MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 10, 2026) – Rick Ware Racing (RWR) will expand its already versatile motorsports presence by competing in the NASCAR Canada Series with a two-car effort beginning with the 2027 season.
The first driver named to the team is the “Iron Man” of Canada’s premier racing league, DJ Kennington, who will pilot the No. 51 Chevrolet. RWR’s second car will be the No. 15 Chevrolet, and that driver will be announced at a later date.
Kennington is the only driver to compete in every NASCAR Canada Series race, and he will make his 241st career start Saturday night in the 2026 season finale at Delaware Speedway in Ontario. The St. Thomas, Ontario, native is a two-time NASCAR Canada Series champion (2010 and 2012) and has a total of 25 wins, 126 top-fives and 202 top-10s, along with 17 poles and 3,969 laps led. Kennington has also finished among the top-three in points 13 times, including a record four runner-up results.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a long career in the NASCAR Canada Series, but I’ve always been more interested in what’s next, and this opportunity with Rick Ware Racing is something I’m really looking forward to,” Kennington said. “Rick has built a race team that competes in a lot of different forms of motorsports, and to be a part of his overall program means a lot to me. To do it with Castrol and Wakefield Canada makes it even more special. They’ve been with me since I was 16 years old. They’re family, and now we get to start another chapter together at RWR.”
Wakefield Canada, the manufacturer and distributor of Castrol-branded lubricants in Canada, has been with Kennington for every one of his NASCAR Canada Series milestones and then some. It’s a partnership that began with a 16-year-old Kennington at the outset of his racing career, and it will continue through the 2029 season at his new RWR home, extending the pairing to an incredible 35 years.
“DJ has been a fantastic ambassador for Castrol and Wakefield Canada for more than three decades. Extending our relationship through 2029 reflects the trust and success we’ve built together, while the addition of Rick Ware Racing creates new opportunities to elevate all three organizations,” said Rob Fifield, marketing director – automotive, Wakefield Canada. “By combining DJ’s connection with fans, Rick Ware Racing’s competitive platform and Castrol’s heritage in motorsports, everyone wins.”
The 2027 season will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the NASCAR Canada Series, and it will also serve as RWR’s return to the series. In 2021, RWR competed in the NASCAR Canada Series with a two-car lineup for drivers Andrew Ranger and Alex Guenette. Ranger scored two wins for RWR – Sept. 12 at Flamboro Speedway in Ontario and Sept. 26 at Delaware Speedway – on his way to a second-place finish in the final points standings, just eight points behind series champion LP Dumoulin. Guenette finished seventh in points with seven top-10s.
“We’ve wanted to get back to the NASCAR Canada Series, but it needed to be the right opportunity, and we feel like we have that with the two-car program we’re putting together for 2027,” said team owner Rick Ware. “DJ gives us a proven winner who knows this series inside and out, and we’re proud to represent Castrol and become part of the relationship they’ve built with DJ over the past three decades. We’re equally pleased with what we’re putting together for our second car, and we look forward to sharing more about that program when the time is right.”
The NASCAR Canada Series features a mix of road courses and tight short tracks, and its season runs May through September. Canadians can watch every race on REV TV, TVA Sports, TSN and YouTube. For those outside of Canada, coverage is provided on the NASCAR Canada Series YouTube channel.
Hendrick Motorsports announced Thursday that Corey Day has signed a long-term contract extension with the organization and will return to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in a full-time role for 2027, driving the No. 17 Chevrolet.
Day will also make his NASCAR Cup Series debut next year in a part-time role with the team. Details will be announced at a later date.
“What Corey has accomplished in such a short time is remarkable,” said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports, in a team statement. “He came to us with generational talent but almost no experience racing on pavement. The fact that he’s already competing for a championship at this level is extraordinary, and he’s just beginning to scratch the surface. We love Corey’s character and how he fits our organization, and we’re proud to have him with us for many years to come.”
Day earned his first national series victory at Talladega Superspeedway in April and followed it up with an impressive win at Dover Motor Speedway a month later. He qualified for the O’Reilly Series’ inaugural Chase — earning the No. 7 seed in his quest for the championship.
