Note: 23XI Racing announced Saturday that Harrison Burton will drive the No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota in place of Riley Herbst, who woke up with “lingering effects” from a crash last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Sunshine State for Saturday’s regular-season finale: the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The race will be the 26th points-paying event of the 2026 Cup Series season. Ryan Blaney is the defending winner at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
With only one race remaining until The Chase, all eyes will be on the cutline battle as Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen currently holds the 16th and final provisional postseason spot, maintaining a 31-point advantage over RFK Racing driver Ryan Preece.
Five drivers in non-chartered cars are entered for the 400-mile Daytona summer race — Joey Gase (No. 44 NY Racing Team), Casey Mears (No. 62 Beard Motorsports), Gray Gaulding (No. 66 Garage 66), Corey Heim (No. 67 23XI Racing) and Daniel Dye (No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports). One driver will fail to qualify for the event.
After two weeks off, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returns to action for the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Friday’s Winn-Dixie 250 Powered by Coca-Cola will be the 24th points-paying race of the 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season. Connor Zilisch is the defending winner, who had assistance from Parker Kligerman.
The battle to make the 12-driver Chase will feature three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers. William Sawalich and Brent Crews both sit a single point above the cutline, with their teammate Taylor Gray the first driver out. JR Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth is 15 points away from a Chase berth.
For the first time since 2021, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is returning to historic Stafford Speedway this Friday night for the running of the GAF 150 (8:45 p.m. ET on FloRacing and the NASCAR Channel).
Located in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, Stafford Speedway has hosted more than 100 Modified Tour events since the series’ inception in 1985. NASCAR Hall of Famer Richie Evans triumphed in the first two Modified Tour events at the track, and another Hall of Famer, Mike Stefanik, leads all drivers with 20 series victories at the legendary facility.
Other notable drivers to earn wins at Stafford through the years include Ted Christopher, Doug Coby, Ryan Preece, Reggie Ruggiero, Tony Hirschman, Bobby Santos III, Jeff Fuller, Rick Fuller, Donny Lia, Jerry Marquis, Todd Szegedy, Eric Goodale, Justin Bonsignore and Patrick Emerling, among others.
Tickets to Friday’s GAF 150 are available here. Below is everything you need to know about the 13th race of the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season.
Stafford Speedway is welcoming back the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour for the first time since 2021 this Friday night. (Photo: Adam Richins/NASCAR)
GAF 150 at Stafford Speedway
The event that every NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour team has been looking forward to is finally here.
For the first time since 2021, NASCAR’s oldest division returns to one of New England’s most historic race tracks this Friday for the running of the GAF 150. As if that weren’t big enough, the battle for the Modified Tour championship couldn’t get any tighter.
Following Saturday’s Mohegan Sun 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, defending series champion Austin Beers holds a one-point advantage on Patrick Emerling with just four races left in the season. Emerling is a winner at Stafford (2021), something he’ll attempt to replicate Friday to regain the championship lead.
Two other Stafford victors, Justin Bonsignore and Doug Coby, will also be in the field Friday night. Bonsignore won the most recent Modified Tour at Stafford that closed out the 2021 season, while Coby is a 12-time Stafford winner with the Modified Tour. Both drivers should be contenders when the green flag waves Friday night.
Jon McKennedy, fresh off his third victory of the season Saturday at New Hampshire, is just 25 points behind Beers in the championship hunt. A win Friday night at Stafford would further bolster his championship odds as the season nears its end.
Mike Christopher Jr., a regular competitor in Stafford’s weekly programs, will be back in the Elite Racing No. 31 after competing in his family-owned No. 13 last weekend at New Hampshire. Matt Swanson will rejoin the fray aboard his family-owned No. 89, and Chase Dowling will again pilot the No. 44 for the Tinio family.
Other notable entries for Friday’s event include Matt Hirschman, Stephen Kopcik, Tommy Catalano, Tyler Rypkema, Eric Goodale, Ronnie Williams, Trevor Catalano, Paulie Hartwig III and Teddy Hodgdon, among others.
The full entry list for Friday’s GAF 150 will be available later this week.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour first visited Stafford Speedway in 1985. (Photo: Ryan McBride/NASCAR)
SCHEDULE: Friday, Aug. 28: Practice from 3 to 3:40 p.m. ET … Final practice from 3:40 to 4:10 p.m. ET … American Racer Pole Award qualifying at 5:45 p.m. ET … Start of the GAF 150 (150 Laps / 75 Miles) at 8:45 p.m. ET.
