New Glarus native Jesse Saunders left Wisconsin years ago to build a career in NASCAR. With seven races remaining in the 2026 season, the car chief for Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet now finds himself helping lead the team sitting atop NASCAR’s championship standings.

It is a dramatic change from where the team stood when Saunders spoke with New Glarus 360 in late August as he was driving to work in Charlotte, North Carolina. Larson, the defending Cup Series champion, had gone the entire regular season without a victory and entered NASCAR’s 10-race Chase trying to end what had become the longest Cup winless streak of his Hendrick Motorsports career.

Larson opened the Chase with a fifth-place finish Sept. 6 at Darlington Raceway. One week later, the drought ended much closer to Saunders’ Wisconsin roots. Larson won at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in Madison, Illinois, surviving a chaotic race and two overtimes to snap a 51-race winless streak. The victory moved Larson from seventh to second in the standings, nine points behind Denny Hamlin.

Then came Bristol. Larson finished second Sept. 19, giving the No. 5 team top-five finishes in each of the first three Chase races — fifth, first and second — and moving Larson into the championship lead. He enters Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway one point ahead of Hamlin, with Joey Logano 16 points behind and Christopher Bell 17 back.