After a week away from the track, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action this Saturday at Pocono Raceway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The race will be the 17th points-paying event of the 2026 campaign.
Three NASCAR Cup Series regulars — Cole Custer (No. 0), Connor Zilisch (No. 1) and William Byron (No. 88) — will race in the O’Reilly contest this weekend. Zilisch enters as the defending track winner, finding Victory Lane there in June 2025 with Dale Earnhardt Jr. as crew chief.
There are 38 cars entered into this weekend’s event.
After doing battle at Michigan International Speedway, the NASCAR Cup Series next races at the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle” in Pocono Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, will attempt to go back-to-back-to-back this weekend after capturing checkered flags at Nashville Superspeedway and Michigan International Speedway. Hamlin’s seven career Cup wins at Pocono are his most at any single Cup track and the most all-time among Cup drivers. Hamlin has never won three consecutive races in his career.
Thirty-eight cars are entered into this weekend’s event.
At age 45, time, wear and tear say that Denny Hamlin should be declining, a veteran on the back half of his career winding down and fading out of the NASCAR zeitgeist.
Yet somehow, some way, Hamlin keeps beating the odds as often as he’s beating his competition.
Hamlin’s latest romp at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday was arguably his most impressive: qualified on pole despite an aerodynamic disadvantage, started from the rear and stormed to the front with a three-wide pass for the lead on a late-race restart to win by a whopping 11.11 seconds, the largest margin of victory on an oval since 2018. Even crazier is that he achieved a near-identical feat just one week prior at Nashville Superspeedway, where he jumped the start from pole position, went to the rear of the field and charged back for a three-wide pass for the lead on a late-race restart.
Team owner Joe Gibbs has fielded NASCAR Cup Series cars for Hamlin since Hamlin’s first of 736 starts back in 2005. Gibbs has led National Football League teams to Super Bowl championships. He has won five Cup Series championships as a team owner. He’s in both the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. What Hamlin is accomplishing at this stage of his career ranks among the most impressive athletic feats he’s ever seen.
“I think all of us here know how tough NASCAR is. We know this is the best people in the world racing stock cars,” Gibbs said Sunday. “And we’ve seen Denny now — I think at this point of his career, I think this might be the most exceptional thing he’s done. Because you think about most athletes, they get to a point where they have everything they need, OK? And they just lose the drive and passion. And what we’re witnessing with Denny is really just the opposite of that.
“He’s full-blown in the simulator, works extremely hard. In our meetings, he means so much to the other young drivers just hearing him describe what happens during the race, the way he looks at things. And so for us, it’s invaluable really. And for us to have this relationship this long, I just really appreciate him. He’s been so loyal to us, and he’s really helped build what we have.”
Built-in speed goes a long way in allowing Hamlin to maximize his days so often that he’s now tied with Kyle Busch for ninth all-time on the Cup Series wins list with 63 victories. But so too does Hamlin’s work ethic, which is unrelenting despite his assured status as one of NASCAR’s greats. That includes putting in the homework, even in the hours before the race.
“I’ve been blessed to have really fast cars, for one,” Hamlin said. “But just learning — and I really studied (Sunday) morning, I really studied the 45. He started in the back last year, and I wanted to watch his first 20 laps, 30 laps to see how he navigated traffic. So I knew I was going to have my hands full, but I just — I don’t know, I constantly study some different things to try to get better, and we chip away at it. I never really panic at any point of the race anymore.
“Starting sixth here with 40 to go inside the last fuel run, it’s like, yeah, I feel pretty confident we’re still going to win. It’s just we’re at that point where we show up to the race track, and it’s like the confidence is just higher than it’s ever been.”
Hannah Tallant | NASCAR Digital Media
To have that self-assurance 21 years into his full-time Cup career may seem otherworldly to most. To Hamlin, this is just another day in 2026. The edge he holds is knowledge, a point he emphasized in a pre-race conversation with 23-year-old teammate Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
“He (Gibbs) was like, how many starts do you have? Probably 40, 30-something,” said Hamlin, who has indeed made 36 starts at Michigan. “He’s like, man, I’m at the point now where I feel like I know what I need. I know what I’m looking for. And I said, yeah, imagine having four times as many starts as you have.
“That’s the advantage I have every single week is that he feels comfortable where he’s at, but just add another 15 years of experience, and you know the transitions of the track and like what happens when it gets cloudy, what happens when it gets sunny, what happens when the wind is this direction, that direction, all those things you just learn over time. It’s why we have the upper hand right now.”