QUALIFYING: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the GAF 150 is limited to 30 starters including Provisional Positions.
TIRE ALLOTMENT: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eleven (11) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by NASCAR Officials, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series Director. The same four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice and/or change tires during the event. A maximum of three (3) tires of the allotment may be used as change tires.
Preece drove the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford to a ninth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, earning 38 points to mark his second-most points gained in 2026, buoyed by 10 stage points gained in the opening stanzas of the race.
But for much of Sunday’s Dollar Tree 301, Preece looked even better than that, running at the edge of the top five through the Dollar Tree 301 as evidenced by his 6.16 average running position — his best of the season. Instead, the Connecticut native left his home track 17th in the season points standings, 31 points behind Shane van Gisbergen for the final spot in the 16-driver Chase field entering Saturday’s regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Itwasalmostgoingtobeahomerunbeforethatcaution (at Lap 225)cameoutandthatlastsetoftireswenton,” Preece said.
Preece was hounding Wallace for the lead after Preece pounced past Josh Berry for second. But in that same lap, Riley Herbst crashed in Turn 3 with Connor Zilisch, leading the field to pit road for the final time in Sunday’s race. While five teams took two tires, Preece and the No. 60 group took four and restarted seventh. But even with fresher rubber, Preece couldn’t charge through the field quite as well as he could previously.
“Soyeah, from a pointsperspective,Imean,drivers’ (points),wehaveachance — a Hail Marychance.Buttheowners’ (points),wehavearealchance.Sowe’regonnaracethe[expletive]out of them.”
Indeed, there is a slight but significant difference for Preece in the drivers’ standings as opposed to the No. 60 in the owners’ standings. Preece was penalized 25 driver points and fined $50,000 following the May 3 race at Texas Motor Speedway in which he voiced displeasure with Ty Gibbs on his radio before resulting contact from Preece crashed Gibbs out of the race. So while Preece is 31 points out from advancing to The Chase, his No. 60 RFK team is only six points behind van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing team in the owners’ standings. Teams are ultimately paid by where they rank in owners’ points at the conclusion of the season.
The other wrinkle, of course, are the plentiful unknowns heading to Daytona, where a new aerodynamic package will debut without a practice session to find any bearings. Unsurprisingly, that challenge doesn’t faze Preece.
It all comes down to this, one regular-season race Saturday night at Daytona to determine the final Chase field. Five drivers are battling for three spots with the rest either locked into The Chase or eliminated from contention. We’ll dive into the details in “The Cutline” section below, but here’s what you need to know: The five drivers (in order of the standings) are Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, Shane van Gisbergen, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski with 31 points separating SVG and Preece at the cutline.
Besides the cutline, though, there are multiple “micro” battles throughout the standings where point swings for starting The Chase could be directly impacted by the Daytona outcome. For example, 31 points separate Christopher Bell in fifth place from Chase Elliott in eighth place, with the top driver in that cluster starting The Chase with a 15-point advantage over the bottom driver. So these battles within the standings will also be worth watching at Daytona, and we’ll try to outline those as well.
Reminder: The top 16 drivers in points make The Chase. There is no more win-and-in. The regular-season points leader starts The Chase with 2,100 points and second place starts with 2,075. Third place starts with 2,065 points, then drivers are separated by five-point increments through 16th place.
The race for the No. 1 seed is over. Denny Hamlin clinched the top spot with a seventh-place finish at New Hampshire. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran will now enter The Chase with a 25-point advantage over the second-place driver. This will be the biggest gap between any of The Chase drivers entering the Sept. 6 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. We’re all familiar with Hamlin’s championship heartbreaks, including the most recent one last year at Phoenix, but he is now in prime position to finally make good on a trophy run.
While 25 points don’t seem like a lot to overcome in a world where wins are worth 55 points, Hamlin has shown amazing consistency throughout the season that is going to be tough to beat. Hamlin’s seventh-place finish at Loudon was his sixth result of seventh or better in the past seven races. A few races before that, he rolled off a string of three straight victories at Nashville, Michigan and Pocono. With favorable tracks lined up at Darlington, Gateway, Bristol, Kansas, Las Vegas, Charlotte and Phoenix to start The Chase, Hamlin will be tough to catch.
