Four weeks removed from Christopher Bell winning his third consecutive race, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin has a chance to accomplish the same feat at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).
Hamlin already has etched his name as a legend within the sport with 56 career Cup wins and sole possession of 11th place on the all-time wins list. On Sunday, he will make his 400th consecutive Cup Series start. He will do so at a track where he enters as the defending race winner. In 35 career starts at the “Last Great Colosseum,” Hamlin has established himself as one of the best gladiators to conquer the high banks, with five consecutive top-10 finishes at Bristol, including two wins in the last three races there.
Another victory at Bristol would not only give Joe Gibbs Racing its sixth win in nine races, but it would also make Hamlin the organization’s all-time wins leader, surpassing Kyle Busch. Additionally, it would mark the 30th occurrence in the modern era of a driver winning three consecutive races, with 12 of those instances resulting in a series title that season — and it’s no secret how much the Bill France Cup has eluded Hamlin throughout his illustrious career.
But to get there, Hamlin may need to go through Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson. Read on for the projection.
OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH
KYLE LARSON: Racing Insights forecasts another close battle between Hamlin and Larson. The No. 5 driver comes in as the most recent Bristol winner; he has 1,351 laps led, five stage wins and seven top fives at Bristol in his career. His car looked to be the fastest during Saturday’s practice.
CHRISTOPHER BELL: JGR as a whole has been superb at Bristol, leading 957 of 2,000 laps at the short track since 2022. Bell is one of four drivers to finish every Bristol race in the Next Gen car in the top 10, with three of those four races resulting in finishes of fifth or better.
TY GIBBS: Gibbs netted his first top 10 since Kansas last fall at Darlington last week. While it’s been a slow start to the season, a top-15 finish the week prior at Martinsville signals a turnaround for the No. 54 team. A strong qualifying effort (sixth) jumped Gibbs into the top 10 of the projections.
CARSON HOCEVAR: Hocevar was one of the biggest movers in the projection after practice and qualifying. He jumped six spots to a projected finish of 16th.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE FOOD CITY 500
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
In honor of hockey’s goal-scoring record being broken, we look at the racing records that may — or may not — be unbreakable.
It’s been a good time to chase major sports records recently. In just the past few years, Tom Brady broke the NFL’s all-time record for passing yards, LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the highest-scoring player in NBA history and Novak Djokovic set a new mark for men’s tennis grand slams. Caitlin Clark became the all-time leading scorer — among women or men — in NCAA Division I basketball last February. And just this past Sunday, Alexander Ovechkin broke Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career record for goals, a mark that many had considered for the longest time to be unbreakable.
With all of that in mind, we thought it would be fun to look at NASCAR Cup Series records that may also get the same treatment sooner or later — and which ones are so impressive that they probably have no prayer of being broken in the future. In each category, we’ll look at both the all-time and modern (since 1972) marks, and sort them from most to least unbreakable. To help guide us on career records, we’ll also rely on a simplified version of what Bill James called the “Favorite Toy” career projection system, estimating how many years an active driver has left in his or her career*, and projecting where he or she would end up if they continued over their previous career pace.
Let’s get started with …
Career wins
All-time record: Richard Petty, 200 Modern record: Jeff Gordon, 93 Active leader: Kyle Busch, 63
It’s safe to say that nobody has a prayer of touching King Richard’s 200 career wins in the Cup Series, seeing as how it’s nearly double that of anyone else (David Pearson is No. 2 at 105) and nobody in the modern era is any higher than Jeff Gordon at 93. Even Gordon’s mark will be tough to top: If 40-year-old Kyle Busch has an estimated six more seasons left, he would only get to 81 at his career pace of wins per year — and that may be overstating his case, as Rowdy hasn’t won since 2023. Among younger drivers, 32-year-old Kyle Larson has the best shot, but with 30 career wins and around 11 seasons remaining, he’d need to average 5.8 wins per year to pass Gordon, a tall task that would require him to essentially replicate last season’s 6-win effort every year for over a decade.