There are comparisons to be made to other sporting greats who’ve found this long-tenured excellence late in their careers — some in NASCAR like Jeff Gordon; others in other sports like the NFL’s Tom Brady or the NBA’s LeBron James. But those greats have championships to tag onto all of their wins. Hamlin is still seeking that ever-elusive first championship in NASCAR, especially after a devastating loss at Phoenix Raceway last November.
But like those aforementioned legends, Hamlin is still putting himself in contention for titles in the homestretch of his career, a tenure he intends to conclude at the end of the 2027 campaign.
His steps toward accomplishing those championship hopes were particularly rekindled Sunday at Michigan. Tyler Reddick, who drives the No. 45 Toyota that Hamlin co-owns with 23XI Racing, entered with a 97-point advantage over Hamlin for the No. 1 spot in the regular-season points standings. Reddick hadn’t finished worse than 15th all year, but a Lap 83 crash ousted his car from competition, dropping him to a season-worst 35th-place finish.
That one misstep, coupled with Hamlin’s late-race dominance, has sliced Reddick’s advantage to just 51 points entering Pocono Raceway — where Hamlin is the track’s all-time winningest driver with seven victories and is seeking to win three straight races for the first time in his career.
After his Nashville victory, Hamlin said there was “not really” a realistic path to the No. 1 seed in The Chase because of Reddick’s five victories and ability to avoid bad finishes.
“We’d have to win three or four more races,” he said that evening. “He’s going to have to have some DNFs and stuff. Not really. My goal is to try to stay P2, and that will be close enough with 10 to go.”
That tune changed — if only slightly — after cutting the deficit to Reddick to a far more manageable margin with 11 races remaining before the postseason begins.
“I knew the only way we ever could catch him is he was going to have to have bad luck. I said it weeks ago,” Hamlin said. “He had bad luck today. We were in the same wreck. We were turned around backwards. Luckily, no one hit us in Turn 1. Our car wasn’t very good, and we just overcame it.
“I think it’s still going to have to — he’s going to stretch it out at San Diego, Sonoma. I still think he’s in a really good place, but if we keep doing this, it will keep them interesting and honest for sure.”
The driver with the most points at the conclusion of the regular season in August will earn the No. 1 seed and a 25-point buffer over second to begin The Chase, which starts at Darlington Raceway in September. The closer Hamlin makes it in the regular season, the better his chances for hoisting the Bill France Cup in November when the 10-race postseason marathon concludes.
Until then, it’s all about winning for Hamlin. It always has been. And now, only the sport’s giants stand in front of him on NASCAR’s all-time wins list: Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, David Pearson and Richard Petty.
Sunday at Michigan, he wanted to remind everyone he’s not done yet.
“I wanted to go as hard as I could. I just wanted to make a statement on the last run,” Hamlin said. “And I wanted to keep myself in rhythm. This is a track where rhythm matters. … The minute you start backing off and not running 100%, your car will start biasing, doing something that it shouldn’t be because, again, like I talked about, it’s not meant to be run at 3/4 speed, it’s meant to be run at 100.
“So I wanted to have a no mercy run and just see what happens.”
A stout group of Super Late Model competitors are expected Wednesday night for the annual running of the Money in the Bank 150 at Michigan’s Berlin Raceway (5:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing).
The Money in the Bank 150 draws some of the nation’s best Super Late Model competitors as well as drivers from all three of NASCAR’s national divisions to battle against Berlin Raceway’s tough local stars — all racing for the $15,000 winner’s share of a purse that exceeds $80,000.
NASCAR Cup Series star Carson Hocevar returns to his home track as the most recent winner of the Money in the Bank 150, but he’ll face some of the the best in the business if he hopes to add another trophy to his collection Wednesday night.
Below is everything to know about Wednesday’s Money in the Bank at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan.
Carson Hocevar returns to Berlin Raceway this week as the defending winner of the Money in the Bank 150. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
How to watch the Money in the Bank 150 at Berlin Raceway
All feature racing action for the 2026 Money in the Bank 150 at Berlin Raceway can be viewed live on FloRacing, the official streaming home for all NASCAR Regional properties.
The race will not be shown on a traditional television network.
Below is the complete schedule for coverage on FloRacing. The broadcast starts at 5:30 p.m. ET as Super Late Model qualifying commences. Feature racing is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. ET.
This year’s Money in the Bank 150 is scheduled for Wednesday, June 10. Below is the complete race-day schedule for Wednesday at Berlin Raceway.
(All times ET)
Time
Event
9:30 a.m.
