Texas lines up championship path for all three NASCAR series

The 2016 NASCAR season is coming down to the home stretch, with just three weekends of racing left.

And each of those weekends will feature all three of the NASCAR national touring series together: The NASCAR Camping World Truck, XFINITY and Sprint Cup Series will all be in action over the final three weekends, starting at Texas Motor Speedway.

The Longhorn 350 Truck Series race at TMS takes place Friday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

Then on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, it’s the O’Reilly Auto Parts XFINITY Series race, with the big race, the AAA Texas 500 Sprint Cup battle, on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

In each of the three series, the Texas races will be the middle ones in a three-race semifinal round. A victory by a Chase driver in any of the series will lock that driver into the championship round.

Two weeks after Texas, four drivers in each of the three series will race for the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In the Truck Series, Johnny Sauter is locked into the finale at Homestead, with five drivers duking it out for the final three spots.

None of the eight remaining drivers are locked into the XFINITY Chase yet, while at the Cup level, the only one guaranteed to be racing for a championship at Homestead is Jimmie Johnson.

That leaves seven drivers fighting for the final three Chase berths.

This weekend should bring some clarity to who’s likely to advance and who’s probably in trouble.

Weather likely won’t be a factor this weekend, with storms not expected to hit the Dallas area until Monday. Of course, a lot can change between then and now, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on both the on-track activity and the forecast all weekend.