A valuable lesson was learned by the entire NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway: Never count Corey Day out. Day overcame a pit road penalty, then made a three-wide move with 10 laps to go to grab the lead, holding off Jesse Love for his second consecutive win in the Chase.
And if the rest of the field hadn’t gotten the message after last week’s victory, Day delivered it again under the lights at Charlotte.
The driver of the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet survived a race that threatened to unravel before he put together the sort of finish that makes championship contenders nervous. With four postseason races remaining, Day is suddenly looking like a rather unpleasant problem for anyone hoping to keep him out of the title conversation.
Sunday’s Blue Cross NC 300 was worth considerably more than a trophy. Day unofficially gained 35 points on series leader Sheldon Creed, leaving him just seven points behind with four races remaining in the Chase.
Not bad for a driver who had to overcome his own mistake and then find a way through traffic when the race was on the line.
“Man, I don’t know,” Day said when asked how he managed to get the lead back on the final restart.
Day had been forced to work for everything after taking too many boxes on pit road entry, resulting in a penalty that threatened to derail his evening. Instead, his team recovered, executed on pit road and gave him a car capable of making the difference when the opportunity finally arrived.
With 17 laps remaining, Justin Allgaier brushed the wall and surrendered the lead, bringing Love and Day into the picture. A subsequent caution set up the decisive restart, with Allgaier briefly reclaiming the top spot before Day made his move.
Day saw Love and Allgaier get loose ahead of him and recognized his opportunity.
“I think the two got really loose from what I could see up there in front of the seven, and I think kind of messed them both up,” Day said. “And that was just enough for me to get a good run off it and take my run, and that was crucial.”
With 10 laps remaining, Day went three-wide and emerged with the lead. It was an audacious move, the sort that either gets you a trophy or leaves you explaining to your team why the car looks like a shopping cart that’s been attacked by a forklift.
Day got the trophy.
“I don’t think if I do that, then I don’t win the race,” he said. “So, man, what a job by my guys just to — I’d screw up and take too many boxes on entry, and just to have the car to do that, the execution on pit road, just everything to finish one off like that, it’s just so cool.”
Love stayed close enough to make Day work for the victory, but the leader held on through the closing laps to secure his second straight Chase win. It was also his fourth victory of the 2026 season and fourth of his career.
The back-to-back triumphs have given Day a genuine shot at the championship, although he wasn’t about to start planning a victory celebration for the season finale.
Asked whether the rest of the field should be on notice, Day was cautious.
“I don’t really know. These are good places for us,” he said. “So, you know, I’d like to think so, but we still got to execute these next four, however many are left.”
That is probably the right answer. Two wins are lovely, but a championship is a much longer exercise in getting things right, particularly when the competition is doing everything possible to make life difficult.
Day also made sure to recognize the people responsible for putting him in position to win, thanking HendrickCars.com, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, Checkpoint and perhaps most importantly the crew members who helped salvage the race after his pit road mistake.
“It’s a lot of fun right now,” he said.
One suspects it will be considerably less fun for the championship contenders if Day keeps this up.
Creed finished third behind Love, maintaining his series lead but watching much of his advantage disappear. Allgaier recovered to finish fourth, while Carson Brown, who is preparing to become a full-time driver, rounded out the top five.
Brandon Jones, Austin Hill, Anthony Alfredo, Taylor Gray and Brennan Poole completed the top 10.
The race itself had already endured a frustrating wait before the green flag ever dropped. Rain from Hurricane Isaias pushed the event back 28 hours, moving it from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening. Once the cars finally got underway, there was no shortage of trouble.
Day won Stage 1, establishing himself as a contender early, but the race soon began taking its toll elsewhere in the field.
Carson Kvapil was running eighth when a tire went down on Lap 107. He brought his JR Motorsports Chevrolet to pit road for repairs, losing several laps before returning seven laps off the pace. Another tire problem caused by a rub eventually sent him behind the wall, although he returned to the race on Lap 143.
With 80 laps remaining, JR Motorsports teammates Rajah Caruth and Jake Finch collided in Turn 1. Smoke poured from Caruth’s No. 88 Chevrolet, sending the car sliding up the track and into Finch’s No. 9 as Finch attempted a pass on the high side. Caruth finished 36th, his third result outside the top 20 in five Chase races.
Brent Crews also found trouble on Lap 185, slamming the wall while running 24th before pounding the inside fence in Turn 4. A tire appeared to have gone down, ending an already difficult evening for the driver, who had been caught in traffic after committing to an alternative pit strategy.
For Day, however, the evening ended with another trophy and a championship battle that suddenly looks much more interesting.
Seven points is hardly an insurmountable gap, particularly when the driver chasing the leader has won two consecutive races. Creed remains in control of the standings, but Day has momentum, confidence and a team that appears capable of recovering even when its driver makes life unnecessarily complicated.
Four races remain. If Charlotte was any indication, the field might want to stop counting Corey Day out.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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