Breakability: Impossible (for all-time record) to Low (for modern record)
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
Most wins in a season
All-time record: Richard Petty, 27 (1967) Modern record: Richard Petty (1975) and Jeff Gordon (1998), tied at 13 Active best: Kyle Larson (2021), 10
Along the same lines, Petty’s single-season record of 27 wins is essentially impossible to break in today’s version of the sport — it would require a driver to win 75% of all races on the schedule, when the best drivers have only recorded top 10s (much less wins) at that frequency in a season just nine times this century. The modern-era co-record of 13 is theoretically more doable, and Larson had a double-digit win tally just a few years ago. But in the Next Gen era, nobody has more than six victories in a season (accomplished by William Byron in 2023 and Kyle Larson in 2024). Unless the cream is starting to rise higher in this, the fourth year of Next Gen, it’s hard to imagine someone will get to double digits again anytime soon, much less 13 wins in a season.
Breakability: Very Low
Career poles
All-time record: Richard Petty, 123 Modern record: Jeff Gordon, 89 Active leader: Denny Hamlin, 43
While not quite as unreachable as Petty’s 200 wins, the King’s 123 career poles probably isn’t being challenged anytime soon, either. And at least part of that is due to greater parity in car performance during the Next Gen era. While we saw double-digit pole seasons every few years during the 1970s through the mid-1980s, and it happened again three times during the 2000s — plus, Kyle Larson had a 12-pole season in 2021, the Gen 6 car’s swan song — we’ve never seen a Next Gen season with more front-of-the-field starts than Christopher Bell’s seven-pole season in 2023. That helps explain why Larson, who leads the active career projection at 69.8 poles, doesn’t figure to even come close to either Petty or Gordon.
Breakability: Very Low
Career championships
All-time record: Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty, tied at 7
Nobody has ever won more than seven Cup Series championships — and it took a trio of all-time greats to even reach that mark, in the form of The King, The Intimidator and ol’ Seven-Time himself. Since Johnson earned his seventh crown in 2016, Busch added a second title in 2019 — but none since — and Joey Logano won three, making him probably the only active driver with a realistic shot at joining the club here. At 35 years old, Logano projects to have around nine more seasons left, meaning he’d need to average one title every 2.3 seasons from here on out just to tie the record. That’s an incredibly high bar, especially with how wide-open the playoff format tends to be. But if anyone has the combination of skill, team support and favorable track selection late in the playoffs to make a run at it, it’s Logano. Even in the best-case scenario, though, it would require extending one of the best late-career surges in NASCAR history.
Breakability: Low
Consecutive years with at least 1 win
All-time record: Kyle Busch, 19 (2005-2023)
This one is interesting because it was broken recently, when Busch passed Petty’s record of 18 straight seasons with a victory (set from 1960-1977). Rowdy is a special talent, and he proved it by extending this streak across three different teams (!), when he moved from Hendrick to Gibbs and then to Childress, with an uninterrupted string of winning seasons at each stop. The consistency needed to maintain a streak that long is rare, though it’s worth noting that Logano (13 straight) and Brad Keselowski (11) have active streaks going as we speak. The way Brad K. has started the 2025 season, his run doesn’t figure to continue without a big turnaround this year; however, Logano has driven well enough (90.0 average Driver Rating) to be a winner, and no one would be surprised if he extends the streak to 14. Adding five more years after that will be difficult, but Logano is at least capable of it.
Breakability: Low to Moderate (but active)
Oldest race winner
All-time record: Harry Gant (1992), 52 years, 7 months and 6 days
“Handsome Harry” cemented his place in NASCAR history when he won the 1992 Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan at the ripe old age of 52, breaking Bobby Allison’s record for oldest race winner (set at age 50 in the 1988 Daytona 500). For Gant, it was his second win of the ‘92 season, a remarkable accomplishment for his age, and he would remain a regular Cup driver for each of the next two seasons as well. No 50-year-old has won a Cup race since Mark Martin in 2009 at Loudon (at 50 years, 8 months and 11 days), so this one would seem unlikely to fall anytime soon. However, the success of 44-year-old Hamlin in 2025 is emblematic of just how much veteran talent is in the sport right now; combine it with improved fitness for older athletes in general, and it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility for someone to give Gant a chase.