Pit Pass Window Opens
10 a.m.
Pit Area Opens
11 a.m.
Race Tires Sold / Impounded
12 p.m.
Super Late Model Driver / Spotter Meeting
1 – 1:50 p.m.
Super Late Model Practice
2 – 2:50 p.m.
Super Late Model Practice
3 p.m.
Sportsman Tech
3:30 p.m.
Super Late Model Tech
4:10 – 4:40 p.m.
Sportsman Practice
5:30 p.m.
Super Late Model Qualifying
6:27 p.m.
Invocation / National Anthem
6:30 p.m.
Racing Begins (Money in the Bank Last Chance Race; Sportsman Feature; Money in the Bank 150)
Carson Hocevar has won both the Money in the Bank 150 and the Battle at Berlin at Berlin Raceway during his career.(Photo: Julia Schachinger/NASCAR)
Entry list
The entry list for the 2026 Money in the Bank 150 stands at 30 cars. Leading the way is NASCAR Cup Series competitor Carson Hocevar, the defending race winner and a Michigan native who won a track championship at Berlin during his formative years.
Some of Hocevar’s other Berlin accomplishments include a Battle at Berlin victory in 2024 and three Money in the Bank wins (2020-21, 2025).
Hocevar isn’t the only active NASCAR Cup Series driver entered in Wednesday’s race. Erik Jones, a two-time Southern 500 winner at NASCAR’s highest level and a fellow Michigan native, is also entered in Wednesday’s race. Jones won the Money in the Bank 150 in 2023.
Ty Majeski, the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion, will climb aboard his Super Late Model to chase his first Money in the Bank victory. Majeski is no stranger to Victory Lane in a Super Late Model; he’s won most of the major Super Late Model races held across the United States.
Other notable entries in Wednesday’s event include previous Money in the Bank winners Bubba Pollard and Brian Campbell, as well as local stars like Evan Shotko, Austin Hull, Boris Jurkovic and Terry Senneker. Also entered are ARCA Menards Series race winners Tristan McKee, Max Reaves and Treyten Lapcevich.
Below is the complete entry list for Wednesday’s main event.
Car No.
Driver
4
Erik Jones
4
Holt Halder
4
Tyler Lupton
5
Tristan McKee
6
Chet Monaweck
9
Hudson Halder
14
Michael Atwell
14
Chase Pinsonneault
18
Chase Burda
18
Max Reaves
18
Keith Herp
20
Austin Hull
20
Harrison Halder
22
Evan Shotko
24
Dylan Stovall
24
Terry Senneker
26
Bubba Pollard
27
Ken Wobma
28
Scott Thomas
30
Treyten Lapcevich
32
Chris Shannon
39
Andrew Morrissey
46
Buddy Head
47
Brian Campbell
53
Boris Jurkovic
57
Justin Thomas
57
Blake Rowe
71
Carson Hocevar
88
Andrew Scheid
91
Ty Majeski
Bubba Pollard (26) is a multi-time winner of the Money in the Bank at Berlin Raceway. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Denny Hamlin’s rally to his second consecutive victory wasn’t the only drive from worst to first worth watching Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. Another monumental effort from the back of the pack nearly rewarded Erik Jones, a home-state favorite.
Jones powered to a runner-up finish in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400, turning in a season-best result for the No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota group. Any jubilation for the organization’s first top-five outcome of the year was tempered slightly by how close Jones & Co. came to a breakthrough celebration, one that would have galvanized the gains that the team has been trying to sustain.
“It’s good. I mean, it’s a nice day. It’s disappointing in some ways at the same time to have the car we had,” Jones said. “It’s not like we fluked into second. We were up here all day and running well, and we had a fast car. It just didn’t work out perfect, you know. We needed everything to go well. The restarts got chaotic at the end, and the last one didn’t work out for us. I had to pick through traffic and by the time I got up there, the race was over and Denny was gone. So, a lot of positives to take away. I mean, the car was really fast, and I couldn’t even ask much out of it for balance. So, we’ll work on it, keep bringing cars like this, and we’ll win races soon.”
Jones’ task was made more difficult by trouble in Saturday’s practice, when the No. 43 Toyota slowed with a flat left-rear tire. The unapproved adjustments to repair damage from the incident forced the team to the rear of the 37-car field for Sunday’s start.
Jones opted for a patient approach to make his way forward, dodging the series of crashes that disrupted the race’s early rhythm and knocked several drivers from contention. Keeping it clean paid off, and the car’s balance helped Jones make it to second place by the end of Stage 2 for more crucial points.
