And the worst of their cars right now is Herbston 7th as A.J. Allmendinger goes for a ride. That's caution number five. Kept it out of the ball, but he's got flat tires, both the right front and the right rear. Right front's down. He's doing some good things, too. Was up there in the top 15 when it got away from him. Got tied off a turn, too, a lap or two ago. Struggling with the balance of that car in traffic. This time he was kind of just the middle of one and two. I don't know. Tired of playing defense all the time. And then a guy crosses my way, and I'm tired of crashing. Trent's crew chief, Trent Owens. I understand the frustration, but I didn't see anybody really just drive across. We've seen some much closer calls around the front of a car in front of him. Obviously, A.J., a very experienced race car driver. There's something he does not feel that he's frustrated with the balance of this race car. Good look at that. A post flap being deployed. But this is another look at it here. A.J., back in the middle of the corner, there are six to eight car lengths between him, Austin Dillon, and a few other cars there. It's like Suarez and Austin Dillon side by side. He's just loose. Losing the back of the car. And everybody's complaining about being loose. But now they're going to, you know, Larson's going to take that bottom. Let's see where Larson ends up. Where is he running when they exit turn two, when they exit turn four, to come back and complete the first lap after this restart? He got the lead on that last restart. He just didn't stay there very long, right? Yeah, I mean, the inside line's worked a few times, to your point. 38 laps to go. Stage two. As we get the restart with them. Those HMS Chevys out front. Reddick with a really good push. Oh, big crash! Multiple vehicles involved and some big names. Tyler Reddick among them. Denny Hamlin around. Reddick is destroyed. There you see it. What in the world? A lot of aggressive pushing there. Which is common with restarts here. We see that all the time. Just not quite sure why we had an issue on this particular one. A lot of cars damaged there. Think about Tyler Reddick. And the one thing they had not done this year, which is why they had that sizable point lead, is finish deep in the pack. Top 15 every race. Damage for Ty Gibbs. You saw Austin Dillon sitting idle. Good day going for John Hunter and Emichek. He got a piece of that. I can't wait to see the replay on this. It looked relatively normal. You mentioned the 45 giving it nine. Where does it start? 54, 23, 42. Hosovar. Hosovar gets in the back of the car in front of him. Just a push that wasn't square. And it turns that car. And each car in front, you know, clips the next one. Watch. Reddick somehow just barely gets hooked by the 54. He hits the inside wall. Yeah. Oh, man. Not only does he hit the inside wall, he also made contact with the right side of the 5 car of Larson. Yeah, so it starts with kind of an inside lane. The 54 backs up, hits the 42. The 42 then kind of gets a shot from the 77. Just a ricochet effect. And then the spin. See the 11s in the middle of the track spinning. Denny does not hit anything. How he pirouettes through the field with no damage. 45 completely. Here we go. This is great looking. Let's watch Hosovar. I think Hosovar was trying to move to the left to go three wide. Right at the same time, all those guys were sort of banging bumpers and backing up him quickly. And he didn't get left quickly enough. Nine cars involved right here with Ty Gibbs. I'm with you, Dillon. I think there was a gap in front of Hosovar. He thought he was going to take it three wide with that momentum. This will be a hard hit with a three. He traveled up, thinking he was clear of the wreck. He did. Dillon avoided Denny. Then caught the 45 riding with Bubba here. Bubba gets through, straightens it out. Got really lucky there. Good car control. I'm sure he's banged up a little bit on the corners. Here's the 77. He just... I don't think... He's going to catch a lot of heck for that one. He's moving left to go three wide, but he does know he's about to make contact with that car in front of him. He also knows, with experience in these cars, that if he turns left while he makes that contact, it's absolutely going to turn the car in front of him. I don't know that Hosovar can escape the double A and Andrell. It just all works together, doesn't it? We're going to need triple A when you're driving it. That's very fair. Fans fired up. Great day for racing in Michigan. Let's see if we can find a little rhythm here. Larson Elliott, front row. Very even launch by both lanes. A little contact right there with Herbst and Larson. Look at Bubba back to the top again. It worked last time. He's going to try it again. 