Breakability: Low to Moderate
Win a race while leading every lap
Modern record: Cale Yarborough (1973 Southeastern 500 and 1978 Music City USA 420) and Jeff Burton (2000 Dura Lube 300 Sponsored by Kmart), tied at 100% laps led
In the modern era (since 1972), this feat has only happened three times: twice by Cale Yarborough in the 1970s and then by The Mayor, Jeff Burton, more than two decades later … but also more than two decades ago. The fact that it’s been 25 years and counting since we’ve seen someone win wire-to-wire might seem to indicate that this record would be difficult to match — but we think this one might be closer to falling than it appears. As recently as late last season, we saw Larson lead 92.4% of laps (462 of 500) at Bristol, with most of the missing laps led coming at the beginning of the race because teammate Alex Bowman was on pole. And then, just this past weekend at Darlington, William Byron led each of the first 243 laps before coming out behind in the shuffle on pit strategy and never getting the lead back. If a driver has the perfect combination of starting on pole with a dominant car and good luck on strategy, this club could potentially get a new member.
Breakability: Surprisingly moderate
Career top 10s
All-time record: Richard Petty, 712 Modern record: Jeff Gordon, 477 Active leader: Kyle Busch, 386
Like many of the other all-time records on this list, Petty set the overall bar so high as to be almost impossible for a present-day driver to reach. However, Gordon’s modern record of 477 top-10 finishes is a lot more doable for a handful of active drivers. Busch, for instance, is already within 91 of that mark; if he drives another six seasons, he’d need to average 15.2 top 10s a year, a level he’s matched in nine of the previous 10 years. (Granted, 2024 was an exception.) And if Rowdy can’t do it, three other drivers project to finish their careers within striking distance of Gordon: Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott, each of whom is on track to break 400 career top 10s and could get a shot at the modern record with a little good fortune.
Breakability: Moderate (for modern record)
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images
Career race starts
All-time record: Richard Petty, 1,184 Modern record: Ricky Rudd, 906 Active leader: Kyle Busch, 722
While Petty will (once again) be tough to catch here, Ricky Rudd’s modern record of 906 races is a lot more feasible to reach. At the current 36-race Cup Series schedule length, Busch would need to run just 5.1 more full seasons, which would leave him at age 45 when he was nearing the record — a year older than Denny Hamlin is now, as the oldest regular driver in the Cup Series, but younger than Kevin Harvick was just a few years ago. So Rowdy could break this one if he just keeps driving … and so could the 35-year-old Logano. Because he started out so young, Joey is already at 587 career starts, meaning he would need 8.9 more full seasons to catch Rudd, something he could do before he even hits his mid-40s. As a driver who is still very much in his championship prime, don’t count out Logano for this record.
Breakability: Moderate to High (for modern record)
Career road-course wins
All-time record: Jeff Gordon, 9 Active leader: Chase Elliott, 7
Of all the records that might be broken soon, the career mark for road-course victories has to be near the top of the list. For one thing, Elliott is only a pair of wins away from tying Gordon’s all-time mark of nine — a much closer gap between the all-time and active leaders than other categories. And while Elliott hasn’t been as dominant a road-racer in the Next Gen era (he hasn’t won at a road course since the 2021 Road America race), he still has an average Driver Rating of 99.0 at road courses in the Next Gen, so he remains a threat here. That’s also true of Larson, Bell and Tyler Reddick, each of whom finishes their careers ahead of Gordon according to our simple projection. And that’s not even considering the fact that Shane Van Gisbergen (who already has one win and five top 10s in seven road/street starts) is an automatic favorite for every track of that type on the schedule, nor the sky-high potential of young road-racing phenom Connor Zilisch. Add in the increased number of road courses on the schedule, and this one feels destined to fall sooner rather than later.
Breakability: High
Career wins across all national series
All-time record: Kyle Busch, 232
OK, so this one is a little bit of a fake-out. But it’s the rare example of a total wins record that has actually fallen in recent memory: Kyle Busch grabbed overall career win No. 201 in March 2019 at the Martinsville Trucks race, passing Petty for the most career wins across all NASCAR national series. Yes, it’s a little bit of a silly record, accomplished as much through cleaning up in the Xfinity and Truck Series as at the Cup level — while all 200 wins by Petty were in Cup, nearly three-quarters of Busch’s wins were in series other than Cup:
Wins are wins, though. And while Busch has proven the breakability of this mark for active drivers by doing it himself, it’s unlikely that anyone else will ever make a run at his mark. In recent years, NASCAR has cut down on so-called “Buschwhacking” by Cup drivers in lower series — which is a good thing for developmental drivers hoping to move up the stock-car ladder, but bad for veterans hoping to accrue extra laps behind the wheel, and a few extra wins in the process.