“I knew the car was fast, and just trying not to burn the tires off it being overzealous early in runs and letting it come to me, and it’s just what I’ve been focusing on a lot lately,” Jones said. “So I felt like we did good with that, and we made the right choice definitely with doing the repairs. Yeah, I told the guys before, it was going to be a chaotic race, and it was definitely that. It was a lot of sloppy racing, a lot of mess going on, but happy to get through it and come up with a good one.”
The choice to fix the No. 43’s ills and give up a season-best 10th starting spot was one that Justin Alexander, in his first year as an LMC crew chief, grappled with.
“That was terrible. We made a tough decision overnight to kind of repair the car and give up the track position, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure it was going to pay off because starting in the back is so hard,” Alexander said, “but the car was just really phenomenal. … We made one change to the car all day. I mean, it was a really good car, and he was super happy with it from the get-go. Yeah, it was a challenge. We were able to drive up through the field the first run a lot more than I actually thought we were.”
Alexander said he shared some of Jones’ bittersweet sentiment, winding up one spot short of the leaderboard’s top perch – which Hamlin roared away with by a whopping 11-second margin. Hamlin’s strength, plus some setbacks with how restarts shook out, proved to be too much to overcome, but Alexander said that many of the positives should help with the team’s momentum.
“I really did think we had a race-winning car,” Alexander said, “so when you have a car like this, it’s … you don’t expect to win, because wins are so hard to get, but when you don’t win, you know you had the car to win, so it was a great points day, though. We got a lot of stage points there in Stage 2, and then finished No. 2, so I think we probably took a big leap in points up from where we’re at.”
Alexander was correct. Jones jumped three spots to 18th in the Cup Series standings, resting just 18 points behind the cutoff line for the provisional 16-driver Chase postseason grid. After Watkins Glen International three races earlier, Jones was 25th with a 69-point deficit to the same elimination line.
Four top-15 finishes in the last five events — capped by Sunday’s runner-up — have helped reverse that downward trend. Almost as importantly, the performance gains have bolstered Jones’ morale as the regular season heads deeper into its home stretch.
“I mean, we definitely have something to build off of,” Jones said. “I think I am confident every time I’m showing up to the track that the cars are good. There’s a stretch where that was a question, where I didn’t know what I was going to be getting into, and now I feel like I can hop in and, like I said, just be loose, hammer down, not think about it, and drive as fast as I can drive and tell them what it needs, and that’s a good feeling as a driver. Just hope it continues going forward, and we can keep making it better.”
BROOKLYN, Mich. – Carson Hocevar started pre-race ceremonies at Michigan International Speedway by emerging onto the driver-introduction stage wrapped in the dark blue flag of his home state, his blooming stardom amplifying the cheers from the home crowd.
The conclusion of his race day Sunday was pure frustration at the checkered flag he didn’t get. A slammed helmet on the roof of his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and an extended stay on the track’s pit wall stood in for a potential trip to MIS Victory Lane.
Fifth place was what Hocevar settled for in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400, a NASCAR Cup Series race in which most were playing for also-ran status during another dominant performance by a white-hot Denny Hamlin. He led 21 laps, spending time out front at his home track for the third straight outing, but he also had to answer for his role in triggering a Stage 2 restart pile-up and other aggressive tactics that drew criticism.
The day was eventful for multiple reasons, just not the ultimate one he wanted most.
“I mean, I’ll just reminisce on it for another 365 days,” Hocevar said. “This is … I’m from Michigan – U of M and Michigan State. You know, it’s its own season, so you know, this race is its own season for me.”
Hocevar’s day started with plenty of promise, getting the early upper hand by leading the first lap from the second starting spot. He remained a contender throughout the race’s first half, but his forceful move on a Lap 83 restart sent John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota out of control, collecting multiple cars in its wake entering Turn 1.
Austin Dillon was among those sidelined by the incident, and he made his disapproval clear, saying: “Hope at some point he figures it out.”
“I mean, they just checked up right after the start/finish line,” said Hocevar, who held the inside lane at the point of collision. “I went to go low when I saw them check up, so it probably just shot him right and spun him. Yeah, it caught me off guard that they stacked up. I kind of gave a little bit of space, but they just stacked up, and so I don’t know why they did, but I mean I spun whoever it was, I’m not sure.”
