After a rare weekend off, only eight races remain to set the 12-driver Chase field, with the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returning to action at Pocono Raceway in Saturday’s MillerTech Battery 250 presented by KOA (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Connor Zilisch is the defending race winner. The only full-time O’Reilly driver with a past victory in the series’ 10-year history at the track is Austin Hill, driver of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, who won in 2023.
As has become the theme for the season, the question is whether anyone can slow JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier’s torrid pace. The 2024 series champion is turning in a career year — his four wins already one victory shy of his career best mark.
Allgaier leads all drivers in everything from trophies to top fives (11), top 10s (13), average finish (7.9), laps led (422) and stage wins (six). He’s finished first or second seven times. Perhaps most impressive is that his 179 points over Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love (the defending series champion) atop the driver standings is larger than the gap between second place and 11th place (Sam Mayer).
Rather than discouraging the competition, Allgaier’s dominance has instead been motivating.
Love, who finished second to Zilisch last year at Pocono, has been close to a trophy, finishing runner-up three times and failing to win even after leading the most laps at Nashville Superspeedway, the series’ most recent race.
He’s the only driver ranked among the top four without a victory. Yet only halfway through the calendar, and he’s already led more laps (374) than he has in any previous entire season.
The competition at the other end of the Chase standings is tight; positions 10th (Parker Retzlaff) through 15th (Ryan Sieg) are separated by only 32 points.
The last three Pocono race winners — Hill, Cole Custer and Zilisch — are all entered this weekend, as is Cup Series regular William Byron. Practice gets underway at 10:30 a.m. ET Saturday, followed by qualifying at 11:35 a.m. ET, with both sessions airing on The CW App. Custer is the only polesitter (2019) to win at Pocono.
NEW YORK —Today, Prime Video launched a new installment of “Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers,” featuring NASCAR championand Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney. The new installment arrives as NASCAR on Prime revs up the engines for live coverage of theCup Series Raceat Pocono Raceway beginning at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Prime Video also released the official trailer and key art from the Blaney installment, which premieres exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide and is the latest addition to the Prime membership. Prime members enjoy savings, convenience and entertainment, all in a single membership.
Presented by Prime Video Sports, “Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers”is produced by Range Studios and Ten Till Productions. “Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers”is executive produced by Mark Herwick and Simon Andreae of Range Studios; Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Tim Brown and Jamie Horowitz of Ten Till Productions; and JD Amato. Amato also serves as showrunner. The series was nominated for Outstanding Edited Sports Series: Hosted at the 2026 Sports Emmy Awards.
About Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers — Ryan Blaney
Eli Manning recruits NASCAR champion and Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney to go undercover at the Team Penske Race Shop in Mooresville, North Carolina. Blaney transforms into Hamish Wimsley, a British gent who’s long in the tooth and even longer in the beard. He gets under the hood of NASCAR and Team Penske before showing some diehard fans that he’s still got plenty of petrol left in the tank. Once transformed by a team of Hollywood makeup artists, Blaney tests his prosthetic disguise on IndyCar driver and Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin before joining a group of NASCAR superfans at the Team Penske Race Shop. With an unprecedented level of access, Blaney secretly tags along as the fans get a rare look behind the scenes of the championship-winning operation. They get a close-up view of the Next Gen assembly line, historic Team Penske cars and private head-to-head pit crew competition. In the end, a trip to a local go-kart track gives Blaney the chance to show them that Hamish Wimsley might not be who he says he is — and that he drives like a madman.
It wasn’t too long ago that Tyler Reddick seemed to be completely running away with the 2026 Cup Series’ points lead — and therefore, the coveted No. 1 seed in The Chase — as he pursued his first career championship. In the debut year of the retooled Chase format, each win is worth 15 more points than under the previous system, and nobody won more in the early going of this season (or, really, any season) than the driver of the 45 car. At one point, the wins helped supercharge his lead to 129 points with 14 races to go before the end of the regular season, a cushion that looked borderline insurmountable.
In recent weeks, however, Reddick has also been on the receiving end of the outsized effect that wins can have on the points race — specifically courtesy of his boss, Denny Hamlin.
From that peak gap of 129 points following Reddick’s top-five run at Watkins Glen, Hamlin’s own recent hot streak (finishing third at Charlotte and scoring back-to-back wins at Nashville and Michigan) has more than cut Reddick’s advantage in half. After Reddick crashed into a 35th-place finish Sunday, Hamlin is just 51 points back of Reddick with 11 races before the cutoff; a much more workable deficit to overcome.