Breakability: Already broken! But probably won’t be ever again.
* For those interested, the formula for remaining career seasons that seems to work best for NASCAR Cup Series drivers is calculated by: (29.5 – 0.6*(age)), with the stipulation that a regular driver can never have fewer than 1.5 remaining seasons, regardless of their age.
CONCORD, N.C. — “He is the reason why I’m sitting here today,” Austin Hill shared about Shigeaki Hattori during his media availability on Wednesday at NASCAR’s Production Facility.
Before Hill made a name for himself winning races and forging a home in the NASCAR Xfinity Series under the Richard Childress Racing banner, he was a young, up-and-coming driver looking for a new opportunity to stay in the Craftsman Truck Series.
It wasn’t until Hattori helped support Hill’s full-time gig with his team, Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE), six years ago, that Hill started to get solid footing in the national series.
“The reason I say that is in 2019 when I came over to HRE, I didn’t have the full funding,” Hill said. “We had some funding, but we didn’t have, like, ‘Just write a check for 2.5 million and let’s go race.’ We had a million dollars, he had to help with the rest. He did a lot of work there to get a lot of different sponsorships from over in Japan. And he was able to bring in that extra funding for us to do what we did.”
In his three years driving for HRE, Hill wheeled the No. 16 Truck to eight wins, 26 top fives and three rankings of ninth or better in the final season standings. However, the impact Hattori, or “Shige” as he was referred to in the garage, made on the team was always more than just as an owner.
“All he wanted was what was best for his team, for his group of guys,” Hill said. “He always wanted us to have a good time, have fun. I think if you ask any of the employees that worked for him and the team that I raced for in the 16 truck, they would say the same thing. He was just such a genuine person, he had a passion for the sport. He wanted to win races, win championships and I was glad that I was able to at least get him eight wins in the Truck Series.
“The only thing that I ever regret about racing for him is not getting him that championship. He was able to get it in 2018 and we were oh-so-close for all three years that I was there. We missed making the final four by two points, three or four points, and that championship always eluded us. But just those three years of racing for him was such a fun time, and a lot of memories from that deal.”
Hill found out about Hattori’s death after the Xfinity race last Saturday at Darlington Raceway and is in talks with his former crew at HRE to work out a tribute in Hattori’s honor.
“I reached out to everyone that was on the 16 team when I was racing there. We’re still trying to work out all the details on what we’re going to do,” Hill said. “But, bare minimum, we’re at least going to get all the entire 16 bunch back together one more time, have a toast for Shige and sit out by the bonfire to tell stories. There’s so many fun stories about him that I could share.
“Just what he meant to me in my career. It’s up there at the very top because without him going out on a limb and giving me that opportunity in the 16 truck, I really don’t think I’m sitting here today talking to you guys.”
1. Eight races down — which contenders are in must-win mode already?
Many of the studs we expected to be strong in 2025 have gotten off to hot starts, but there are some surprising names currently outside the playoff picture. With the regular season about a third of the way through and the halfway point nearing, what’s the urgency level?
The 2025 NASCAR Playoffs feel quite a ways away, but September’s postseason picture is already beginning to take shape — with several big names slated to potentially miss.
We talked last week about Brad Keselowski potentially being the next driver to score on Father Time, or at least stabilize a bit in the coming weeks, and early on at Darlington it appeared that would happen — No. 6 placed sixth in the opening stage … only to eventually land P33 at race end.
The 2012 champion currently sits outside the top 30 in the standings and is one of just a handful of full-timers still without a top 10 in 2025. Keselowski has 36 Cup Series wins on his resume, and the other seven drivers still without a top 10 combine for 10 total, so he’s the clear outlier of the group.
