With O’Reilly all-time starts record in reach, Jeremy Clements reflects on a life spent racing: ‘You just don’t give up’

Posted on June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 by Nate Ryan

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — On the brink of becoming the dean of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Jeremy Clements feels he’s earned his place in NASCAR history but isn’t interested in analyzing it.

“I’m just worried about the racing,” he said with a laugh.

Kenny Wallace, whose all-time series starts record Clements will tie this weekend in Pocono then break with his 548th race next week in San Diego, California, has anointed his successor as “The Mayor” of the O’Reilly Series.

That moniker might not be the right fit for a driver whose story is overwhelmingly about dogged perseverance rather than bombastic congeniality.

“It’s really, really cool to hear, but I don’t know if I want ‘The Mayor’ because this was never a goal of mine, and it’s really badass to do at this age,” said Clements, who at 41 is 10 years younger than when Wallace retired. “This is phenomenal. To be in a sport this long, something I always wanted to do as a kid, and to have my best opportunity right now.

“I foresee myself racing years and years if I can keep the funding rolling in.”

Forget about “The Mayor.”

“The Businessman” might be a better label for Clements, who has chased down money to stay on track for three decades (and brokered deals to cover an extra half-million dollars for his team’s budget this year).

“The Bionic Man” could also be an apt descriptor for Clements, whose right arm was so mangled in a dirt racing crash 22 years ago, his first O’Reilly Series start (a few months earlier) also could have been his last.

Or maybe it’s “The Family Man,” for the doting husband who shoots social media content for his wife, Cortney (an influencer with close to a million followers across multiple platforms) while raising their 2-year-old daughter, Kennedy.

The new face of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is a bit of a Renaissance Man. But at his core, Clements is most simply defined by one word.

Racer.

Motorsports runs richly through his veins. His family has achieved significant measures of fame in the major leagues of both dirt and asphalt racing.

It’s all Jeremy Clements has ever known, and despite a NASCAR career marked by nearly constant adversity, he never considered giving up on it.

“Oh, hell no,” he chuckled. “What else am I going to do? I get asked all the time, ‘What would you do if you didn’t race?’ Hell, I don’t know. I never had to think about it.”

Cortney said her husband has had to work “10 times as hard” to make it this far.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to even watch at this point, knowing how bad he wants it,” she said. “This sport’s truly the most brutal, and there’s no backup plan for him. He’s not going to build engines. He’s not going to work at Lowe’s. He’s a race car driver.”

A very modestly successful one at that – which might be the most astounding part of his longevity.

Clements is on the cusp of having more starts than anyone in series history, yet still has only two wins (and one he had to fight to keep after being initially stripped for a rules violation).

“I won everything until I got in the series, and then I got my ass put in place,” he said. “I don’t want to be good at losing, but I have learned to accept it a little easier. I don’t let it ruin my life. Man, you’ve got to shake that off. There’s another race. What keeps me driving is knowing I can do it, and if I’m placed in the right opportunity, I can definitely get the job done.”

Clements has the right opportunity this year as his family-run No. 51 Chevrolet has entered into a technical alliance with the Haas Factory Team. The leveling-up has relocated the gritty single-car team based in Spartanburg, South Carolina from a cramped, 5,000-square-foot shop to a sprawling facility of vast resources in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

Clements recently notched his first top five in four years, and his team has a goal of making the Chase for the first time since his most recent win (at Daytona in 2022).

“This is his best opportunity to win races and run up front consistently,” crew chief Matt Weber said. “It’s his time, and he’s in his prime. It’s really kind of cool.”

Everything seems to be coming together at a career-defining milestone.

“This is perfect timing,” Clements said. “And to do it at San Diego is going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to taking it all in. And it’d be cool if they give you something (for the record). Maybe a little participation trophy.”

* * *

The Clements family has been racking up trophies since the early days of NASCAR.