Sixteen laps later, Hocevar attempted a dive-bomb move from fourth place, interjecting his No. 77 Chevy into a two-wide contest for second place between Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace. Hocevar backed out of the maneuver, and a brilliant save kept all three from potential catastrophe, but the move left enough of an impression on Wallace that he pulled up alongside Hocevar as he sat on the pit wall post-race, voicing his grievances but also offering a potential teaching moment.
“He’s fast,” said Wallace, who turned the tables on a difficult May with a third-place result. “He’s fast, and he deserves to be in Victory Lane multiple times out here, but making mistakes is going to cost him, and he hasn’t realized that yet.”
Wallace added that Hocevar seemed to offer an olive branch later in the race, waving Wallace and other faster cars by. Wallace said that didn’t necessarily absolve the earlier perceived sins.
“I was pissed. He’s playing the game, the point by – letting me and Larson by, and the 43 (Erik Jones) by was nice, but doesn’t ease the pain,” Wallace said. “That’s what I told him. It’s like you have to … I don’t know if you’re doing that on purpose, but you’re having to do that because like, ‘oh man, I wrecked that guy earlier. I wrecked him last week. I gotta just stop hitting [expletive].’ You can race to your potential.”
Hocevar said he understood the message.
“Yeah, I get his point and perspective and everything,” Hocevar said. “I mean, I’m just racing really hard, and there were times where I tried to make a move and get two spots when I probably should have just got one, and it cost me – especially almost wrecking myself in (Turns) 3 and 4 there early in the race when I was next to him. So yeah, just a bummer today, obviously.”
Luke Lambert, Hocevar’s crew chief through each of his three full-time Cup Series seasons, said he sensed how much this home-track race meant to the 23-year-old driver, but was able to gather positives from the outcome. Hocevar earned 12 stage points, plus a bonus point for turning the race’s fastest lap, and collected his first top-five effort since his breakthrough Cup Series win at Talladega in April.
Though there was disappointment, Lambert said he took to heart the perspective offered by Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, who noted how far the organization has progressed.
“The message is simple: We’re mad at a fifth, and that’s really it,” Lambert told NASCAR.com. “We used to – as Jeff said – we used to pop bottles for days like today. So we’re in a good place as a race team when we end the day and we’re really frustrated with a fifth-place finish, and we know we have to continue to do this and continue to get better to get to where we want to be, but it’s a sign of where we’re at and where we’re headed. That’s really the thing to kind of step back and look at is that, yeah, in the moment it’s easy to be frustrated on the what-could-have-beens, but there’s a whole lot of other what-could-have-beens that we need to also recognize, and so I’m just proud of the team for executing, putting ourselves in position.”
Hocevar gained two positions in the Cup Series standings, moving up to seventh place through 15 races this season. Still, the youngster said that watching Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota control the final 39 laps and stretch out to a stunning margin of victory of 11-plus seconds while precious ground slipped away would stick with him.
“Yeah, I mean, this one’s gonna sting,” Hocevar said. “I would have really liked to have this one, just because of how good our car was. It’s just probably just gonna eat me up watching the 11 (Hamlin) come in my rearview, drive by me and then drive away, and then have a car in between us.”
The all-time list of NASCAR Cup Series winners starts with Richard Petty (200 wins) and includes more than 60 drivers who won just a single time at NASCAR’s top level.
Below is the list of all-time winners, in order, in the Cup Series.
Last update: After Race 15 of the 2026 season (Michigan International Speedway).
Denny Hamlin is standing firm on stepping away from NASCAR Cup Series racing at the end of the 2027 season, he said Sunday after winning at Michigan International Speedway.
But the 63-time winner also noted some of his reasoning during the post-race show on Prime Video — while signaling potential plans for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2028.
At age 45, Hamlin has won three races in 2026, including each of the last two despite going to the rear early in both events. Pressed by NASCAR Hall of Famer and Sports on Prime analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. if Hamlin intends to step away after the 2027 season, Hamlin explained the wear and tear he battles between races.
“I don’t know. The weeks are a little tougher,” Hamlin said. “I feel as though there’s three things that happen: You lose your eyesight, you lose your reaction and your body hurts. The body hurts are there. It’s there. During the week, I’m not recovering as quick. But the other two things are sharp. I want to go out like this. It’s a fantasy land to do it, but right now …”
Hamlin has stated he is more focused on statistics and wins at this point in his career. With Sunday’s Michigan win, he tied Kyle Busch for ninth on the all-time wins list in Cup Series history. The next target in eighth is Dale Earnhardt, a seven-time champion who won 76 races.
