William Byron had a tough weekend. A broken control arm cut his practice time, then he spun early in the race. He would eventually finish 15th. Teammate Kyle Larson led the most laps (99) and ended up fourth. That was enough to move him into the points lead. His advantage is six points over Tyler Reddick, who passed Erik Jones at the white flag and held on for his second win of the year. Denny Hamlin finished second and is up a spot to third. Byron's 15th-place finish dropped him to fourth.

Brad Keselowski is up three places to fifth after winning stage two and finishing ninth. Ryan Blaney is up three places to sixth after finishing 12th. Kyle Busch came from the rear to finish seventh and keeps him seventh in the standings. Ross Chastain is up two spots to eighth.

Chris Buescher is down five places to a tie for ninth after suffering a late tire failure and finishing 27th. He is tied with Christopher Bell, who ran well early and finished eighth. Joey Logano had a pretty bad day, but took two tires on the final stop to finish fifth and stay 11th. Kevin Harvick finished 11th and moved up two places to 12th, the final spot in the Round of 12 on points.

Harvick has a seven-point advantage over Martin Truex Jr., the big loser of the week. Truex blew his right rear tire on lap 4 and crashed, resulting in a 36th-place finish. Bubba Wallace is down to 14th after his own tire failure. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell are 15th and 16th and in serious danger of elimination in Bristol.

Outside of the playoffs, Ty Gibbs is still in 17th despite losing his primary car in practice Saturday. He drove to 14th in his backup car. Gibbs is six points ahead of Chase Elliott, who finished sixth. Daniel Suarez is 19th, while Alex Bowman is 20th.

In the owner points playoffs, Elliott's sixth-place finish moved the No. 9 team up to eighth. That would boot Harvick's No. 4 out of the next round. Note that Wallace's No. 23 did not qualify for the owners Round of 16.

Austin Hill had a strong run to fifth on Saturday. That was enough to win him the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season championship. The final margin was five points over John Hunter Nemechek, who led the most laps and swept the stages en route to his series-leading sixth win of the season. Justin Allgaier finished in third, 40 points back after an 18th-place finish. Cole Custer crashed out early, but stayed in fourth.

Josh Berry is up one place to fifth after finishing sixth. Berry jumped over teammate Sam Mayer, who finished 37th after being eliminated in a crash. Sheldon Creed finished third and stays in seventh, while Daniel Hemric is eighth.

Chandler Smith had engine issues early and went behind the wall. He came back to finish 32nd and stay in ninth. Parker Kligerman finished fourth and moved up to 10th in points, taking the last spot in the playoffs on points. Kligerman ended up 25 points ahead of Riley Herbst, who had multiple tire issues Saturday and finished 23rd. Sammy Smith crashed out and stayed in 12th.

Brandon Jones finished a season-best second and moved up to 13th, but it wasn't enough to get him into the playoffs. Jeb Burton dropped to 14th, while Brett Moffitt and Parker Retzlaff round out the top 16.

When the playoffs start Friday night in Bristol, Nemechek will have a 10-point lead over Hill. Allgaier is third, then Custer and Mayer.

Regular Season Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 1010, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -5, 3) Justin Allgaier -40, 4) Cole Custer -139, 5) Josh Berry -207, 6) Sam Mayer -228, 7) Sheldon Creed -256, 8) Daniel Hemric -296, 9) Chandler Smith -299, 10) Parker Kligerman -312, 11) Riley Herbst -337, 12) Sammy Smith -364, 13) Brandon Jones -390, 14) Jeb Burton -393, 15) Brett Moffitt -440, 16) Parker Retzlaff -499.

Round of 12 Point Standings: 1) John Hunter Nemechek 2049, 2) Austin Hill -10, 3) Justin Allgaier -23, 4) Cole Custer -32, 5) Sam Mayer -34, t-6) Chandler Smith -40, t-6) Josh Berry -40, 8) Sheldon Creed -41, t-9) Sammy Smith -43, t-9) Jeb Burton -43, 11) Daniel Hemric -46, 12) Parker Kligerman -47.

Best of the Rest (13-22): 13) Riley Herbst 673, 14) Brandon Jones -53, 15) Brett Moffitt -103, 16) Parker Retzlaff -162, 17) Kaz Grala -176, 18) Ryan Sieg -213, 19) Jeremy Clements -246, 20) Anthony Alfredo -320, 21) Ryan Sieg -331, 22) Josh Williams -337.

Playoff Points: 1) John Hunter Nemechek 49, 2) Austin Hill -10, 3) Justin Allgaier -23, 4) Cole Custer -32, 5) Sam Mayer -34, t-6) Chandler Smith -40, t-6) Josh Berry -40, 8) Sheldon Creed -41, 9) Ryan Truex -42, t-10) Sammy Smith -43, t-10) Jeb Burton -43, 12) Daniel Hemric -46, 13) Parker Kligerman -47, 14) Riley Herbst -48.