Jeremy’s grandfather, Crawford, was a crew chief for wins by Junior Johnson, Buck Baker and A.J. Foyt. Jeremy’s great uncle, Louis, was the crew chief for Hall of Famer Rex White’s 1960 Cup Series championship. The brothers started in Owensboro, Kentucky, with a car called “the Flying Saucer” that was legendary on short tracks.

“They were pioneers of the sport and super smart to come up with all the innovation to be that competitive then,” said Jeremy Clements, who recalls his grandfather “always working on something. I just remember workbenches everywhere and carburetors always around.”

Former NASCAR champion Rex White celebrates a North Wilkesboro Speedway victory with crew chief Louis Clements in 1961. (NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images)

In the 1970s, the family refocused on engine building. Since taking over as an 18-year-old, Jeremy’s father, Tony, has been running Clements Automotive for 52 years. Supplying engines for many top dirt teams, its Clements Racing Engines arm has been named engine builder of the year multiple times in the World of Outlaws Late Model Series.

Tony Clements said his generation (younger brother Glenn also helps run the business) gravitated away from NASCAR toward dirt because of “a burning desire” for racing machinery. CRE develops all its intake manifolds and cylinder heads while building a lot of parts in-house. The waiting list for an engine has stood at roughly 100 teams for as long as anyone can remember.

“We’ve just had a passion growing up in the sport, and it’s been a day and night thing,” Tony Clements said. “We’ve worked 60 to 80 hours a week for almost 50 years. We wanted to be in a position that we weren’t just working for somebody and possibly be held back in that manner. If you have a big enough passion for the sport and the competitiveness and want to be not held back, I think that’s why we pursued it on our own. You put your heart and soul into it and never say never and just don’t give up.”

* * *

In his final years, Crawford Clements took an interest in his grandson Jeremy’s career, starting him in go-karts at 7 years old. After his grandfather’s death, an 11-year-old Jeremy Clements had his mom drop him off at go-kart tracks so he could hustle for rides, eventually finding enough winners to amass 47 victories that propelled him into four-cylinder stock cars in 1999.

“I guess I’ve always been resourceful, and you just don’t give up,” he said. “You just go after what you want, and racing is what I’ve always wanted. You just find a way to keep making it happen.”

Tony Clements began shepherding his son’s career through a pivotal period in his late teens. Jeremy Clements won two races in six days that paid $28,000 and sold his cars for slightly more than that after another win.

The family then reinvested in his career, buying a Super Late Model dirt car in 2002 and dabbling in ARCA. Clements finished third in a May 23, 2003 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the night of his high school graduation. He made his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut two months later and had feelers for a part-time ride with an established team.

But it would be more than four years until he made his second O’Reilly Series start.

* * *

Clements was running near the back with a handful of laps left in a Late Model race on July 24, 2004 – he remembers the date well because his grandfather died eight years to the day earlier – when he heard an explosion.

A torque arm failure launched his car’s driveshaft through the cockpit and nearly severed his right hand.

“My arm was going one way with the hand hanging off the other way,” he said. “The worst pain you can ever imagine.”

The incident happened at 311 Speedway in Pine Hall, North Carolina, which was about 30 miles from Wake Forest Baptist Memorial Hospital in Winston-Salem.

“My wife and I left that race track following the ambulance, going 100 mph on some back roads, and she was screaming,” Tony Clements said. “I said, ‘We can’t lose this ambulance because I don’t know where it’s going.’

“It was a horrible situation. I was in the ER holding his arm, and they were washing it out and shocked at how bad it was tore up. They were saying, ‘It’s so destroyed, we might have to cut it off,’ and I said, ‘That ain’t happening. We’ll go somewhere else.’ ”

The first of 10 surgeries took nine hours as two large plates were inserted.

Tony stayed at the hospital for three weeks as Jeremy underwent rehab that included bone grafts from his hip (the hand was sewed to his body for a month) and tendon replacements from his right foot.