The Mythical Top Six
Rank
Driver
Points
Points to leader
4
Tyler Reddick
860
-141
5
Christopher Bell
738
-263
6
Chase Briscoe
727
-274
7
Kyle Larson
708
-293
8
Chase Elliott
707
-294
Following Hamlin in the standings are Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, making up the “Mythical Top Six,” the group where Racing Insights predicts the most likely champion will come. The battle is tight with only 31 points separating Bell in fifth place from Elliott in eighth place. Kyle Larson and Elliott are separated by one point in seventh and eight place, respectively. Places could change hands during the race at Daytona, and that could make a big impact on who has the advantage heading into The Chase.
Blaney, who won at New Hampshire, is safely in the top six. So to are Gibbs, who finished sixth, and Reddick, who netted an eighth-place showing at Loudon. But Reddick’s performance was a microcosm of his summer slump: He qualified on the pole despite not having good long-run speed in practice, spun out on the opening lap of the race and had to spend the rest of the time making up for that early mistake. He’s clearly searching for whatever magic he had early in the season when he won five of the first nine races.
Below the top six, Larson and Elliott are lurking. Larson lies 19 points below Briscoe for the sixth spot while Elliott is 20 points back. Both are former Cup champions, so they are formidable forms showing up in the rearview mirrors of those above them in the standings. Larson has posted a pair of top-six finishes and seems to be getting his act together at the right time, but he’ll be hard-pressed to make up more ground at Daytona because of his historic struggles on superspeedways. Elliott is known for his consistency, but lately he hasn’t produced the finishes to make a charge up the standings. Besides a top-five finish at Richmond two weeks ago, Elliott’s last top-10 finish before that was back in late June at Nashville.
The Middle Ground
Rank
Driver
Points
Points to cutline
9
Joey Logano
682
+127
10
Chris Buescher
676
+121
11
Carson Hocevar
672
+117
12
William Byron
644
+89
13
Daniel Suárez
638
+83
The summer of Penske continues with Blaney’s win, marking four wins for the team in the past six races. However, Joey Logano’s torrid run slowed down a bit with a 14th-place finish at Loudon. Logano qualified 20th and was involved in an early spin that set him back. He rallied for a respectable finish but is 45 points behind making the top six, meaning it’s unlikely that he will be in the pantheon of favorable championship contenders to start The Chase.
What’s more is Logano has to worry about the drivers right behind him in the standings. Chris Buescher is only six points behind Logano in 10th and Carson Hocevar is only 10 points back in 11th. As it is, Logano would start The Chase 65 points behind Hamlin, but a drop to 11th in the standings would make it a 75-point deficit.
Looking ahead to Daytona, Logano and Team Penske are generally thought of as strong superspeedway racers, but Logano has four finishes of 27th or worse in his past five races there. Meanwhile, Buescher has been good at Daytona with four consecutive top-10 finishes and a win there in the late summer of 2023. And while Hocevar’s career Daytona performances have been uneven at best, he still has the superspeedway win from earlier in the season at Talladega that could bode well for his confidence.
The Cutline Battle
Rank
Driver
Points
Points to Cutline
14
Bubba Wallace
630
+75
15
Austin Cindric
599
+44
16
Shane van Gisbergen
586
+31
17
Ryan Preece
555
-31
18
Brad Keselowski
520
-66
Bubba Wallace only needs two points to clinch a spot in The Chase, so provided he doesn’t crash out of the race early, he should be safely in. But there’s also plenty of room for Wallace in 14th place in the standings to move up because he only trails 12th-place William Byron by 14 points. And it’s also not crazy to think Wallace could move up even higher than 12th given a Daytona history that includes three runner-up finishes.
In the same vein, it’s very unlikely that Brad Keselowski, who sits 66 points back of the cutline, will make The Chase. He would essentially need a 70-point race and some help to make it in. Keselowski finished fifth in the Daytona 500 this year and scored 39 points. His second-place finish in 2023 during the Daytona summer race netted him 45 points when he won Stage 2. Look for Keselowski to be eliminated from The Chase, possibly by the end of Stage 1.
So that makes Shane van Gisbergen and Ryan Preece essentially the two drivers to watch here as 31 points separate them on the cutline. Austin Cindric looks relatively safe with a 44-point cushion and has a Daytona 500 trophy to his credit. SVG and Preece, meanwhile, are locked in a battle on a superspeedway, which is a bit odd considering one is a road-course ace and the other’s strong point is the shorter tracks like the one we were just on at New Hampshire.
What will go down here? Well, it’s really anyone’s guess, which is why it’s exciting. Van Gisbergen has four starts at Daytona in Cup and his best finish of the bunch was 16th while the other three were all finishes of 30th or worse. Preece has a more extensive history with 13 Daytona starts and three top-10 finishes to his credit. But he hasn’t had a top-10 finish there since 2021.