Now a battle for the points lead is back in play, even if Reddick still holds the edge. My latest forecast model simulations give Reddick a 74% chance to hang on and retain the No. 1 seed, with Hamlin sitting at 26%.
Fractionally, Ryan Blaney has a 0.5% chance to swoop in and steal it from both of the front-runners — but he’s currently 157 points back, so it would require a superhuman series of races from here. Effectively, this is a two-man race between the No. 45 team and the man who signs their paychecks for 23XI Racing.
What needs to happen for Hamlin to continue hunting Reddick down — or for Reddick to hold Hamlin off?
Looking at the leverage of each race on the odds for either driver to be the No. 1 seed, it’s critical to avoid disaster at the chaotic, high-speed environment of Daytona and the pack-racing of Atlanta — but also big, flat Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the upcoming “Tricky Triangle” of Pocono, both of which can be underrated stumbling blocks for favorites as well. In simulations where Reddick finishes 30th or worse in at least two of the four remaining races at Pocono, Atlanta, Indy and Daytona, his odds at the No. 1 seed fall to 51%, while Denny’s drop to 8% under the same set of finishing circumstances. (Alternatively, those figures become 47% and 6%, respectively, in sims where they finish 20th or worse in 3 of those 4 races.)
Of course, each driver needs to take advantage of their specialties from here, too. On the remaining regular-season schedule, there are 11 total races:
Two at superspeedway/drafting tracks (Atlanta, Daytona)
Two at road/street courses (San Diego, Sonoma)
Either three or four at both intermediate ovals (Pocono, Chicagoland, Indy) and short tracks (North Wilkesboro, Iowa, Richmond), depending on how you treat Loudon — which is 1.058 miles and flat, technically making it an oval, though it acts like Richmond and other short tracks.
Reddick is fairly close to Hamlin on ovals — he has a 114.3 Driver Rating to Denny’s 116.2 on them so far this season — which makes those either a wash or a slight advantage to the No. 11, at best. But Reddick is massively better on road courses; he has a 95.7 average rating on right- and left-turn tracks over the past three seasons, versus just 59.5 for Hamlin. And Hamlin is massively better on short tracks; he has a 105.2 average rating there over the past three seasons, versus just 73.4 for Reddick.
The greater number of additional short-track races relative to road courses is a built-in advantage for Hamlin. But Reddick has that 51-point lead in the standings, which more than balances things out. Either way, whichever driver can stick closer to their rival on the other’s preferred stomping grounds will have the inside track to the top seed.
And maybe the most important thing of all for Hamlin is to keep defying Father Time. He is already one of the most productive and successful Cup drivers ever in his 40s, running side-by-side with the great David Pearson for the title of sixth-best modern-era driver in the 40-or-over set, according to a combination of actual and expected (based on race-to-race Driver Ratings) wins:
But he’s outdoing himself this year at age 45. A year after the age at which Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. had stopped being full-time drivers — or when Jeff Gordon last drove, period (just to name a few greats that put down the steering wheel by this point) — Hamlin just won his third race in 15 starts and is arguably having his best season ever. That’s at least true in terms of finishing quality relative to the field: His average finish of 8.3 — 57% better than Cup average — is the lowest he’s ever had in a season and his 227 Adjusted Points+ index is the highest it’s ever been, while his average Driver Rating of 103.7 is second only to the 109.4 he put up in 2021.
It’s nearly unprecedented to see that level of performance from a 45-year-old. Hamlin’s normalized average finish is just 43% of the Cup average — lower is better — which ranks second all-time to Bobby Allison in 1983 and Cale Yarborough in 1984 among 45-plus year-olds. His 227 Adjusted Points+ index is fourth-best behind Allison/Yarborough and Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 2000. And his 103.7 Driver Rating once again trails only Yarborough and Allison.
(It’s no coincidence to see Mark Martin well-represented on the list; he was putting up seasons to rival Hamlin’s 2026 at age 50! And he’s also Hamlin’s only real rival for the crown of “best driver to never win a championship”, with apologies to Junior Johnson and Fireball Roberts.)