“It was a nightmare, really,” Jeremy said, pausing to joke, “I can’t get in a fight with that hand now. It would mess some stuff up in there.”

It took a year before he was able to test a dirt Late Model car. He soon finished second in his return to a race at Thunder Valley Speedway (“it looked like he hadn’t even been out of the car,” Tony said).

The injury caused no change in reflexes, but his grip diminished. Today, Jeremy compensates with extra padding for the steering wheel. He otherwise has been unaffected by an accident that doctors said would end his racing career.

“I just thought, ‘Ahhh, they’re wrong. There ain’t no way. Just do the best you can and fix this thing up and let me see about that,’ ” Jeremy said. “They were good doctors, but they were a little negative. They’re like, ‘You’ll never race again! You’re done.’ I’m like, ‘Damn! OK. Why you even got to say that?’ I just was persistent and wasn’t going to give up.”

* * *

In becoming the all-time starts leader, Clements has already set an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series streak that might never be broken. Pocono will mark his 443rd consecutive start (the previous record was 383) dating to a two-race behavioral suspension in 2013.

The past 510 starts since 2011 have been with Jeremy Clements Racing, which was founded in the same autonomous spirit of Clements Racing Engines.

“I did that so that somebody couldn’t put him out or do something different than what we wanted to keep his racing going,” Tony said. “Because if you put your eggs in somebody else’s basket, they may change their mind or do something different if somebody else has got more money. We wanted to control our own destiny.”

Stacy Revere | Getty Images

The team broke through for its first win at Road America on Aug. 27, 2017 – three months after Jeremy married Cortney, who had been working in team PR and management.

“I walked by him at the track, and he goes, ‘Uhhh, you’ve got a cute dog,’ and it was the first time he’d spoken to me,” Cortney said. “If you’re going to compliment me, a cute dog is a good one. I know a lot of race car drivers, and they’re usually not that good of a guy, so I’m like, ‘There’s no way that this is going to work out.’ Jeremy seemed too good to be true, but he was so sure. I had to slow it down because he was like, ‘Let’s get engaged,’ and it hadn’t even been a year.

“There was a TikTok trend recently, and it made me go all the way back in my text messages to see the first thing he ever said to me. It was, ‘You’re perfect for me.’ ”

Jeremy has been a valuable asset as an ace photographer for his wife, who became a full-time social media influencer after getting married and leaving the NASCAR industry to live in Spartanburg. Cortney laughs about dragging her husband to quaint downtowns and picturesque Southern settings for content shoots.

New video equipment has made Jeremy’s help less necessary, but he still gets pressed into service – sometimes minutes before a race.

“It kills me sometimes when I see the videos,” Cortney said. “We’ll be at the track, and I’m like, ‘Well, Jeremy knows how to get the perfect picture of me, so let’s give the driver the camera.’ So it’s so pitiful, but you’ll walk by Jeremy’s car sometimes and see me and my girlfriends with him as the photographer. He’s an OK sport about it. Having a little girl is expensive, so he has to be a sport about it.”

* * *

Expenses have also spiked for Jeremy Clements Racing this season – and with good reason.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Weber, the team’s crew chief, was overseeing work on cars that were nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. Since joining the team last year, he has noticed a change in his driver’s demeanor.

“Everything’s looking up and trending in the right direction, so it’s awesome to be a part of,” Weber said. “Last year, the results were so bad, that you could tell after the race, Jeremy just wanted to go hide. He didn’t interact much at the shop, and the phone calls were short. We didn’t know how to get out of this hole. And now the speed’s there. Some results are there. The sponsor interest is up. He just acts younger and is excited to go to the track.”

Seeking to replace old chassis that dated to 2019, Jeremy Clements Racing shopped for nearly 18 months before stumbling on the opportunity at Haas, which wanted to partner on new cars instead of selling them.

