With the Championship on the line, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field was red-flagged at Homestead-Miami Speedway after a driver again hit the sand barrels at the pit-lane entrance.
Andrew Patterson lost control coming to the pits and spun into the sand barrels at entry. In trying to avoid hitting the barrels, Patterson kept on the gas but still clipped them with his rear right while fishtailing through the spin.
With sand everywhere, a long red-flag period followed as five drivers remain in the mix to become the 2026 O’Reilly Series Champion.
Two of those hopefuls, Carson Kvapil and Sam Mayer, entered the pits just before Anderson, after a battle for the lead.
This isn't the first time this has dramatically affected the end of a NASCAR race; in 2023, Kyle Larson crashed out of NASCAR’s Fall Homestead-Miami race while chasing what could’ve been his second championship. He was already safely locked into the Championship Four after a win the week before, but the points loss drastically hurt his chances of winning this year. It's also a mistake he can not outrun on the internet.
The reminder of this DNF comes a day before Larson needs just nine points to clinch his third championship.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.