As long as Denny keeps driving at a historically ageless level — which he’s been doing for a long time now, yet he keeps topping himself — he will give himself a chance to track down Reddick by the end of the regular season, which in turn would provide a nice cushion in the standings ahead of The Chase as Hamlin seeks that elusive first Cup title.
Maybe this just proves that no points lead is truly safe under the new system’s win bonus. Or maybe just that Denny Hamlin still isn’t done adding to his future-Hall-of-Fame resume, not by a long shot.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to rural Pennsylvania for race 16 of the 2026 season at Pocono Raceway, while the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action after its first off weekend of the year at the “Tricky Triangle.” Bookmark this page for everything you need throughout race weekend, including qualifying orders, practice speeds, race results and more.
Race day: Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Prime Video. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Eight sets for the weekend (six new sets for the race, one set for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and one set for practice).
Entry List Qualifying Order Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times Starting Lineup
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results Race Results
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Race day: Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Five sets for the weekend (three new sets for the race, one set for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and one set for practice).
Entry List Qualifying Order Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Starting Lineup Pit Stalls Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results
Of all the big Super Late Model events Ty Majeski has won, Berlin Raceway’s Money in the Bank 150 was one that had eluded him.
Majeski needed to be patient through a prolonged rain delay and divergent strategies Wednesday, but he finally added his name to the short-but-notable list of Money in the Bank 150 winners in the event’s 10th running.
The triumph also marked the first time Majeski had visited Berlin’s Victory Lane during his career.
While Majeski has always appreciated his trips to Berlin, that affection never translated into the results he wanted. The catharsis Majeski felt as he piloted his bright yellow No. 91 Menards Ford across the finish line only cemented how important Wednesday’s milestone was.
“I haven’t felt this way in a while,” Majeski said. “I’m proud of our team. This is a tough race track, and it forces you to step outside your comfort zone from a race car standpoint and as a driver. I love the challenge and the discipline it takes to get around here.
“It took us five tries, but we finally conquered it tonight.”
Momentum was on Majeski’s side entering this year’s Money in the Bank 150. Along with two Super Late Model victories at Slinger Speedway, Majeski also won the Rattler at South Alabama Speedway in March.
Yet Majeski carried this confidence into Wednesday fully aware of the past disappointments he endured at Berlin. Across his four previous appearances at the half-mile oval, the closest Majeski came to Victory Lane was last year’s Tekton 250 Battle at Berlin, where he led a race-high 83 laps but ended up fourth.
Ending the Berlin winless streak would require Majeski to go through plenty of talented drivers from Berlin’s local division. This group included Austin Hull, the most recent Battle at Berlin champion, along with Brian Campbell.
There was also the presence of two other past Money in the Bank 150 winners in Wednesday’s field: NASCAR Cup Series regulars Carson Hocevar and Erik Jones.
With Jones unable to acquire the track position he needed, it was Hocevar exchanging blows with Campbell during the first half of the 150-lap feature while Majeski settled into a rhythm. Several cautions mixed up the running order as drivers came down pit road for tires and adjustments, which played into Majeski’s favor with his car improving in nighttime conditions.
Majeski made a critical pass with 48 laps remaining to take fourth from Hocevar, whose night ended moments later after getting into Andrew Scheid. With one of his primary challengers was eliminated, Majeski cycled to the lead and cruised to a victory for which he’d long awaited.
😬 Contact between Carson Hocevar and Andrew Scheid brings out a late caution at @BerlinRaceway!
Campbell ended up following Majeski home in second after an intense battle with Hocevar to open the Money in the Bank 150. While he would have loved to tie Hocevar’s record with three victories in Berlin’s crown jewel, Campbell took pride with how competitive his car was against so many other stout competitors.
“Messing around with Carson [Hocevar] there was fun,” Campbell said. “I got to talk to him at the rain break, and it was pretty good. Second place to Ty [Majeski] and Ty does this for a living, so we’re OK. Car was good, car was in one piece. We could go back and make it faster. We don’t have to fix anything, so yeah, pretty happy.”
Campbell will now regroup during Berlin’s upcoming local events while simultaneously preparing for the facility’s other prestigious event in August, the Battle at Berlin. Campbell is going for his second victory in that race; Majeski will pursue his first.
There is unfinished business for Majeski in the Battle at Berlin after last year’s near miss. Now that he has a Money in the Bank 150 on a record that includes triumphs in the Snowball Derby, Rattler, Winchester 400 and countless other races, Majeski knows he can pull off a clean sweep of Berlin’s crown jewels this year.