Day finished runner-up last weekend at Darlington to climb to fifth in The Chase standings with eight races to go in the 2026 season.
“There’s no substitute for seat time, which makes Corey’s progress even more impressive,” said Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. “We see growth every weekend when he gets in the car. He puts in the work and isn’t afraid to ask questions and apply what he learns. The Cup races next year will give him another opportunity to gain valuable experience and challenge himself at the highest level. It’s going to be fun to watch.”
“When I joined Hendrick Motorsports, I knew I had a lot to learn. And I still do,” Day said. “But the people here have really embraced me and invested a lot of time in helping me grow, both as a driver and a person. Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick give us all the resources we could possibly need. I’m so grateful to them, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Andrews and the 500 teammates who put so much into our success. I’m focused on winning a championship together this year and bringing many more trophies home to Hendrick Motorsports in the future.”
Carson Hocevar has shown no remorse about earning enemies instead of respect in the NASCAR Cup Series.
On the surface, it seemed his latest on-track misstep might cause the most significant pause in his young racing career. Instead, after a 44-minute news teleconference on Wednesday afternoon, “The Hurricane” maintained this is business as usual for the 23-year-old driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
This time, Hocevar drew the ire of RFK Racing co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski when he sent Keselowski spinning at Lap 107 to end Stage 1 at Darlington Raceway in the opening race of The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
Keselowski was clear in his post-race remarks: “His day is coming, and it’s coming hard. Watch out, Carson.”
And yet Hocevar offered his typical laissez-faire response to both spinning Keselowski and the hinted retribution from the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
“He spun. I don’t know what happened. He spun,” Hocevar told USA Sports. In a separate interview, he added: “I’ll tighten my belts,” coupled with the tone of a sarcastic eye roll.
On Wednesday, two-and-a-half days removed from the incident, Hocevar was willing to expound on his perspective, but still in a casual fashion.
“[Expletive]happenssometimeswhenwe’reracinghard,right?” Hocevar said. “Like, I thinkBradknewhowaggressivehewasbeing, racingsuperhard,obviouslytryingtokeepusbehindhim.Iwasracingreallyhard,tryingtobeaggressiveandjusttrying to hurthismomentumalot.Andwejustgotracingreallyhard,right?AndIfeellikeyouputyourselfinthatspotthatit’sgoingtoopenupafter10or15lapsof —notpatiencerunningout,becauseitjustsoundslikeI’mjusttryingtoturnhimafter15lapsandbelike, ‘Allright,I’mdonewithyou,’right?Butit’smoresowhenyou’rejustracingreally,reallytightwithinaninchofeachotherfor10, 12,13, 14,15laps, it just starts to add to the intensity of it and running really hard, and sometimes you just hit.”
The problem for Hocevar is one that has been shouted from the rooftops of the NASCAR garage since his days of making enemies in the Craftsman Truck Series back in 2023: Hocevar has shown little respect, so he has earned little respect.
According to Racing Insights, there have been 16 Cup race weekends since the start of the 2025 season that Hocevar has landed in run-ins with at least one driver. In a 63-race period, that marks a rate of 25.4% — one in every four starts. Those incidents vary from his former Truck Series rival Corey Heim to past Cup champions like Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and the late Kyle Busch.
Hocevar has defended his racing style wholeheartedly, pointing to his childhood memories of the sport as his driving motivator today.
“I just want to be the race-car driver I would’ve wanted to be a fan of,” Hocevar said in a July 12 appearance on the TNT Sports pre-race show. “So I feel like I owe that to myself and I’ve got to be true to myself and the 5-year-old kid that fell in love with NASCAR, not everybody else that’s basically trying to ruin my dreams of being good, right? Like, they all want that for themselves. So at some point, we’ve all got to be selfish, and I don’t want to get out-selfished basically.”