Austin Hill will drive the No. 33 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series for the full 2027 season, the team announced Monday.
Hill has driven the No. 33 car since Memorial Day Weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, stepping in after the death of Kyle Busch on May 21. The team switched from No. 8 to No. 33 to preserve the Busch legacy.
“I’m extremely thankful to Richard and everyone at RCR for believing in me and giving me this opportunity,” Hill said in a press release. “Every race car driver dreams of competing full time in the NASCAR Cup Series, and to have that opportunity with RCR is something I don’t take for granted. I’ve learned so much this year about what it takes to compete at this level, and I’m excited to take everything I’ve learned during my time at RCR and apply it to this next chapter. I want to do everything I can to help this organization continue moving forward. I’m excited for what’s ahead and ready to get to work.”
Hill is a 16-time winner in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where he has competed on a full-time basis since 2022 in RCR’s No. 21 car, winning two or more races in each year of competition. He will continue driving in both Cup and O’Reilly to close the 2026 campaign, but Hill will depart the O’Reilly Series in 2027 for his first full-time endeavor in the Cup Series.
In 30 Cup starts, Hill has a best finish of ninth at the Chicago Street Course in 2025. The 32-year-old Georgia native made 15 Cup starts before the 2026 season and made two starts in a part-time effort this year at Phoenix Raceway and Martinsville Speedway. The 13 races run since Busch’s passing are the most consecutive Cup races Hill has run. In that span, Hill has two top-20 finishes, marked by a season-best 18th at Pocono Raceway on June 14.
“Austin Hill is a talented race car driver, and his continued growth, work ethic and success across multiple levels of NASCAR competition have positioned him for his next step with RCR,” said Richard Childress, Chairman and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, in a press release. “He’s put a tremendous amount of effort into his career, especially this year with everything he’s taken on. We’ve watched Austin grow as a driver and as a person, and we’re proud to have him continue that growth with RCR in the NASCAR Cup Series.”
While ineligible for Cup Series points this year, Hill sits seventh in the O’Reilly standings with just one race remaining before The Chase begins. Hill has clinched a spot in the 12-driver postseason field and will be eligible to compete for the series championship this year. In four prior tries, Hill’s best season-ending rank is fourth, qualifying for the Championship 4 in 2024.
In addition to his O’Reilly success, Hill is also an eight-time winner in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, where he raced full time from 2018 through 2021, posting his winningest campaign in 2019 with four victories and three pole positions for Hattori Racing Enterprises. Hill made his most recent Truck Series start at Pocono in 2023.
LOUDON, N.H. — The NASCAR Chase doesn’t return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway until next season, another 13-odd months away.
Sunday sure had the feel of it, though.
The drama dropped before the green flag even did — but not until after some heavy raindrops that briefly delayed the start and necessitated cars starting the race with wet-weather tires — with Carson Hocevar spinning out during the opening pace laps as drivers tested the racing surface. The intensity only ramped up from there.
And with Daytona International Speedway’s regular-season finale now the only race separating the Cup Series from a finalized 16-driver Chase field, every position throughout the Dollar Tree 301 seemed to carry a little extra weight around the “Magic Mile.”
That was the thing about this weekend at Loudon, though. It was not a Chase race. The postseason field is not quite set, and much of the field was still technically eligible for championship contention.
Keyword: was.
Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Carson Hocevar, William Byron and Daniel Suárez are newly clinched as of Sunday evening. Denny Hamlin officially locked up the No. 1 seed.
Not everyone enjoyed the same positive outcomes.
“It’s just an unfortunate end to our run towards the Chase,” said Ross Chastain, who saw his potential run to a championship officially end in Stage 1, mathematically eliminated after a drivetrain issue knocked him out of the race and saddled him with a last-place finish. “The speed has gotten better, so we’ll hopefully keep moving forward on that. That’s the important part. With the things in our control, we were able to make them better through the summer. I’ve learned that’s really tough to do in the NASCAR Cup Series. We did get better, but we’ve got a ways to go.”
For those who finished the race, Sunday was the last real opportunity for the drivers hovering around the cutline to independently shape their situation before a healthy serving of unpredictable superspeedway action takes the math equation somewhere considerably less controllable.
At Loudon, a team can still qualify well, manage its tires, execute on pit road, score stage points and spend 301 laps methodically constructing the afternoon it needs. We saw Bubba Wallace do this, rebounding from a poor qualifying effort to still walk away P2 on Sunday and leave with a healthy 75-point buffer over the cutline.