“We’ve been having tire issues all weekend with our right fronts coming apart,” Majeski said. “We weren’t good that first part of the race in the daytime. Once we put right sides on, the sun went down, and my right front held up a lot better. We were able to show the race car we had. We stayed the course.
Team Penske revealed Wednesday that Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Ford will run a throwback scheme paying homage to Ryan Newman’s 2008 Daytona 500 victory for Sunday’s Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The No. 12 will be decked out in the light blue base with the white streak that made Newman’s Alltel scheme stand out under the lights as it took the checkered flag with teammate Kurt Busch completing a 1-2 finish for Penske in the 50th running of the “Great American Race.” The scheme comes as the organization continues to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
Blaney, Newman and members of the 2008 Daytona 500-winning crew were at the Penske shop this week and were surprised with the throwback scheme, placed alongside Newman’s car.
“That win has a lot of history,” Blaney said. “That paint scheme is very memorable. It’s one of my favorite paint schemes growing up. The Alltel scheme was really iconic. The blue is beautiful, and with the 60th anniversary of Penske, we’re really utilizing a lot of iconic wins for the organization. I had the pleasure to race with Ryan for a handful of years before he retired. He’s one of my favorite drivers to watch growing up and heck of a competitor. We’re really honored to be able to run it this weekend at Pocono.”
Newman is fifth all-time on Team Penske’s win list in the Cup Series, compiling 13 victories from 2002-2008. Newman also scored his first big oval win at Pocono, running in the ARCA Menards Series for Penske in 2000.
“Throwback schemes have always been cool, but keeping it internally is a different kind of special,” Newman said. “Really proud and honored to be a part of the history at Penske. Ryan and I have always had a good relationship. It’s cool to see the car go back in that livery at a track where we won our first race at.”
Blaney’s No. 12 will also carry a commemorative sticker honoring crew chief Roy McCauley, who died in 2024. McCauley was atop the pit box for Newman when they won the Daytona 500, and the pair combined for seven triumphs across the Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
“We dominated the [O’Reilly Auto Parts] Series back in ’05. We won six out of nine races and had a great experience,” Newman said. “Roy was such a big part of so many things here at Penske after he was a crew chief. He had a lot of different roles and was successful at all of them. It’s really special for me to be able to put that sticker on because I know his wife Amy was a big part of it and a big supporter of what we did on the race track.”
Josh Berry will not return to Wood Brothers Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series next season, he shared with reporters in a teleconference Wednesday morning. Wood Brothers later confirmed in a release that afternoon it was not exercising its option with the 35-year-old driver and that his replacement will be announced “in the near future.”
“Just to go ahead and put it out there, I will not be back in the 21 car next year,” Berry revealed. “They’ve been amazing to work with, amazing people, and it’s been such a great opportunity.
“What I didn’t want to do was sit here and feed a line to you guys and then have it get announced [later], so I feel like that makes me pretty ignorant, so I wasn’t going to do that.”
Berry, in his second season with the historic organization, explained that he first heard of the news less than 24 hours before sharing with reporters. Sitting 30th in points through 15 races in 2026, the Hendersonville, Tennessee, native wasn’t completely blindsided.
“You hear the rumor mills start going, so I’m not going to say that I was completely caught off guard,” Berry said. “I didn’t exactly feel great about it. I probably would have said myself I was probably 50-50 in what was going on.
“Obviously, hit the ground running here, working hard to try and find out what’s out there, and certainly open and optimistic about any opportunities that come my way, but first and foremost, we’re going to do our best to finish this season strong and leave in a good place.”
A statement from Wood Brothers Racing read: “We thank Josh Berry for all he’s done for Wood Brothers Racing and our partners over the last two seasons. Josh has been a great teammate and we look forward to a strong finish to this season. We wish Josh all the best moving forward. We will announce who will be driving the No. 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in 2027 soon and we are excited for what lies ahead for Wood Brothers Racing.”
Berry joined Wood Brothers Racing ahead of the 2025 season, taking the reins after Harrison Burton’s three-year stint with the team. After spending his rookie season with now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, Berry started his WBR tenure with a bang, winning his first career race that March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But come the playoffs, Berry crashed in all three Round of 16 races — including on Lap 1 in the opener at Darlington Raceway — and exited the postseason early, ultimately finishing 16th in the series ranks.
