GRAY CONTINUES TO CLIMB STANDINGS, ADDS TO TOP-10 STREAK
Brent Crews leads three Joe Gibbs Racing Supras in the top-10
LAS VEGAS (October 3, 2026) – Taylor Gray finished fifth in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to extend his season-best top-10 streak to four straight races as he continues to climb the Chase standings. Gray moved up to a season-best seventh overall heading to Charlotte.
Gray was one of three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas to finish in the top-10, led by Brent Crews (fourth). William Sawalich, who celebrated his birthday today, drove from 36th to eighth at the finish after not participating in qualifying. Crews is on a similar top-10 streak as Gray as his fourth-place run was his fourth consecutive top-10 finish.
TOYOTA RACING Post-Race Recap
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (NOAPS)
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Race 28 of 33 – 301.5 miles, 201 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Corey Day*
2nd, Carson Kvapil*
3rd, Jesse Love*
4th, BRENT CREWS
5th, TAYLOR GRAY
8th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
14th, HARRISON BURTON
16th, DEAN THOMPSON
35th, BRANDON JONES
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
BRENT CREWS, No. 19 Grand Canyon University Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
Are you disappointed in finishing fourth?
“Our Supra was really good all day today. This race track was really a lot of fun. It is my first time here. Got to watch (Chase) Briscoe here earlier in the year, and I’ve had a lot of help from Aric (Almirola), Trevor (Bayne, competition advisor, TRD) and Blake (Koch, competition advisor, TRD). We worked really hard at this one. I really felt like our long run speed was really good, just struggled on the short run – and on that last run kind of struggled on both. Super pumped up to have Grand Canyon University on the car this weekend. The purple and white Supra looked super cool out there. I was ripping the boards, ran the bottom pretty good. I felt like we did pretty much everything tonight. I had a ton of fun, just wanted to be a few spots better tonight.”
TAYLOR GRAY, No. 54 Home For Our Troops Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
How would you sum up how successful tonight was for you?
“I’m really proud of everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing. Thankful for TOYOTA RACING, M-Experiment, Homes For Our Troops for being on board this weekend, as well as Operation 300. Good weekend for us. We worked on our car the first two stages to make it better. I felt like we lacked a little bit, when the sun went down it really woke our car up, but really great recovery from having to come back down pit road to finish fifth.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 20 Menards/NIBCO Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 35th
I know you had some concern that you had a loose wheel. Is that what happened out there?
“That is essentially what took us out. I’m beyond frustrated here. These first four races in the Chase – we have done nothing but execute very poorly. On our behalf, I can only do so much. I try to defend my guys the best I can, but we are just making too many mistakes right now. It is unfortunate. I really hate this for Menards and NIBCO and all of these great partners. They deserve a lot better than this. We are showing up with speed that is not getting depicted as well as it should because of all of these little mistakes that are adding up. I don’t know. I’m sure our chances of winning this thing are slowly dwindling away on us. All we can continue to do is try to get better from them and go on to next week. I didn’t get to see what happened or how the other cars got effected. I hate our mistake continued to take more cars out of the hunt as well. We were really fast all day long. We drove back up to fourth at the end of stage one and was having a really good race going.”
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