Note: If they were eligible for Xfinity Series points, AJ Allmendinger would be sixth in playoff points, while Ty Gibbs would be seventh. Kyle Larson would be 10th, while Aric Almirola and Denny Hamlin would be tied for 15th.

Stage Points: 1) Justin Allgaier 278, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -8, 3) Austin Hill -39, 4) Cole Custer -49, 5) Sheldon Creed -89, t-6) Chandler Smith -122, t-6) Josh Berry -122, 8) Riley Herbst -136, 9) Sam Mayer -140, 10) Sammy Smith -154, 11) Daniel Hemric -157, 12) Brandon Jones -172, 13) Parker Kligerman -195, 14) Ryan Truex -237, 15) Brett Moffitt -238, 16) Ryan Sieg -244.

Outside of the top-16, but still in playoffs: 17) Jeb Burton -252.

Note: If they were eligible for points, Ty Gibbs would be 13th, AJ Allmendinger 15th and Kyle Larson 16th in stage points.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 888, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -32, 3) Justin Allgaier -80, 4) Cole Custer -126, 5) Josh Berry -127, 6) Sam Mayer -134, 7) Parker Kligerman -168, 8) Daniel Hemric -190, 9) Jeb Burton -193, 10) Sheldon Creed -203, 11) Chandler Smith -219, 12) Riley Herbst -250, 13) Brett Moffitt -251, 14) Sammy Smith -256, 15) Brandon Jones -266, 16) Parker Retzlaff -295.

WC Points (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 3879, 2) John Hunter Nemechek -88, 3) Justin Allgaier -250, 4) Josh Berry -429, 5) Cole Custer -434, 6) Sam Mayer -456, 7) Parker Kligerman -582, 8) Daniel Hemric -666, 9) Sheldon Creed -704, 10) Jeb Burton -736, 11) Chandler Smith -753, 12) Riley Herbst -847, 13) Sammy Smith -871, 14) Brett Moffitt -894, 15) Brandon Jones -924, 16) Parker Retzlaff -1022.

Race Winners: Austin Hill (Daytona-1, Las Vegas, Atlanta-1, Pocono), John Hunter Nemechek (Fontana, Martinsville. Atlanta-2, Loudon, Michigan, Kansas), Sammy Smith (Phoenix), AJ Allmendinger (Austin, Nashville), Chandler Smith (Richmond), Jeb Burton (Talladega), Ryan Truex (Dover), Kyle Larson (Darlington-1), Justin Allgaier (Charlotte, Daytona-2), Cole Custer (Portland, Chicago), Aric Almirola (Sonoma), Sam Mayer (Road America, Watkins Glen), Ty Gibbs (Indianapolis), Denny Hamlin (Darlington-2)

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of our own Phil Allaway.

"It’s a bummer, but sometimes it goes that way. All-in-all, we were able to recover. I only got into the wall once today. We had two great cars to start the playoffs. You have to look at the positives. We got stage points, so that’s good, as well." - Kyle Larson, finished fourth

"It was enough in the sense that we were running 15th when the caution came out. Paul [Wolfe] did a good job at making a good call there, and putting us in position. I could see the lead. We were right there. If I was able to just clear [Erik Jones], it might have looked a little different. But, I couldn’t quite clear him. It just allowed [Tyler] Reddick to get a big run once we started getting swallowed up by the four-tire cars. You’re just on defense after that. So, we had our chance into three there, and just wasn’t quite good enough to finish it off there. Overall, I’m glad we had a decent points day. We needed it. We were on the cut-line, or close to it coming in. I don’t know where we are now. Didn’t have the best of stages. So, we’ll fight again at Bristol." - Joey Logano, finished fifth

"It wasn’t going to be a play to win the race, but it was going to be a play for our best finish. We just got a couple bad aero spots there with the last restart and probably lost one more spot than I should have, but all-in-all, that was better than we should have performed anyways. We fought hard with our No. 8 Casey’s Camaro and that’s all we had." - Kyle Busch, finished seventh

"Our No. 24 RaptorTouch.com Chevy was loose. Once the track took a set in Stage One and kind of got all the rubber from yesterday’s race off, it seemed like we were just free from that point on. I didn’t know how free in that first stage – I just let [Tyler Reddick] go and it just came around on me. We tried a lot of things to tighten it up after that point, but our Raptor Chevy just kept building to the same spot on the long runs. We were just starting tighter and it would build to a similar spot in 15 laps or so, I would say. We’ve got a lot of work to do to try and figure out what that was.

"It’s just tough. We had to kind of maintain on the long runs and just finish a solid race. We really needed to finish there, so happy with that. Happy with our team’s effort. We worked really hard on it. We’ll go to work at Bristol [Motor Speedway]. It looks like we’re plus-41 points, so we just have to have a good, solid couple of stages there." - William Byron, finished 15th