After finishing ninth in the Daytona 500 this season, Berry has struggled since. He’s finished 26th or worse in 11 of 15 races in 2026, including four DNFs. His only other top 10 came at Martinsville Speedway.
“It’s been a tough year, and when you have some of the things we’ve had happen and the results we’ve had happen — regardless of the details of it — you start to question (returning), and that’s fair,” Berry explained. “If we had ran better, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, but we didn’t. Now, we got X number of races throughout the rest of the year to turn that back around and change the narrative and get back closer to the front.
“It’s been a struggle really for a lot of the Fords and a lot of the guys this year, and we just got to turn that around and go to the next race. At the end of the day, whether you win or you wreck, whatever, you go to work Monday and go to the next race, and that’s what we’re going to do from here on out and see how it all shakes out.”
Before moving to the Cup Series in 2024, Berry carved out a successful career with JR Motorsports. He first joined the Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt Miller-owned organization in 2010, primarily driving late models up the East Coast before finally earning a part-time shot in the O’Reilly Series in 2021. At times, he believed he’d be a lifelong late-model driver. But Berry took advantage of his shot, and in his sixth race, won at Martinsville after leading 95 laps.
After 12 races in the No. 8 Chevrolet, Berry earned additional opportunities, making his Cup Series debut later that year for Spire Motorsports. After fellow JRM driver Michael Annett suffered an injury, Berry climbed behind the wheel of the No. 1 Chevrolet, winning the fall race at Las Vegas.
Berry moved to a full-time ride with JRM in 2022 and won three more times, earning 20 top-10 finishes and qualifying for the Championship 4. He returned in 2023, scoring 18 additional top 10s but went winless — finishing 11th in the series ranks.
But now, Berry’s back to the drawing board — wondering what’ll come next in his NASCAR national series career.
“I’ve been extremely fortunate to get the opportunities I’ve had, and been extremely fortunate to drive for the Wood Brothers and this team,” Berry said. “Unfortunately, it’s going a different direction, but you never know what doors might open up, and we’re going to work hard to land on our feet and find something.
“I’m still the guy that won Las Vegas. I’m still the same guy that nearly won New Hampshire in the playoffs. It’s been a tough year, but we’ll work through it and try to find what’s out there.
“The sun came up this morning, and it’s a new day. You land on your feet and you go to work, that’s all you can do.”
Time to get tricky! The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series head back to the Northeast for their annual visits to the 2.5-mile, triangular Pocono Raceway. ARCA Menards Series action kicks off the weekend on Friday at 3 p.m. ET (FS1), before the O’Reilly Series races on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, The CW). The Cup Series culminates the weekend with 160 laps around the Long Pond, Pennsylvania, facility on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video). Below are the qualifying orders for both series.
Cup Series
Single-car qualifying will occur at 2:10 p.m. ET on Saturday, with practice earlier in the day at 1 p.m. ET (Prime Video).
POSITION
NUMBER
DRIVER
METRIC
GROUP
1
62
* Casey Mears
41.6
1
2
78
* Daniel Dye(i)
41.0
1
3
88
Connor Zilisch #
36.4
1
4
3
Austin Dillon
33.6
1
5
38
Zane Smith
29.7
1
6
6
Brad Keselowski
28.3
1
7
4
Noah Gragson
28.2
1
8
47
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
27.2
1
9
51
Cody Ware
26.9
1
10
10
Ty Dillon
26.7
1
11
97
Shane van Gisbergen
25.2
1
12
45
Tyler Reddick
24.8
1
13
20
Christopher Bell
24.7
1
14
60
Ryan Preece
24.4
1
15
71
Michael McDowell
24.2
1
16
9
Chase Elliott
23.6
1
17
34
Todd Gilliland
22.9
1
18
48
Alex Bowman
22.3
1
19
33
Austin Hill(i)
21.8
1
20
21
Josh Berry
20.1
2
21
54
Ty Gibbs
19.0
2
22
41
Cole Custer
18.6
2
23
42
John Hunter Nemechek
18.5
2
24
1
Ross Chastain
18.4
2
25
16
AJ Allmendinger
18.2
2
26
35
Riley Herbst
17.2
2
27
24
William Byton
16.2
2
28
2
Austin Cindric
12.8
2
29
19
Chase Briscoe
10.9
2
30
22
Joey Logano
10.3
2
31
17
Chris Buescher
8.7
2
32
43
Erik Jones
7.1
2
33
7
Daniel Suárez
6.9
2
34
12
Ryan Blaney
6.5
2
35
77
Carson Hocevar
5.6
2
36
23
Bubba Wallace
5.4
2
37
5
Kyle Larson
4.6
2
38
11
Denny Hamlin
1.3
2
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Single-car qualifying will occur at 11:35 a.m. ET on Saturday, with practice earlier in the day at 10:30 a.m. ET (The CW App).