But you don’t make the playoffs based on how many wins you’ve collected in the past. Sure, all of those drivers (and then some) could technically point their way into the playoffs, but these standings deficits are approaching and, in some cases, already surpassing the triple-digit mark, which is a pretty big hole to dig out of even with months to do it.
Keselowski is still in the midst of a strong stretch of tracks for him and could find a lifeline with a win in short order.
The four drivers just above Keselowski (-66 to the playoff elimination line) are separated by just 10 points and there have been some minor bright spots for Austin Dillon (-49), Erik Jones (-49), Justin Haley (-50) and Carson Hocevar (-59), but all of their deficits are close to being almost two full race’s worth of points and trending in the wrong direction. Probably fair to assume the most likely path to the postseason for any of them at this point, Keselowski included, probably comes with a winner’s sticker.
Which leaves, of course, everyone below Keselowski in the standings also likely in consideration for “must-win mode” starting this weekend at Bristol.
And there’s one rather large name below No. 6 in the standings — rookie Shane van Gisbergen.
A seasoned champion in his own right, the 35-year-old New Zealander was a bit of a wild card entering the year after just one full season of stock-car racing under his belt in the Xfinity Series, but he was expected to be at least a dark horse playoff contender. With a road course in the Round of 12, some even had him pegged to potentially make the Round of *8.*
Currently 33rd in points, 80 points shy of a playoff spot, that doesn’t appear likely to happen this year, but here’s the thing — out of any driver mentioned, he still arguably has the best shot to make it happen with a victory. Four road-course races remain in the regular season, including the Chicago Street Race, and he won that event in his first NASCAR start in any series. He’s only gotten better, and certainly will be even further along by then.
That’s … not a guy I’m going to count out, even if his passing, defense, speed and restarts all rank 30th or lower so far, according to NASCAR Insights. If we get through all four of those races and SVG remains winless and outside the playoff picture, there’s no way he and Trackhouse Racing don’t look at this season as a disappointment.
Again, we’re not “technically” at the point where any of these drivers can’t make the playoffs without winning but more than likely, based on what we’ve seen so far, winning is the only path to the postseason.
And if that’s the case, Keselowski and SVG are the names you look to who could make it happen.
Brittney Wilbur | NASCAR Digital Media
2. Clash of titans coming in Hamlin/Larson Bristol battle
Denny Hamlin is going for three straight wins while Kyle Larson looks to rebound from a race at Darlington that essentially ended for him on Lap 4. The friendly rivals just happen to be the best at Bristol, too, and an epic battle between them may be around the corner.
The “Last Great Colosseum” is set to play host to the “Next Great Denny Hamlin/Kyle Larson” battle Sunday afternoon.
The Cup Series dominators appear to be on a collision course this weekend in the Tennessee mountains, lining up as two of the best ever at the track — while also being two of 2025’s hottest drivers.
The pair has claimed five of the last eight races there, including Larson’s mesmerizing stomping of the field in last year’s playoffs to the tune of 462 laps led — with three of the veteran Hamlin’s four wins there coming in that span. Hamlin enters as the race’s defending winner after his impressive display of tire management as teams had to adjust on the fly to high falloff last spring.
Hamlin and Larson also tied for the longest active top-10 streaks there with five apiece, but Larson’s streak was almost doubly impressive, as No. 5 has finished outside the top 10 only once in the last 11 Bristol races. Perhaps even more impressive, Larson has never finished outside the top five at Bristol in his time with Hendrick Motorsports.
Hamlin’s got momentum on his side, though.
Darlington, sure, maybe he got a little lucky there. But a win’s a win, and the good vibes from Victory Lane can carry a team through a week of prep and they’ll be walking into Bristol with their heads held high. And don’t forget about his masterpiece at Martinsville a week prior; now, Hamlin has a chance to make Joe Gibbs Racing the first team in history to have a pair of drivers win three straight races in the same season.
But it’s not just Bristol. We’re going to continue to see front-of-the-field battles between the two of them. Of the entire field, they’re the two who have earned the most points on short tracks since the start of last season, and they’re only separated by a single point there (Larson 341, Hamlin 340).
We know there’s history here, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them go tit-for-tat starting this weekend and over the coming months. And we can’t wait.
NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran discusses the addition of PJ1 and the expectations for tire wear at Bristol after last spring’s high tire wear led to a thrilling race.
4. If Denny finally wins it all, he’ll be among the oldest to ever do it
We’re getting way ahead of ourselves, of course, but when a guy wins back-to-back races and enters as a favorite to win a third … you start to wonder what his championship chances might be. Hamlin — who turns 45 on Nov. 18 — has been close before as we all know, but if it happens, it will be the stuff of legend. (Credit: Racing Insights)
Year
Champion
Age
1983
Bobby Allison
45y : 11m : 17d
1959
Lee Petty
45y : 07m : 11d
1958
Lee Petty
44y : 07m : 12d
1994
Dale Earnhardt
43y : 06m : 15d
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
Short-track practice and qualifying procedure is in effect, meaning trucks are split into two groups for a 50-minute practice session (25 minutes for each group), followed by qualifying. Qualifying is two laps, one round.
The qualifying order below is determined via metric that combines the previous race finish by owner (70%) and current owner points position (30%).
The race itself is at 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday, April 11. Watch the race on FS1 or listen on NRN Radio or SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
# denotes series rookie
(i) denotes ineligible for driver points
Short-track practice and qualifying procedure is in effect, meaning cars are split into two groups for a 50-minute practice session (25 minutes for each group), followed by qualifying. Qualifying is two laps, one round.
The qualifying order below is determined via metric that combines the previous race finish by owner (70%) and current owner points position (30%).
The race itself is at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 12. Watch the race on The CW or listen on PRN Radio or SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
# denotes series rookie
(i) denotes ineligible for driver points
Short-track practice and qualifying procedure is in effect, meaning cars are split into two groups for a 50-minute practice session (25 minutes for each group), followed by qualifying. Qualifying is two laps, one round.
The qualifying order below is determined via metric that combines the previous race finish by owner (70%) and current owner points position (30%).
The race itself is at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 13. Watch the race on FS1 or listen on PRN Radio or SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
# denotes series rookie
(i) denotes ineligible for driver points
Concerns about tire rubber being laid on the track have prompted a return to the PJ1 Trackbite traction compound this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
On the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, NASCAR managing director of communications Mike Forde said the decision was made after resin produced unsatisfactory results after Cup Series practice and qualifying last September. In an unusual move, PJ1 Trackbite was applied on the morning of the Sept. 21 night race at Bristol.
NASCAR and track officials elected to go the entire weekend this time with PJ1 Trackbite, which is a sticky substance applied to the track via a spray.
“It was a pretty big curveball for the teams (last year),” Forde said. “We talked to the garage and said, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re looking at,’ so that’s why we did it. So that is the reason why we are doing it again this weekend because of how little the track took rubber. It seems to be only a Bristol issue with the speeds, the banking, the concrete and those things in concert. We’ve noticed that the PJ1 works a little bit better.”
NASCAR and its tracks largely have moved away from using PJ1 Trackbite as a traction compound over the past four years since the PJ1 resin (which is produced by the same company) was applied for the inaugural Cup race weekend at Nashville Superspeedway in June 2021.
Forde said resin was used more recently because “it was more predictable, more consistent and lasted kind of the entire race where PJ1 Trackbite … needed to heat up and wasn’t as predictable and consistent” but seemed to be the best match for Bristol’s concrete surface. …
Forde said NASCAR officials reviewed the incident to confirm “there was nothing nefarious, and that we saw what everyone else saw that (Larson) checked up and unfortunately (Wallace) hit and spun them.” Forde also explained how NASCAR’s new remote race control at its production facility in Concord, North Carolina, can review real-time data and communicate with the scoring tower on site to help analyze such incidents.
Former senior vice president of competition Scott Miller is involved with the new remote race control, which has been in place since the Daytona 500.
Other topics covered during the 10th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— The Wi-Fi trouble for some teams early in the Cup race at Darlington Raceway;
— The new Damaged Vehicle Policy that allowed Larson to return to the track from an early crash;
— NASCAR’s meeting with Xfinity drivers after the caution-plagued race at Martinsville Speedway
The guest on this week’s “Hauler Talk” is Amber Wells, the senior director of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Regional Partnerships who discussed the Throwback Weekend at Darlington, the NASCAR Hall of Fame voting process and her experience as a passenger on the “Miracle on the Hudson” flight in 2009.