Hocevar said Wednesday he stands by that outlook, and that has resonated with the fans watching from afar, interacting with Hocevar and his content on social media while also nabbing his merchandise. Following Darlington, the third-year Cup racer offered a discount on his website to mark all items 23% off in honor of how many positions he gained in Sunday’s race. After seeing continued chatter about Keselowski’s comments, Hocevar added an extra 6% off for six hours in honor of Keselowski’s car number.
According to Sports Business Journal, Hocevar’s website “approached nearly $200,000 in sales” in a 24-hour span.
“It’sbeenafacetofthegame for forever.It’sNASCARhowwe’veallknownitforaslongasI’vebeenalive,andpeoplewellbeforeIwasborn,too. Welovethefans.Weenjoyit.Welovethetalkingpointsaboutusandbeingrelevantandustryingtogofastandbein The Chaseandbeingrelevant.”
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
Therein lies much of the source of his competitors’ umbrage. Hocevar has just one win on his Cup Series resume — a rousing victory at Talladega Superspeedway that culminated in a spectacular celebration, followed one week later by an appearance at the Met Gala in New York City.
But from current on-track opponents to Hall of Famers watching and analyzing in media roles today, there aren’t many racers — if any — who are fond of Hocevar’s approach.
Kevin Harvick, the 2014 Cup Series champion and a Class of 2027 NASCAR Hall of Fame electee, said on his “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour” podcast this week, “he doesn’t know how to play the game.”
“Right now, he’s worried about selling T-shirts and all the things that goes with it,” Harvick said. “You have to be respected by the guys you’re racing against. And right now, there’s not one guy in the garage that respects what he does behind the wheel.”
Denny Hamlin has yet to have a direct run-in with Hocevar, but has seen enough from afar — and a perceived desire for attention from Hocevar — that he opted not to opine on Sunday’s incident with Keselowski directly.
“I’m not going to give him what he wants. I’m not going to give him the clip that he wants. Period,” Hamlin said on Dirty Mo Media’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast. “You want me to talk about Spire? I’ll talk about Spire. There’s no adults in the room, clearly, in that building. No adults. That’s my opinion. Because how can you honestly think that that’s what’s best for your company if you’re running a serious organization? I think they’re unserious.”
2027 Hall of Fame electee Jeff Burton and Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett expressed similar disdain for Hocevar’s lack of respect on the USA Network post-race show following the Southern 500 at Darlington.
Regardless of the conversations that swirl around him, Hocevar said Wednesday he only puts stock into what team owner Jeff Dickerson says and the people within the walls of Spire Motorsports.
“I thinkalotofpeoplemisinterpretmehavingfunorourteamhavingfunandbeingmaybeunseriousattimes,thatwedon’tcare,” Hocevar said. “AndIthinkultimately,wejustwanttoenjoyeveryaspectofthegame,andpartofthegameislovinguptothefans.Imean,there’sareasonwedodriverintros.It’sthereasonwedoallthisstuff.It’s the reasonwe’reoutthereinthemerchtrailer.It’sthereasondriversaresoavailable.It’safacetofthegame, andweenjoythatandwelovethat.Butalso, too,welovegoingasfastaspossibleandenjoyingit. …
As it stands, Hocevar enters 12th in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings for Sunday’s second race of The Chase at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hocevar is one of just 16 drivers still eligible to win the 2026 Cup Series championship, currently 89 points behind series leader Hamlin with nine races remaining. He knows he and his team aren’t the “dominant car” right now, he said. That has led to a “house money” mantra shared among the No. 77 team entering The Chase.
Of course, Hocevar still says winning the championship is the ultimate goal. But the fun of the fandom is what’s really driving him forward.
“Everybody that I hear (when) they win a championship, they never really tell the story of the race,” Hocevar said. “They always tell the story of what it was like after or before, with all their guys, or with all their people, with all their friends, with all their family. So the fans are just another element to that, in my opinion. I think it has to go together personally.”
The question remains whether the championship is tangible for Hocevar if he continues to frustrate the drivers he is trying to beat.
The top two drivers in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings would just as soon forget last year’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Both Justin Allgaier and Sheldon Creed, however, will have a chance at redemption when the series returns to the 1.25-mile track for Saturday’s Nu Way 225 Powered by Bobcat and Sauced by Blues Hog (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
In last year’s race, Creed lost third gear on a Lap 135 restart, stacked up the field in a multicar accident and ultimately finished 30th. Allgaier was nicked with a pit road speeding penalty at the end of the second stage, suffered damage in the Lap 135 crash and finished 28th.
Creed, at least, comes to the banks of the Mississippi River with considerable momentum. In last Saturday’s O’Reilly Series Chase presented by Mobil 1 opener at Darlington Raceway, the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet picked up the second win of his career and trimmed Allgaier’s lead in the standings to seven points.
Allgaier, on the other hand, started strong and won the first stage, but contact with the outside wall cost him dearly in the late going, dropping him to 17th at the finish with an ill-handling car.
In a field that includes no former Gateway winners, both Creed and Allgaier are hopeful for better results. For Allgaier, from Riverton, Illinois, the race is a home game of sorts.
“It’s always special to be able to come back and race this close to home — not only for me, but for everyone at (sponsor) Brandt Professional Agriculture as well,” said Allgaier, who won a pole at WWT Raceway in 2010. “They are going to have a strong presence at the track this weekend, and hopefully we can go out there and put on a great show for them.
“(Crew chief) Andrew (Overstreet) and all the guys on this team have been working hard all week long, and we are ready to go.”
Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate Carson Kvapil — third in the Chase standings and 19 points back after running 12th from the pole at Darlington — likewise has work to do at Gateway. Kvapil finished 37th in his only start there last year after an engine failure.
“We’ve been working hard in the sim this week preparing for St. Louis,” Kvapil said. “I know (crew chief) Rodney (Childers) and this entire No. 1 Wilde Cracker team will unload another rocket ship at the track this weekend.
“We just need to go out and execute like we know we can, and if we do, we will continue to chip away at the points deficit.”
The Chase driver who had the best result in last year’s race is Brandon Jones, who finished fourth. Jones is eighth in the standings after Darlington, 58 points behind Allgaier.
Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love, the defending series champion, finished fifth last year. Love is sixth in the standings after the Chase opener, trailing Allgaier by 48 points.
One note of caution for Creed. In the 10-year history of postseason racing in the O’Reilly Series, never has the winner of the postseason opener gone on to win the title.
Everything was set up for Denny Hamlin to succeed going into the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1 … until The Chase actually started, that is.
Two-thirds of the way through Sunday’s Chase opener at Darlington Raceway, Hamlin was running at the edge of the top 15 when Michael McDowell bumped him into the wall and damaged his toe links, noticeably affecting the No. 11 car’s performance the rest of the night. It ended up transforming a race where Hamlin led nearly 20% of all laps (and had an average running position of 9.01) and reducing it to an 18th-place finish, worse than 12 of his 15 fellow Chase drivers.
With just a single Chase result in the books, Hamlin’s points lead shrunk from 25 over second place (and 50 over sixth place) to just 12 over second-ranked teammate Christopher Bell (and 39 over sixth-ranked teammate Ty Gibbs). It also immediately put a real dent in Denny’s odds to finally win his first career Cup championship.
But how down should Hamlin be feeling after Darlington? Did the mid-race scuff-up really ruin his title hopes before they barely even began? And is this just par for the course for a driver whose career has been littered with missed opportunities to win the title that every other name around him on the career wins list already has?
Certainly, Hamlin’s unfortunate incident Sunday was the latest in a long line of moments that make one wonder what it is about the No. 11 and the postseason, whether in The Chase (old or new) or the playoffs. But is the perception of Hamlin’s proneness to mishaps at this phase of the season fair? In years where he made the playoffs/Chase during his career, Hamlin has an average Driver Rating of 95.8 in the regular season, versus 96.2 in the postseason. That’s obviously not a huge difference at all.
However, if we adjust for his predicted performance — based on track type, recent history, team performance and affinity for each particular track — that regular-season figure is 0.8 higher than expected, while the postseason number is 1.5 lower than expected, meaning Hamlin does slightly worse relative to expectations in the crucible of the late-season stretch run for the championship.
The same goes for when we dig into specific sub-groups of postseason races. Hamlin’s performance in postseason openers, like Darlington, falls by 2.4 points of Driver Rating relative to pre-race expectations, and his performances at elimination races under the old playoff system dipped by 0.9 points versus expectations. In other words, there is some truth to the reputation that Hamlin can’t get out of his own way in important moments along the path to that elusive championship.
That being said, even a Driver Rating that runs 1.5 points below expectations is pretty solid when you’re as good as Hamlin is at baseline. That 96.2 postseason rating from before still ranks 10th-best among qualified Cup drivers in years they competed for the championship, sandwiched between Martin Truex Jr./Christopher Bell and William Byron/Ryan Blaney. None is near the level of notable clutch maestro Jimmie Johnson at 104.9, of course, but that’s why J.J. has those seven trophies and Denny has zero (for now).
The good news for Hamlin in that department is that, while the difficult run Sunday absolutely hurt his odds to win the 2026 title, he still can make a strong case as the championship favorite from here.
For one thing, he is still The Chase points leader. While his edge on the rest of the field got sliced roughly in half with just one off-night, Hamlin’s 12-point margin over No. 2 Bell is actually the third-widest gap between any two spots on The Chase leaderboard — trailing only No. 7 Kyle Larson’s margin to No. 8 Joey Logano (23 points) and No. 4 Tyler Reddick’s margin to No. 5 Chase Briscoe (13 points).
The other thing Hamlin has on his side continues to be superior track fit compared with the rest of The Chase field … though that factor is waning some.
As we pointed out last week, the remaining tracks on the 2026 schedule are disproportionately good venues for Denny, matching his strengths — many intermediates and flat tracks — and minimizing his weaknesses — zero road courses and only one superspeedway. That meant he had the best “home-field advantage” of any Chase driver, in terms of how much better he projected to be in the postseason than at a generic, average Cup site from the full-season schedule. And that’s still true after Sunday:
It is less true now, though: His gap in “home-field” over the rest of The Chase is nowhere near as much of an outlier as it was going in, another illustration of what a missed opportunity his miscue at Darlington represented.
And now comes the opportunity for Denny to rebuild the edge he held just a week ago. Gateway is a very good track for Hamlin — in addition to chief rivals Blaney and Bell — which means the pressure is on to break his trend of undershooting expectations at this exact type of race. At the same time, though, we have to resist the urge to overreact to one mediocre finish that didn’t even knock Denny out of first place in the standings.
The true test of Hamlin’s title bona fides was always going to come in a few more weeks, during the Kansas-Las Vegas-Charlotte intermediate block of the schedule. But he does have to avoid more runs like Sunday’s in order to make those opportunities on the 1.5-mile ovals really count toward his first-ever championship bid.
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The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series continue their respective Chases presented by Mobil 1 this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. Both series have 36 entries, meaning no drivers will fail to qualify. Single-car, single-lap qualifying will set the starting lineups for both races. See the qualifying orders for Gateway here.
NEW YORK —Tuesday evening, The NASCAR Foundation celebrated two decades of giving back to racing communities, hosting The NASCAR Foundation 20th Anniversary Honors Gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City.
The Gala was hosted by The Foundation and the France family in collaboration with the evening’s Leadership Sponsors, including Brown & Brown, Kaulig Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Next League.
The NASCAR Foundation
Various current and former NASCAR drivers, team owners and executives, as well as special guests across the sports and entertainment industry, were in attendance, including Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress and singer, Kristin Chenoweth and Pro Football Hall of Famer and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist Michael Strahan.
During the evening’s celebrations, The NASCAR Foundation honored Chief Executive Officer and Executive Producer of FOX Sports Eric Shanks with the Champion for Children Award as well as the Chairman of the Board of The NASCAR Foundation Mike Helton with the Founders Award.
The evening culminated with the announcement of the 16th annual Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award winner, Lyette Reback, founder and volunteer of Believe With Me. The winner’s nonprofit organization supports families of fallen military service members by providing financial help and emotional support.
“Lyette is the kind of person who doesn’t just talk about making a difference, she gets to work and makes it happen,” said Nichole Krieger, Vice President and Executive Director, The NASCAR Foundation. “As a mother of 16, she has a huge heart, and she has made it her mission to make sure the children of our fallen heroes know they are remembered and cared for. It’s that reason which makes Lyette such a deserving recipient of the Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award. We’re thrilled to celebrate her and the incredible work she continues to do.”
The 20th Anniversary celebrations continue Wednesday, Sept. 9, with The Speedy Bear Brigade Powered by Kaulig Giving, where drivers and representatives from both The NASCAR Foundation and Kaulig Racing will deliver NASCAR-themed Speedy Bears to children at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone.
Brandon Jones wouldn’t identify himself as an extrovert. For the bulk of his NASCAR career, he’s kept his thoughts internal, unsure when the right time to speak up was.
But at a seasoned 29 years old, Jones has embraced his leadership role among Joe Gibbs Racing’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series lineup. His three teammates include teenagers William Sawalich and upstart Brent Crews, while Taylor Gray is just 21.
“It’s interesting because I’ve really never been in this kind of role before,” Jones told NASCAR.com recently about his positioning at JGR. “When I went to [JR Motorsports], it’s Justin (Allgaier). Sure, I’ve got a lot of years, but Justin has 10 more on top of that. Now, it flip-flopped.”
Internally, JGR leadership has noticed Jones being more vocal. Getting the Georgia native to speak his mind took years of becoming comfortable with his status among O’Reilly competitors. But in his 11th full season — and seventh with JGR — Jones has shifted his mindset.
“I’ve been the guy to go to for, ‘Are we on the right path? Is this how the cars have felt through the years in transition, what are we missing?'” Jones said. “I’m trying to be the bridge of the gap and not be the bad guy, but the one that is speaking up a little more when the uncomfortable situations happen when you don’t want to be the one to the team saying, ‘What are we doing guys? These aren’t good days.’ Top fives are OK, but we need to be winning every week. If we’re not leading laps and [winning], they are not really good days.
“I’m trying to be that guy who raises the standard a little bit. It’s been going good, but something that isn’t in my nature to be that kind of, ‘I’m the big dog, move out of the way here.’ It’s not the way I’ve expressed it, either.”
Steve deSouza, longtime JGR executive and current EVP, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series/Development, has noticed Jones’ approach. During team debriefs, the eight-time winner is more expressive. Jones has been a key contributor in helping Gray and Sawalich, both of whom have won in 2026, including the No. 54 car bettering the No. 20 bunch at Kansas Speedway, one of Jones’ best circuits on the schedule.
“I think he’s done a really good job being a spokesman in our driver’s meetings,” deSouza said. “He is open to a good day and a bad day and knows, ‘I didn’t do something right’ or ‘the car wasn’t right, or I wasn’t comfortable’ — whatever the things are that a driver goes through. Now, he is at that age where he has a lot of experience, and he can help some of the other drivers go through some of those things.
“He is very even-keeled, so there’s not a lot of highs or a lot of lows.”
Getting paired with Sam McAulay as crew chief since Jones’ return to JGR in 2025 has also been a boon. The No. 20 team does intense analyses following each race. That process has helped the Georgia native get more comfortable being candid.
“I think it’s been cool to see him become more vocal,” McAulay said. “He has internalized areas where he’s confident, he’s going to speak his mind and help the group. He is detailed with what he’s looking for, which is what we want. We try to make sure everything is exactly to what he’s looking for and maxed out as far as making our stuff as nice as we can make it and continuously improving everything. I think from last year to this year, he has become more vocal for the group in driver’s meetings and is always willing to help his teammates.”
David Jensen | Getty Images
Jones’ rule of thumb has always been simple: He doesn’t seek out his teammates to offer pointers. Instead, he waits for them to approach him. Once they break the ice, he is more than willing to open his playbook.
In turn, he leans on Crews heavily at road courses, which he was rewarded with a fifth-place effort at Watkins Glen International in May.
“If I see one of them 15th on the board in practice and I’m P1, I’m not running down there and being like, ‘I just found it — lift at this mark.’ Absolutely not,” Jones said. “I need to find a tiny little advantage, if I can find one.”
Jones entered The Chase last weekend at Darlington Raceway as the No. 6 seed, best of the two JGR drivers who qualified for the postseason. Following a disappointing 10th-place finish, he dropped to eighth on the grid, 58 points behind Allgaier.
Expectations within the No. 20 team remain high for The Chase. Allgaier even namedropped Jones last month as one of his biggest threats, with the schedule laying out favorably for the No. 20 team.
“The tracks in The Chase are phenomenal for us,” Jones said ahead of the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway. “We’re really close right now to having days where we’re just knocking out tons of top fives and even possibly closing out a couple wins.”
McAulay pointed to Jones’ ability to accumulate more stage points and his increased consistency as signs of how much stronger he has been this season compared to 2025. In addition to tallying a victory at Chicagoland Speedway in July, Jones has already eclipsed last year’s top-10 total (14) and owns an average finishing position two spots better than last year (12.2 vs. 14.2).
“This is the best opportunity Brandon has ever had to go deep in the playoffs and win the championship,” McAulay said. “With the tracks that are in it, I think this points format does suit him.”
Toyota left Darlington Raceway on Sunday night looking less like a manufacturer in good form and more like one tightening its grip on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Christopher Bell won the Cook Out Southern 500 to break through a maddening runner-up streak and reassert himself as a championship heavyweight. Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs finished second as he continues to show why he’s a serious title threat. Daytona 500 winner and 23XI Racing ally Tyler Reddick came home third, washing away a summer of squalor to remind us all who he is. And when the points were sorted afterward, season standout Denny Hamlin still led the standings with Bell second, Reddick fourth, JGR’s Chase Briscoe fifth and Gibbs sixth.
Five Toyotas. Six spots.
Sitting in the middle of all of them?
Ryan Blaney.
For a driver who wears his “Star Wars” fandom on the sleeve of his fire suit, the role could hardly be more fitting.
Blaney enters Sunday’s Chase presented by Mobil 1 race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) third in the standings, 16 points behind Hamlin, as the lone non-Toyota inside a top six increasingly populated by the manufacturer. If Toyota is going to spend The Chase fortifying its galactic empire, Blaney has found himself playing the part of rebel pilot trying to find and exploit the foundational weakness that could bring the whole thing down.
For all the fun in the framing, the numbers themselves make Blaney’s place in this fight look anything but trivial.
Toyota has won 15 of the first 27 races this season, its most victories through this point in its history. At least one Toyota has finished inside the top three in 26 of those 27 races, and Darlington marked the fourth time this year the manufacturer swept the podium. And this isn’t simply a Joe Gibbs Racing story; JGR has eight victories this season — but 23XI Racing has seven, combining to lead a dominant 3,141 laps.
But Blaney, meanwhile, has quietly built what may be the strongest statistical counterargument. The Team Penske driver has scored 469 points in the 10 oval races using NASCAR’s 750-horsepower package this season, most in the Cup Series. Hamlin ranks second at 433, followed by Gibbs, Bell and Joey Logano. Four of the remaining nine races use this package — including each of the next two. It’s completely possible, probable even, that the No. 12 Ford is leading the standings coming out of Bristol, and wouldn’t that be something? A Toyota has topped the standings since literally mid-February.
Blaney also leads the series with 225 stage points and eight stage wins, with seven of those stage victories coming in the last 11 races. His 829 laps led rank second only to Hamlin’s 948.
Casting Blaney as the rebel, of course, should not be confused with casting him as an underdog.
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He already owns the 2023 Cup championship and is making his 10th postseason appearance. Team Penske hardly needs instructions on how to win the big one, either, having claimed three consecutive drivers’ titles from 2022-24 with Logano, Blaney and Logano again.
More importantly for what comes next, Blaney has already shown he can punch through Toyota’s lines on precisely the kind of track we’ll see this weekend. Racing Insights identifies Phoenix and New Hampshire as comparable tracks to World Wide Technology Raceway.
Blaney has won at both — this season.
The New Hampshire result is particularly telling. Toyota won the first three races there in the Next Gen era and controlled much of the racing from 2022-24 before Blaney himself broke that streak with a victory in 2025, then returned this August and beat the Toyota contingent there. Again.
Toyota’s strength is hardly theoretical, but neither is Blaney’s ability to beat it.
That production carried directly into Darlington, where Blaney finished fourth for his third top five in the past five races. He actually gained nine points on Hamlin despite slipping from second to third in the standings, because Bell’s 73-point night vaulted the race winner past him. More broadly, the championship tightened considerably around them; Hamlin’s advantage over second place shrank from 25 points after the reset to 12 after Darlington, while the top four are now separated by just 24 markers.
If Toyota intends to turn its season-long superiority into full-coverage control of the Chase, Blaney has so far presented the clearest obstacle to that ambition.
Conveniently, the next stop may fit him better than anybody else, too.
Blaney is the only driver to lead laps in all four Cup races at World Wide Technology Raceway. He has finished sixth or better in three of those four starts, has started inside the top five every time and owns the best average running position among Chase drivers at the track.
And the one exception to all that is more flattering than the box score suggests. Blaney was leading with two laps remaining in 2024 before running out of fuel and tumbling to 24th, opening the door for teammate Austin Cindric to win. While he’s yet to put the finishing touches on a win there, the path to Victory Lane at Gateway does appear to run, at least somewhat, through him.
That near-miss also fits a larger Penske pattern of strength at Gateway.
Logano won the inaugural Cup race there in 2022. Cindric won two years later. Penske has therefore won half of the four Cup races held at the track, with Blaney coming within a couple of laps of potentially adding another. Logano, meanwhile, has finished inside the top five in all four Gateway races and enters Sunday with the strongest track record of anybody in The Chase field.
So, no: Blaney isn’t literally the only hope against Toyota. But it feels like a very, very short list behind him.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, for instance, looked plenty capable of disrupting the group at Darlington, leading a race-high 99 laps before finishing fifth. He remains seventh in the Chase standings, 49 points behind Hamlin, and could snap off a hot streak in the blink of an eye, 51-race-winless-skid be damned. Logano is lurking, too. The three-time champion sits eighth, has won twice this season and heads to one of his very best tracks as he and his championship-ready No. 22 team are only picking up steam.
So, there are other rebels in the fight.
None, though, occupies quite the position Blaney does right now: third in points, just 16 behind Hamlin, as the only driver who’s hung with them all season and now headed to a track where his own history — and his organization’s — already stands out.
That last part matters even more under this version of The Chase.
There is no round to survive Sunday, no cutline and no points reset waiting a few weeks down the road. Every stage point and finishing position payout simply joins the running tally from here and stays there through Homestead. Blaney has made a habit of collecting both, and his series-high stage points total isn’t simply a measure of how often the No. 12 Ford has run near the front, but tangible championship points that remain on the ledger from here.
Among Chase drivers, only Hamlin has produced more 40-point races this season than Blaney’s 11. Looking specifically at tracks still remaining on The Chase schedule, Blaney has four such performances at them, tied with Larson and trailing only Hamlin’s six. Bell and Gibbs each have three.
Hamlin has been the most consistently excellent driver in the series. Bell finally converted a season full of near-misses into a Darlington victory. Reddick already owns five wins. Gibbs is enjoying a career year. Briscoe has steadily worked himself back into the championship conversation alongside them and appears just as strong. Even Bubba Wallace is still very much in it and climbing his way forward after a strong opener.
The sheer volume of contenders may be Toyota’s greatest advantage, and Darlington showed just how crowded that fight is likely to become. Gateway, for what it’s worth, should tell us plainly whether Blaney can keep breaking up the formation.
So, he isn’t the only hope.
But right now, he’s the one flying closest to the Imperial Star Destroyer, and the battle is far from over.