POSITION
NUMBER
DRIVER
METRIC
1
38
Patrick Emerling(i)
38.6
2
53
Natalie Decker(i)
36.4
3
35
Carson Ware
36.1
4
55
Joey Gase
36.0
5
9
Carson Kvapil
33.5
6
07
Josh Bilicki
31.7
7
0
Cole Custer
30.9
8
02
Ryan Ellis
30.5
9
45
Lavar Scott #
30.4
10
87
Nick Sanchez
29.4
11
42
Nick Leitz(i)
28.1
12
91
Dexter Bean
27.7
13
24
Harrison Burton
26.4
14
28
Kyle Sieg
25.8
15
92
Leland Honeyman Jr.(i)
25.0
16
48
Patrick Staropoli #
24.7
17
27
Jeb Burton
22.7
18
31
Blaine Perkins
20.9
19
44
Brennan Poole
19.8
20
32
Rajah Caruth
18.7
21
51
Jeremy Clements
18.6
22
96
Anthony Alfredo
18.2
23
26
Dean Thompson
15.5
24
39
Ryan Sieg
13.6
25
00
Sheldon Creed
12.3
26
2
Jesse Love
12.1
27
99
Parker Retzlaff
12.0
28
54
Taylor Gray
10.5
29
21
Austin Hill
10.1
30
8
Sammy Smith
10.0
31
41
Sam Mayer
6.7
32
88
William Byron(i)
6.2
33
1
Connor Zilisch(i)
6.1
34
17
Corey Day
5.7
35
20
Brandon Jones
5.6
36
18
William Sawalich
5.4
37
19
Brent Crews #
4.1
38
7
Justin Allgaier
1.0
* Required to qualify on time # denotes series rookie (i) denotes ineligible for driver points
Jeb Burton spent the last three seasons maximizing speed with Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport, fighting an uphill battle. For the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, Burton’s wish for an alliance with a NASCAR Cup Series program was fulfilled, with the team forming a partnership with Richard Childress Racing.
When Kaulig Racing departed the series to be the lead team for Ram in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, an opening needed to be filled within the Chevrolet banner. Jordan Anderson Racing covered it, beefing up its ties with RCR. Burton was the prime beneficiary, hovering near the postseason bubble in prior seasons, aside from winning his way into the postseason in 2023.
The alliance, which is enhancing JAR’s efforts, has brought challenges. In some ways, they were starting from scratch while also adding a third full-time entry.
“Anything that you change, there are going to be growing pains,” Burton said of the alliance. “The first part of the year, we had to dissect, ‘This would work for us, this wouldn’t.’ At some races, we struggled badly. We didn’t look at everything that we knew, and I don’t feel like we did a good job for four races. I feel like now we understand the alliance better and the tools more. We have more speed this year than the [four] years that I’ve been here, but we don’t have the results to show for it.”
“It’s been a lot of work and navigate through,” Anderson told NASCAR.com. “We would like to be running a little better, but it’s one thing we’re navigating through, what we need to do better, collectively, to be better at that. When Kaulig moved on to the Truck Series, that became available, and there was a block to get that in years past. That opened the door for us to get in. It was the next logical step.”
An adjustment process was expected. The No. 27 team also underwent a leadership change, with J.C. Umscheid stepping into the crew chief role after spending several seasons at Tricon Garage, where he worked as a truck chief in the Truck Series.
The pace was evident early for the No. 27 team. Burton logged time inside the top 10 at Phoenix Raceway en route to his lone top-10 finish of 2026 through 16 races.
However, those four floundering weeks spanned consecutively in the second month of the 2026 campaign. Between Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Rockingham Speedway, Burton dropped a handful of positions in the driver standings to 17th. Promise was shown the next week at Kansas Speedway with a 13th-place effort after a 30th-place car in the series’ previous race at Kansas last fall.