At Daytona, a driver can do nearly all of that correctly — flawlessly, even — and still find himself behind the wall because somebody several rows ahead made the wrong decision at the wrong time.
Plenty of skill involved in both. Considerably more control in one, and Sunday represented the last ounce of it.
“It was a tough day for what we needed,” said Shane van Gisbergen, currently straddling the cutline and leading 30 laps early on the wets before fading to 20th. “Being that fast on wet-weather tires and falling that fast shows that we were missing something to have grip on the slick tires. Hopefully there are some learnings on that because Connor [Zilisch, teammate] and I just went backwards as fast as we could when the track dried. It’s just a disappointing way to end the day. We would love to have more of a cushion heading into Daytona, but the No. 60 [of Ryan Preece] did a great job today. I don’t think the No. 2 [of Austin Cindric] gained much on us, but we would love to have more heading into a big unknown race next weekend.”
New Hampshire did not dramatically reshuffle The Chase standings, but it sure brought them into further focus. Even those already well out of the danger zone were aware of the implications around them.
“You could tell the strategies, like the 60 pulling things like that,” Hamlin said on pit road. “You know, I thought it was a good strategy call for them. But yeah, you could see that everyone was in need of points, just chasing points.”
Larson saw it, too.
“The 60 had a good day, or at least I think he did,” he told NASCAR.com. “And I know he’s fighting for everything hecangettogetthatfinalspot.Soyeah,hewasdoingareallygoodjobwithit.”
And all of it unfolded at a track that will carry Chase pressure of its own when NASCAR returns in 2027, which felt considerably less theoretical and off in the distance by the time the checkered flag fell Sunday evening.
“Yeah,youknow,thisplacehaskindofbeenin The Chase.It’sbeenoutof The Chase.It’skindof,youknow,jumpedinandout,” said Blaney. “AndI’vealwaysthoughtthisplaceisincrediblydeservingofa Chaserace, just because it puts onareallygoodshow.Thefansuphereareincrediblypassionateaboutracing … like, it’sjustagoodatmospherehere. It’simportant, Ithink,to have a [Chase] race hereinkindoftheNortheastforsure.Soit’snice.Iwassadthatitwasoutofthe Chasethisyear.I’mexcitedit’sbackin,andjustevenyouknowwhetherwerunreallygoodorbadhere,Ithinkthisplacereallydeservesa Chaseracebecausethefansareincrediblypassionate,andtheylovemotorsports.”
New Hampshire has long rewarded complete afternoons, and Sunday was no exception. Entering the weekend, five of the previous six winners had started inside the top five. The Stage 1 winner had gone on to win three consecutive races. Only one of the previous 14 events required overtime.
This, plus all of the wild aspects of how Sunday went, is the information teams will bring back next year.
Not because Sunday perfectly replicated the circumstances of a Chase race — again, it was not. But the tension this weekend largely belonged to drivers trying to qualify for the 16-driver field, and it was palpable. When New Hampshire joins the 10-race Chase in 2027, the stakes will be different: every one of those contenders will already be in, and every point gained or surrendered here will contribute directly toward deciding a champion.
Sunday offered a glimpse of what happens when New Hampshire’s typical demands — precision, patience, track position and execution — collide with stakes larger than an ordinary points day.
This year, that pressure came from trying just to reach The Chase. Next year, it will come from trying to win it all.
For now, the Cup Series leaves New Hampshire with one regular-season race remaining and the 16-driver field still unfinished.
New Hampshire gave the bubble one final afternoon to shape the equation.
Denny Hamlin will pace the 16-driver field for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase as he clinched the No. 1 seed after Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver took the points lead from 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick after Sonoma Raceway in June and hasn’t looked back — topping the series table for the next seven weeks through the summer to secure his position entering The Chase.
For earning the No. 1 seed, Hamlin will enter The Chase with a 25-point buffer to second place when the green flag waves for the opening postseason event at Darlington Raceway on Sept. 6 (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
After a seventh-place result at New Hampshire, Hamlin improved his 2026 average finish to 8.1, which is on pace to be a career-best in his 21st full-time season. Hamlin has completed every lap of every race except for just two circuits in the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I feel good about where our team’s at,” Hamlin said after Loudon. “Everyone’s kind of clicking well and don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses. We’re not as strong as the Penske cars on these types of race tracks. But you know, Martinsville, we are good. Phoenix, we’ve been good. It’s just over the last few, this just has not been a strong three or four weeks. And when I say not strong, it’s you know top fives and top sevens. It’s something we can work with and the mile-and-a-halfs is certainly something that has been our strength for a couple years now. So looking forward to getting The Chase started and see where it goes.”