Click on the embed above to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the new “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
When Kaulig Racing informed AJ Allmendinger he was returning to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2025, the 43-year-old was put on the recruitment trail to find his replacement for the organization’s No. 16 Xfinity Series entry.
One name tipped the scale.
Christian Eckes was amid the most consistent full-time Craftsman Truck Series season of all time. Aside from winning four races, he ended his second year with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing with an astounding 5.4 average finish, earning 22 top-10 finishes in 23 races, including 21 straight to end the season. It was an obvious decision for Kaulig Racing.
“My biggest push to Matt [Kaulig, owner] and Chris [Rice, team president] was, first, what is the direction that they want Kaulig Racing to be?” Allmendinger said. “If that direction is to bring in younger guys that could be the future of the race team, then that was the thing to do.
“Chris asked me a lot of who would be on the short list that you want here. Christian was the guy that I said, ‘If he’s available, we should get him.’ Christian has shown the last couple of years that he can be a superstar in the sport, and I was really hoping that he would be here.”
To get the call made the previous seven years worth it for Eckes, which included four full-time seasons and three partial schedules in the Truck Series.
Eckes doesn’t usually describe himself as patient. However, endurance and capitalizing on opportunities helped net the 24-year-old an Xfinity Series gig.
“It was starting to get to the point where I was getting a little bit concerned about it,” Eckes told NASCAR.com of his racing progression. “Not necessarily getting stuck, but not knowing what that next opportunity was going to come or if I was just going to be a truck guy. At the time, I was OK with it, but luckily, this opportunity came up. With the last two years being successful, there are more opportunities that arose and conversations.
“A couple of years ago, I probably would have said that I would be truck racing for the rest of my life.”
The McAnally opportunity was a way for Eckes to reinvent himself. He weighed his options before committing to Kaulig, but it was a relief to know opportunities were presenting themselves to advance up the proverbial racing ladder.
“It reminded me a lot of [McAnally] in a way,” Eckes said of Kaulig. “There are a lot of good people, a lot of good things. They kind of had a down year last year, and I felt like I could come and hopefully make a little bit of a difference. Being part of not necessarily a rebuild, but a reinvention and being part of growth is the biggest thing for me.”
While some drivers rush to the Xfinity Series, Eckes admits he wouldn’t have been ready for this opportunity if it came early in his career. He grasped valuable life lessons on his journey to Kaulig.
“You learn a lot when you go through things like losing your ride, going to different teams in different situations, not only about racing but life and everything else,” Eckes said. “Definitely wouldn’t change those experiences for the world, even though they were tough at the time.”
Before a late January test at Rockingham Speedway, Eckes never strapped into an Xfinity car. Those laps ahead of the 2025 season kicking off were paramount, acquainting him with his No. 16 team.
Eckes has leaned heavily on Allmendinger to adjust to the series, with Allmendinger competing in a pair of Championship 4 races in three full-time Xfinity seasons with Kaulig.
“I feel like we talk a lot,” Allmendinger said. “I’ve made it clear to all these guys that are my teammates, I’m always going to have an open door, open-book policy. I’m never going to force myself on you. There are certain guys that don’t want to talk to you, and it’s not my job to force my way in there. He’s talked to me a lot, and I’ll answer the phone every time that he calls me.”
Rice didn’t know anything about Eckes before honing in on him. He found himself up late at night watching YouTube videos of Eckes’ demeanor. He quickly realized that Eckes was “way better and different than I thought he was.”
Through the opening eight races, the No. 16 team has had a roller-coaster season. Before Darlington Raceway last week, the team shifted to a new motto of being looser throughout the weekend. The description? Limp Bizkit to Bob Marley.
“I knew this year was going to be tough in Xfinity for him,” Rice said. “We started out good, but not great; we haven’t had the finishes. We know that we have a lot of future in our young guys, and that’s what is key. We’ve got to have some future. AJ does an amazing job, but you can’t sit on your hands and wait for someone to come to you. You’ve got to go get them, and that’s what we did with Christian.”