David Jensen | Getty Images
Since then, though, Burton has six consecutive finishes of 22nd or worse, dipping to 20th in points entering Saturday’s action at Pocono Raceway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The field has gotten much more competitive than in prior seasons, with the likes of Hendrick Motorsports, Viking Motorsports and Jeremy Clements Racing upping resources.
“I would tell you that we’ve got half of what I was looking for,” Burton said of the alliance. “We’ve moved up on the grid, for sure. The next gap is where it makes my job easier because my car is so much faster. We’re getting there.”
Compared to recent years, JAR has more access to setups on the aerodynamic side, an area where smaller organizations are hindered.
“It’s all the things that you can’t see that make these race cars go fast,” Burton said.
RCR leadership is invested in the success of its alliance partners. As those teams grow stronger, the alliance gains additional depth, creating a mutually beneficial relationship. Ultimately, teams still need to have good fortune; the No. 27 car has DNF’d in a quarter of the races this season.
“The biggest thing is looking at the stuff that has happened on track this year has been unfortunate: wrong place, wrong time,” Anderson said. “You look at Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, we’ve had a couple of them that are should have, could have, would have. Every year, we try to get a little better as an organization. The goal this year was to add depth, and I think we’ve done that with guys at the shop, traveling on the road.
“Our sim program has gotten a lot better on the Chevrolet side. The RCR alliance has helped us with the chassis and parts-wise. We knew there was going to be some growing time to get this going, and we’ve got to dig our heels in to get that program rolling. Hopefully, this summer we will start to see some of those benefits.”
Burton is leaving room for optimism within the No. 27 team for that alluded summer surge.
“To be honest, if we can finish top 15 in points, that’s a good year for us,” Burton said. “It’s realistic. When we go back to Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, let’s try to have a chance to win. At the other tracks, let’s try to get as many top 10s as we can and keep building our program because I think we still have room for improvement, so this time next year we’re in the playoffs.
“If you go back to last year, we were right there on the cusp of the playoffs. I’m a competitor, and I don’t want to just make the playoffs. I want to try to win the championship. We’re not there as a company yet, but for us to make the playoffs, is winning the championship.”
On the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, Mike Forde, NASCAR vice president of racing communications, confirmed that the Delta-v, which measures the change in velocity, was the largest number recorded since the Next Gen made its debut in 2022.
According to Matt Harper, NASCAR managing director of safety systems, it’s also the hardest recorded hit in at least a decade.
“Delta-v is the measure of speed lost in an incident,” Forde said. “So if you’re going 200 mph and then all of a sudden you come to a stop because you hit a wall and scrub off X amount of speed, that difference is what the Delta-v is. I can’t give out the Delta-v number for Bell. That data is proprietary in a way. We share that with the team and the driver, and that’s their data to do with what they want. But we can confirm that it was the largest number we’ve seen in the Next Gen era.”
Forde said Harper began a remote investigation of the crash on Sunday as soon as data and photos were uploaded from after the incident.
NASCAR did a further review Monday morning of Bell’s car at the Joe Gibbs Racing shop.
Forde said Harper primarily concentrated on the performance of Bell’s restraint systems — particularly the driver’s helmet, the HANS tethers and the foam surrounding his head.
“A big priority is being put around the head surround foam,” Forde said. “We keep updating this part of the rule book as we learn more and more. The thickness of the head surround is so important. And because we were pleased with how the head surround supported Christopher in this incident, we did a lot of measurements of the type of foam he used, the softness and the thickness. We want to see, ‘Hey, is this sort of the magic number? Is this something that other drivers may want to look at?’ Because this was the biggest hit we’ve ever seen in the Next Gen era, and by and large, Christopher came out of it pretty well. So that’s one of the things we’ll be studying as we move forward.”
The podcast also featured an interview with Chase Brashears, NASCAR director of track services, who discussed how the SAFER barrier was quickly repaired from the impact with Bell’s car and the NASCAR safety team’s response time to the crash scene.
Other topics covered by Forde and Ellis during the 57th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— How Christopher Bell was cleared to race at Pocono Raceway.
— NASCAR’s process for taking four cars to the engine dyno.
— How the 2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge field will be set after Pocono.
Click on the embed below to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Today Co. and, for the past 10 years, at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He has also covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
