By Zane Miller

The 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series wrapped up at Phoenix Raceway with Jesse Love taking home his first championship in the series, avenging his elimination at the doorstep of making it to the Championship Four the year before. This championship, which went along with his 2023 ARCA Series title, came at the expense of runner-up Connor Zilisch, who came into the championship race as the favorite after winning a series-leading 10 races, including four in a row going into the start of the playoffs.

Justin Allgaier looked poised to capture back-to-back series titles, leading the most laps in the event and winning the second stage, but would lose the lead on pit road during the final caution period with under 50 laps to go. Allgaier was unable to fully recover on the final green flag stretch and was forced to settle for third in the final standings. The fourth driver going for the title and teammate to both Zilisch and Allgaier was Carson Kvapil, who was never a major factor in the championship race and finished well behind the other three competitors. Nonetheless, getting this deep into the playoffs was a promising sign for Kvapil as he embarked on his second season in the Xfinity Series- or, should I say, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

However, the 2026 campaign would not only feature a new name for the series, but a new championship format altogether. For this season, they will utilize a Chase format similar to what was used in the Cup Series from 2004 to 2013, in this case having the top 12 drivers in points after the regular season duke it out over the final nine races for the championship. Another important difference between 2025 and 2026 is that Zilisch is gone from the full-time roster, moving up to Cup with Trackhouse Racing and leaving Allgaier, Love and Kvapil as the returning Championship Four competitors.

For the opening five races, Love has remained in championship form as the only driver this year to grab a top-10 finish in each race. Even without a win, Love had the most laps led a week ago at Phoenix before finishing second to Allgaier, along with grabbing a stage two victory in the same race and a stage one win at Atlanta. Compared with his start to 2025, Love is actually faring slightly better than his championship season. While last season saw him grab the win in the season opener at Daytona, this year Love has led 159 more laps than before under the same lineup of races.

As for Allgaier, the 2024 champ currently leads the way in the standings by 13 points over Love, taking the win at Phoenix to continue a now 10-year long streak with at least one win in each season. With over 80 percent of the season left to go, Allgaier will likely also maintain his streak of multiple wins per season, which he has carried out in each year of the 2020s thus far. To this point, Allgaier has collected stage points in all 10 points-playing stages run this season, including a sweep of the stages at Las Vegas. If not for getting caught up in a wreck in Atlanta, Allgaier certainly could have a 30-40 point lead for the regular season title, but otherwise this season has largely been business as usual for the #7 camp.

While 2026 has been smooth sailing so far for Allgaier and Love, this has not necessarily been the case for Kvapil. While the results themselves in the first five races have been an improvement from a year prior, posting two top-10s instead of just one for an average finish of 14.4 versus 18.6 from 2025, this season has already seen Kvapil jump across multiple different teams. Last season, Kvapil drove the #1 car for JR Motorsports throughout the full schedule, being paired with crew chief Andrew Overstreet the entire season as well. However, with Overstreet moving over to become Allgaier’s crew chief, longtime veteran Rodney Childers (best known as Kevin Harvick’s crew chief throughout his run with Stewart-Haas Racing) joined the #1 team in his place. While this may sound like an ideal arrangement for Kvapil, this comes with a catch as he will share the #1 with Zilisch, who will make occasional starts in the O’Reilly Series for extra seat time. This has already left Kvapil being shuffled to other cars in his efforts to run the full season. While he was able to run at Las Vegas for JR Motorsports’ #9 team, which he is planned to do in five starts, he switched teams entirely at Circuit of the Americas as he moved to the #91 Chevy of DGM Racing with both the #1 and #9 rides occupied by Cup regulars. Even with this unconventional scenario, Kvapil was able to lead 22 laps at Phoenix for a third-place finish along with a seventh at Daytona. He sits fifth in points for now, but it remains to be seen how the change between teams and crew chiefs will affect his season going forward.

Photo Credit: Imagn Images