23, not afraid. Outside lane, Chase Elliott sneaks through to the lead. Bubba Wallace down into turn three. Chase doesn't shut it off all the way. They're going to be side by side off of turn four. Chase tried to get to the bottom and take the line away from Bubba, but he couldn't do it. Bubba's almost clear. Chase trying to battle back to the quarter panel. Can't get there. Aggressive slide up for Wallace, who takes over the race lead. Been a great day for 23.11. I love what I'm seeing out of that car. We talk so much about the Toyotas, and it's been Redick, Hamlin, and here it is, Bubba Wallace, reminding us he's still around, he's still here. He wants to climb up those points. As they run, he's all the way up to the top ten, so this could be a huge day for the 23. I was just going to say, great day for 23.11 when you talk about leading laps. I mean, Redick led all those laps before the crash for 33 out front. Now Bubba's in control of the field. Thinking about those stage points. He'd love to get a stage victory here. And you said rhythm. I think we're looking for it. Pit road's looking for it. These drivers are looking for it. They're ready to kind of settle back in. Stenhouse and Chastain. Chastain was at the back of the field when this race was in stage one. No speed at all. They've worked really hard to improve that number one car for Chastain up in the top 15. Denny's still struggling to drive that number 11 through the field back here. Ooh, bit of a wiggle there for Todd Dillon. Say though, Hamlin's, you know, passing a lot of cars, spent all that time back outside the top 25, drives it into the top ten, had the spin, he's there again. Chases back to the inside. Bubba not going to be able to get there. Larson and Josevar back there behind these two. If they get to racing side by side, that'll draw Larson right back into this. Chase to the bottom of the racetrack. Bubba doesn't get there. Chase is going to be able to get to the inside here. Replay of these two guys earlier. I don't think that Chase has the momentum to clear. Just barely clear right there. Wow. So he's going to get in front of Bubba. Boy, this will be a special opportunity for him, and it's no fluke. They've been really good, as we talked about in recent weeks. He's a tenth and a half quicker than Chase that last lap. Chasing a little bit of traffic right there, trying to get around a lap car. That was a really, really good lap by Jones there. 38.37. Chase only to 38.98. See if Jones can get by this lap car. Oh, he does. Clean and in a hurry. I don't think he's got enough time to be able to get up there and steal the stage win, but I think Jones has got the best car on the racetrack right now. Four tires compared to Chase Elliott's two. You have to ask yourself, is that an advantage? Do I have to start looking at that in that final stage? Well, Trevor talked about the fact that Suarez, who was mixing it up with his group at the front right now, riding in third, also got those four tires when he pitted at lap 67. Final lap of the stage. Chase Elliott in front of Eric Jones. Suarez right there in third. We talked about the tires courting. Chase could be nursing just some really, really worn right side tires home here. The final few corners could explain the loss of speed. This is another three tenths slower that lap. He's just gingerly getting down into the corner there. Don't want to put a lot of wheel to it. Chase Elliott has led the most laps today. 45 out front. He wins stage two at Michigan in front of Eric Jones. This is for Elliott. Second stage victory of the year. Also got a stage win. Stage two at Texas went on to win the race. Chase is making the most of it. That's 17 stage points earned today. Final stage coming your way at Michigan. Christopher's strength is ability and willingness to search around. He's done that today. Before the last stop, he was loose everywhere, quiet during this run. Followed by Byron running in that third position. And it's been a tough go for this team, but what has been their strength is remaining optimistic. Tim, what looked like it was going to be a disaster for Denny Hamlin with that spin at lap 83 turned into a really positive moment. They came down pit road at lap 86 to get four tires. They were able to take advantage of that on the next pit stop. Caution number nine. Tough break. Zane Smith, who's had a good day. Never finished outside the top ten here. Came in with lots of momentum. Yeah, he's wrecking into the corner. This is on the 23 car above Wallace. Zane was running ninth. I saw a few sparks, which tells me that the air was coming out. Even if it wasn't completely flat, it had lost enough air to make the thing bottom out and spark a little bit. A lot of guys have been able to get enough of a warning on the straightaway to understand what was going on, whereas it doesn't look like Zane had that fortunate. Bell, though, despite the fact he's never been in the top ten at Michigan, has had a wonderful day coming from the rear. And you think about the position they're in here. I mean, this is a team that is motivated, got a shot to get their first win of 2026. I'm going driver 20. Big cat and mouse game getting ready to be played here as well. They are going to race for all their worth on this restart. But it is somewhere between one and four laps short of anybody who stayed in front of their fuel. There's a few cars that have got behind. I think the one of Chastain is one of those cars. The 22 of Logano also. I think they're a little bit shorter on fuel than everyone else because of their pit strategy today. So I say that because once you kind of settle in, who could be efficient while not giving up spots? Big restart coming here, and it's going to happen with 53 laps to go. Byron Bell on the front row. Chase Elliott, first guy on four tires inside a row, too. The green flag is out once again at Michigan International Speedway. Good organization on the inside line for the HMS boys, and they're going to clear off into turn one. Look at Larson getting with it as well. Another driver that got four tires in that inside lane looking strong. Byron really didn't help his teammate out there. Could have got up the racetrack a little bit and gave Chase a little cleaner air through turns one and two. It allows the 20 to get back to the outside, so they're side-by-side for second down into turn three. Three wide back there. Oh, my goodness! Elliott into Bell, hard hit in the wall. Tenth yellow of the day. Window net drops on the 20. Christopher Bell, what a great sight. You can see this guy get out of the car. I haven't seen that car to be hit in a long time. Chase getting out as well. The impact of that 20 car was insane. It looked real. What a great sight to see him out talking. They're racing side-by-side down into turn three, and it's like Chase has a little bit of a bottle of big moment, and just gets a little bit loose underneath the 20 and correcting the car makes contact. It sends Christopher Bell hard into the outside wall. Just a violent hit for both drivers. Look at that safer barrier, and it moves 50 percent of the way to that outside wall. I want to give NASCAR a ton of credit for all the safety inside the cars, the headrests. And what an exchange. I don't know if you'll see a car hit a wall harder than that, and our drivers get out and walk away because of all of the research and development, years and years of hard work by countless individuals to make the race cars safer, the walls safer. No doubt. Teammates working together on the inside, old teammates on the outside. Will they work together? 47 laps to go. Byron, the control car, as we are once again racing at Michigan. Has to give up the outside to the 5. He's going to lose spots. We got a crash down the front straightaway. Multiple cars. Several cars spinning through the grass. Austin Hill through the grass. That looked like a very traditional Michigan wreck as they exit turn four. It kind of funnels together there. A lot of drivers taking big moments and sometimes creating crashes, creating accidents. We'll see how it starts here. Oh, contact between the 71 to the rear bumper of the 47. I thought he had caught him in the quarter panel when I was watching out the window, but that was directly in the rear bumper. Interested to get Ricky Stenhouse's opinion of that or if there's more to the story. Maybe it was a misjudgment. Maybe it was something we hadn't seen laps ago. Just a very, very light touch. I almost want to say the 47 was a little loose before. Couldn't tell from that angle, but there was definite contact. Watch this. How about Priest hadn't finished off the lead lap all year, crashed in the 600. Problems at Nashville and in the middle of it again today at Michigan. Front row. Organization on the inside line. No connection between anybody. Really. Almost clear. Here comes Denny. Look in the middle. Now he goes to the inside. Three wide to one. Hamlin on point. Another restart delivery from the veteran. How about it? Into the wall. I don't know how he did that. That was a good save. Hamlin saw that at Kansas, right? Coming to the white flag, caution comes out, changes everything. Cedric just took a deep breath. I think 11th. I might just finish 11th. Here's Hamlin. I wouldn't blame him. White flag is out. One lap to go. Sponsored by credit one bank. He turns 40. All he's done is win since then. About everything he's done in the last five years. Two weeks in a row where he starts on the pole but has to come from behind. Like deja vu from Nashville. He just gets better and better. Denny Hamlin going to get his fourth victory here at Michigan international speedway. Exclamation point to finish it. In the Irish hills for driver 11. Career win number 63. 9th all time. Matching Kyle Busch. Great job, guys. Wow. Great car. Unbelievable. We love you. Come down here. Back to back at Michigan. Back to back in 2026. And another run on NASCAR's ladder. And this one is special. Thank you.