LOUDON, N.H. — Bubba Wallace drew closer and closer to the back bumper of Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Ford in the final run of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
But a brake lock-up with five laps to go neutered Wallace’s chances of completing the pass on his longtime friend, handing him a bittersweet second-place finish in the Dollar Tree 301.
“The guy I studied the most coming into this week was the 12 car,” Wallace said. “Still came up a little bit short. We do a really good job behind the scenes of giving us all the tools and all the data that we need to put our cars in Victory Lane, and the flat tracks, we’ve got to work really hard to get there.”
Wallace matched his best result this season — a second-place day in the inaugural San Diego event at Naval Base Coronado in June. The disappointment in not breaking through for his first win was palpable, but there was also a sense of achievement for the speed Wallace’s 23XI Racing team incorporated into his No. 23 Toyota — even if the pathway to speed travels through a suboptimal feel behind the wheel.
“Really bad handling race car — it’s fast, though, so that’s the frustrating part is you’ve got to throw everything away that you know what feels good and just deal with it,” Wallace said. “So that’s what we’re able to do. Appreciate Cincoro, Toyota. It was a good day here in Loudon. Just hate to come home second.”
The defining moment came with five laps to go, following a long run in which Wallace used his four fresh Goodyear tires to track down Blaney, whose team had changed just right-side rubber on his last stop.
As the duo of Blaney and Wallace picked through lapped traffic, Wallace dove to the left of Cole Custer’s No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet on entry to Turn 3. In that moment, Wallace locked up his left-front tire and picked up a significant vibration that thwarted his chances of winning. Still, all Wallace could think about was how strong Blaney’s Penske Ford was.
“Yeah, lapped traffic was tough,” Wallace said. “Just tried too hard there around the 41 and locked up and picked up a big vibration. Didn’t want to end our day, so just kind of limped it around and made the most of it. But we’ve really got to work hard to figure out where the Penske cars are so good.”
No matter how quick Blaney’s car was, Blaney himself still felt the pressure from Wallace in the late stages around the 1.058-mile oval.
“I was aware of it, for sure,” Blaney said of the dwindling margin to Wallace. “Timmy [Fedewa, spotter] was giving me gaps, and I tried to fill the gap early in the run, knowing we were going to go a long way on tires – and I had two, so just trying to manage them after I got out to, you know, a second or two lead. And then when I saw Bubba got to second on four, I knew he was quick, and so I just tried to manage that for a little bit, and he started kind of creeping in like a tenth (of a second) here, and I tried to pick it up a little bit, so that’s eating a little bit more tire away, trying to just maintain like that second-and-a-half gap. …
“I was just trying to maintain and not make a mistake. And if Bubba got there, he got there, and we’ll race it out. But I just didn’t want to make a mistake, slipping into the corner or something or overdriving it. But yeah, it was a heck of a battle.”
The relationship between Wallace and Blaney spans decades, but only once before had they finished 1-2 together in a Cup Series race (Daytona summer, 2021). Their bond extends to the race track in terms of respect, but don’t mistake that for any easier contests.
“Bubba and I have been racing with each other since we were 10 years old,” Blaney said. “I mean, we’ve been racing together forever and been fortunate to grow up together, remain really good friends over the years and have families together and things like that. There’s only a handful of guys that are at that respect level for me out on the race track, whether I grew up with them or just have that. And Bubba is one of those guys I have a ton of respect for what he can do behind the wheel and just the person that he is and the friend that he is.
“So it’s fun racing with your buddies. But at the end of the day, we are incredibly fierce competitors. We are going to race the hell out of each other — but you know that you can trust that person. Like we’re going to race really hard, but we’re going to race clean. So it’s always fun to race with your friends, especially for the lead and things like that.”
Wallace was close to surpassing his friend for the race win Sunday, but after his second runner-up result of 2026 and The Chase looming, his goal is closing the gap to Team Penske.
“It looks like we were close, but we want to show up and be as dominant as they are,” Wallace said. “We’re nowhere near that, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. But it was a great day. Great day, and they poured a lot of heart and effort into making this package better and what I needed to go fast. It ain’t what I needed, but it went fast, so I’ll deal with it.”