“All these other teams kind of screw you around, and they ain’t going to sell you what they’re actually running,” Clements said. “And (Haas president) Joe (Custer) was like, ‘I’m going to offer you this instead.’ And I was like, ‘We need this, but there’s no way we can make this work because we need more money.’ ”

The new partnership would require about an extra $15,000 per race.

To secure the extra funding, Clements brought all of his team’s major sponsors to Haas for a tour of the facilities last fall. They hammered out the framework for a two-year contract in a Haas meeting room, turning around the deal in about a week.

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Tony Clements credits his son’s business acumen for the game-changing arrangement.

“He has developed that skill in a way that people enjoy and respond to it,” Tony said. “I can’t necessarily use all the right methods or personality to sell them on helping us race. Jeremy’s much more capable of doing that.”

Though he didn’t ever “want a job that I’ve got to dress up in a suit,” Jeremy said he can be a salesman by necessity.

“There’s been times I’ve been scared the sponsorship wasn’t there that we might not be able to continue,” he said. “You’re always got that in the back of your mind because this is an expensive sport, whether you’re racing go-karts, dirt Late Models or NASCAR. There’s been times I was worried. Hell, I’m still worried. It’s always a concern to keep the funding rolling in to do it.”

As long as the money is there, Clements wants to race into his 50s on a circuit that he relishes because it’s fun but yet still difficult to drive.

“That’s the way it should be,” he said. “This is the purest series. I love the cars. Ask any Cup driver that races this series, they say the same thing: ‘If we got paid the same money, we would be doing this full time.’ That’s the truth.”

If he races for another decade, Clements would cross 800 starts – making his record seemingly untouchable while validating his family’s support and its legacy.

“It’s just what we do and what we’ve always done,” Tony said. “It’s really almost kind of shocking if you stop and think back about 548 races. We’re so proud that he could follow his dream. It’s what has driven me. He’s always said that’s his whole life. He just wants to be a professional race car driver.”

Said Jeremy: “I’m just a racer. As long as I stay healthy and keep the train rolling, I’m blessed to do this.”

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Holly Cain

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.

Posted on June 11, 2026June 11, 2026 by Press Release

NEW YORK — Today, Prime Video launched a new installment of “Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers,” featuring NASCAR champion and Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney. The new installment arrives as NASCAR on Prime revs up the engines for live coverage of the Cup Series Race at Pocono Raceway beginning at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday.

TRAILER: Get sneak peek of installment

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.

RELATED: Watch the show on Prime Video

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.

MORE: Cup Series schedule

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Neil Paine

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.

Posted on June 10, 2026June 10, 2026 by Brandon White

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 10^th 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.”

MONEY MAJESKI! 💵

🏁 @TyMajeski wins his first Money in the Bank 150 at @BerlinRaceway! pic.twitter.com/TXHZxUejss

— NASCAR Regional (@NASCARRegional) June 11, 2026

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!

📺 Don’t miss the finish on @FloRacing! pic.twitter.com/YUgZLAwpuz

— NASCAR Regional (@NASCARRegional) June 11, 2026

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.

“I can’t wait to come back here in August.”

Posted on June 10, 2026June 13, 2026 by Staff Report

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 (1 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.”

MORE: Pocono weekend schedule | Cup standings

Blaney enters Sunday’s race third in the points standings and is a two-time winner at the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle.”

Posted on June 10, 2026June 10, 2026 by Nathan Solomon

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.”

MORE: Berry’s driver page

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.”

Posted on June 10, 2026June 13, 2026 by Staff Report

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 (1 p.m. ET, Prime Video). Below are the qualifying orders for both series.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on TV

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

Posted on June 10, 2026 by Dustin Albino

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.

RELATED: Jeb Burton driver page

“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.”

MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule

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.”

Posted on June 9, 2026June 9, 2026 by Nate Ryan

Christopher Bell sustained the hardest crash impact of the Next Gen era when his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota pounded the Turn 4 wall on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.

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.

WATCH: In-car cameras show severity of Bell, Elliott wreck | Alternate angles of Bell crash

“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: