NASCAR Freeway Insurance 500 takeaways: Tyler Reddick keeps title hopes alive with late surge at Phoenix

Reddick only led 18 laps in the race to pick up his 14th career win, sixth of the season and first at the one-mile oval. He even came into Sunday in a precarious position in the standings, only to climb to just 56 points behind Larson with three races remaining.

He was able to take advantage of Larson's slip-up, and with the unpredictable high banks of Talladega Superspeedway on deck next Sunday, Reddick has put himself right back in the title picture.

Kyle Larson's points lead evaporates

Entering Sunday's race in the Arizona desert, Larson held a 49-point lead and appeared to be in the driver's seat to win his third Cup Series title. Despite a historic start to the postseason with a top-six finish in each of the first six races, Larson fought an ill-handling car in qualifying and rolled off 22nd.

The issues only compounded after Larson went a lap down and struggled to find pace from the drop of the green flag. Larson's day eventually came to a crushing end when he appeared to have a tire go down before making heavy contact with the outside wall with 30 laps to go.

Granted, he remains the points leader by a slim five points over Christopher Bell, but the 34th-place finish was far from the result that Larson needed to maintain his advantage atop the standings. He opened the door, and the rest of the field took advantage.

More trouble for Denny Hamlin

Execution has been an issue for Hamlin and his No. 11 team since the Chase began, and that continued again at Phoenix. While his pit crew was not its best again with another slow stop, a flat right rear tire while running fourth with 92 laps to go and a subsequent speeding penalty derailed his day and dropped him to 28th by the race's conclusion.

A pair of favorable tracks at Martinsville and Homestead-Miami set up well to end the season, but the unknowns of Talladega loom large before then. Hamlin has two wins there and even gained 18 points in the standings despite the adversity at Phoenix, but he still faces an uphill fight if he wants to come away with his first title.

Team Penske misses out on valuable points

While you can also point to Bell (-5) and Chase Briscoe (-24) giving away valuable points with finishes of fourth and eighth, respectively, after combining to lead 98 of the 312 laps, Blaney and Joey Logano dominated the early portion of Sunday's race with the former setting the tone from the pole and the latter sweeping the two stages.

Blaney finished runner-up and Logano still came home sixth, leaving them 40 and 44 points back of Larson in the standings. Those deficits are still manageable over the final three races, but this was a track that Team Penske has historically been strong at and it failed to get the crucial 20-point bonus that goes with winning the race.