“Think about it like this too,” Hamlin said, “If I can win one more and put myself in ninth alone, the next jump, I’m not gonna get there. So what am I doing?”
Even if Hamlin wins his first career Cup Series championship in 2026, Hamlin said he is committed through 2027 after signing a two-year contract extension with JGR last summer. What comes next may involve Brent Crews, the 18-year-old who currently competes as a rookie in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for JGR.
“At the end of next year … I told him just check with me in six months. Check with me in six months,” Hamlin said. “I don’t want to leave them in flux. They’ve got a great driver in Brent Crews that’s gonna be ready more than likely by the end of next year. It’d be hard — if [the end of this contract] was right now, it’d be really hard. But I find it hard to believe we’re gonna be at this level at this time next year.”
Chase Elliott and Christopher Bell crashed violently while racing for second during the final stage of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.
On Lap 148, moments after a restart, Elliott bobbled while battling Bell side-by-side, shooting high into the No. 20 Toyota. Both drivers contacted the wall at nearly 200 mph, with the back end of Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota erupting in flames. Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet slid back down the track and also struck an inside tire barrier.
Both drivers quickly exited their vehicles, indicating to safety workers that they were OK. Before loading into ambulances for a ride to the infield care center, Elliott walked up to Bell, and the two shared an embrace.
“It was totally my fault. I feel really bad for Bell, just taking him out,” Elliott said after being evaluated and released from the care center. “I was trying to run the bottom, make use of our fresh tires and at least get to second, I was hoping, and stay side-by-side with him. I just got in there and got free. I thought I was going to spin and was kind of committing to spinning out. As soon as I was committed to spinning, it just hooked up and, unfortunately, sent Christopher into the wall really hard and me shortly thereafter.
“It was a huge hit. Huge hit for him, pretty big hit for me, too. I knew that when it happened that it was — when you’re watching the wall come that quick, it’s gonna be large. He’d already hit the wall hard too before I hit him, so those things happen fast, but I saw it happen. I knew it was big, so I just wanted to make sure he was alright and just tell him ‘I’m so sorry’ because it was not at all my intention for that to happen.”
Bell spent nearly an hour inside the care center and was later evaluated and released. He declined interview requests.
After Denny Hamlin won Sunday’s race, Joe Gibbs Racing owner Joe Gibbs said in a press conference that he thinks “it was his wrist and his ankle,” referring to Bell, and that “we’re just going to have to wait.”
Elliott won Stage 2 and led 67 laps, the most in the race to that point. He’s won twice this season — the only two victories for Hendrick in 2026 — and entered Michigan fourth in the Cup Series points standings. Bell entered seventh and earned runner-up finishes in each of the last two races at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway.
Points leader Tyler Reddick was involved in a multicar restart melee in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, sparked by Carson Hocevar and John Hunter Nemechek.
On a Lap 83 restart, Hocevar, who started fourth in the inside row, contacted Nemechek in front of him, turning the No. 42 Toyota across the track. Nemechek tagged Bubba Wallace, who then hit Ty Gibbs with the No. 54 Toyota, ricocheting into Reddick ahead of him.
Reddick suffered heavy damage to both ends of his vehicle and went to the garage to incur his first DNF of the season. Reddick had not finished worse than 15th until Sunday, and was credited with a 35th-place result. Austin Dillon also suffered major damage and was knocked from the race. He was credited with 36th.
Immediately after being evaluated and released from the infield care center, Dillon, who entered Sunday 24th in the series ranks, placed blame on Hocevar.
“I’ve seen one replay, but from what I saw, the 77 got into the 42 and turned him,” Dillon told Prime Video. “I hope at some point, [Hocevar] figures it out. I mean, I’m not going to show anything to him for a long time. I’m mad because we had a fast race car. We almost got through it. I saw the 11 coming down, and I gassed up to get by the 11, and the 45 was there. It’s unfortunate.”
The No. 45 23XI Racing driver entered Sunday’s race with a 97-point advantage over Hamlin and won Stage 1 in the Irish Hills. Reddick has led points after every race this season. He was also evaluated and released from the care center.
“Just all around bummer,” Reddick told Prime Video. “Wanted to come in here and have a really good points day, we had really, really good speed yesterday, and it showed again today … race I feel like we could have won, got away from us. But all year long, we’ve done a good job of staying out of messes like this, so unfortunate it happened.
In total, nine cars were involved: Dillon, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Wallace, Nemechek, Reddick, Gibbs and Hocevar. Hamlin ended up winning for the second week in a row, cutting down his deficit to just 51 markers behind Reddick.