Eckes doesn’t consider himself a goal-setter but wants to see development throughout the season from himself and the No. 16 team.
“I want to see progression more than anything going into 2026,” he said. “Going race to race, if we can say we’re better, we’re going to be fine and in contention. That’s the biggest thing for me is seeing solid, steady improvement.”
With a seventh-place finish and tallying 43 points at Darlington, Eckes gained 17 points on the elimination line, slotting in 15th in the regular season standings. Eckes and the No. 16 team will next race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday (5 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With a seventh-place finish in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain picked up his fourth top-10 finish in the first eight races of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
“We worked our way up to the top 15 early in the race with adjustments,” Chastain said. “We got caught by that one caution in the middle of the race just after we pitted under green. So we had to take the wave around and work our way back up through the field. Phil [Surgen, crew chief] and the guys made good adjustments, and we were able to get up in the top 10 and we finished seventh.”
The No. 1 Chevrolet driver only has two finishes worse than 12th this year — a 40th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 after getting swept up in a multicar wreck and 31st place at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Despite the pair of outliers, Chastain seems to be trending in the right direction after missing the playoffs last season. The five-time Cup Series race winner will look to keep the momentum rolling into Bristol on Sunday afternoon (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Although Chastain currently sits 12th in the standings after Darlington, NASCAR Insights data suggests that the No. 1 team is excelling in three of the five categories used to analyze performance throughout the season. NASCAR Insights uses categories of Passer Rating, Defense Rating, Speed Rating, Restarts Rating and Pit Crew Rating to evaluate each driver and team.
In the Goodyear 400, Chastain ranked eighth in Passing Rating, third in Defense Rating and fifth in Restarts Rating. Considering he qualified 25th for Sunday’s race, all three of these categories proved key in his successful South Carolina outing.
The No. 1 team kept working on the car all race long, and Chastain’s ability to complete passes, maintain track position and make the most of his restarts resulted in his fourth top 10 of the year. Chastain placed 15th in Speed Rating and 27th in Pit Crew Rating, but it did not slow him down at the track “Too Tough to Tame.”
When evaluating NASCAR Insights’ season-long averages, Chastain’s Darlington performance mirrored what we have seen from him all season. After eight races, he sits third in Passing Rating, sixth in Defense Rating and first in Restarts Rating. Performing that well is a key indicator of on-track success.
Chastain has a reputation in the garage for having moxie in his driving style, which can often rub his competitors the wrong way. However, that same style often provides him with the results he and Trackhouse are looking for at the race track each week — and which are evident in the Insights ratings.
On Saturday, Chastain competed in the Xfinity Series race in the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet alongside Cup Series regulars Christopher Bell (No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing) and Chase Elliott (No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports). During the race, Chastain had run-ins with both drivers. Bell’s No. 19 Toyota got squeezed into the wall while racing Chastain, putting Bell out of contention as he dropped to 25th place.
Elliott expressed his displeasure with how Chastain raced him under caution during the Xfinity Series contest, although Elliott finished runner-up to race winner Justin Allgaier, as Chastain ended Saturday in fourth place.
With a good showing of speed and ruffling feathers along the way, is the old Ross Chastain back? Based on NASCAR Insights data and the basic eye test, it seems that way, which is a great sign of things to come for the Trackhouse driver.
Chastain’s competitors may continue to feel frustrated toward his aggressive driving style, but it brings out the best in him. And when he is on the right side of the equation, it delivers results for the No. 1 team. Being 14th in his season-long Speed Rating and 15th at Darlington, there is no doubt that Chastain will get the most out of his equipment each race, even if he does not have the fastest car.
Other notables from Sunday:
• Despite placing 13th in Speed Rating, Christopher Bell was able to finish third after gaining valuable track position, due to a well-timed caution and perfect execution on pit road as the No. 20 left Darlington first in Pit Crew Rating.
• To no one’s surprise, William Byron was first in Speed Rating after sweeping Stages 1 and 2, which included him leading the first 243 of 297 laps before settling for a second-place finish.
• Denny Hamlin was 11th in Pit Crew Rating, but his pit crew delivered big time on the money stop that ultimately helped him secure the lead and race win in NASCAR Overtime.
