Posted on by Staff Report

Early leader Christopher Bell found trouble in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race, colliding with Todd Gilliland and crashing out at Texas Motor Speedway.

Bell had led 22 of 267 laps in the Würth 400 Presented by Liqui Moly when his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota encountered the spinning No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford of Gilliland on Lap 68. The two made contact at the exit of Turn 4, and Bell’s clipped car careened into the outside retaining wall on the frontstretch.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Texas

Bell, who started seventh, had moved to the front of the field on pit strategy as the first driver to make a green-flag stop in Stage 1. He drove to the garage after calamity struck, and his team determined the damage to be terminal. Bell ended up last in the 38-car field.

Bell was running in close proximity to JGR teammate Denny Hamlin when Gilliland — running 28th near the tail of the lead lap — lost control in front of them. Hamlin held his line and avoided Gilliland’s car on the high side; Bell’s decision to take evasive action on the low side was his undoing, but barely.

“It was another one of those 50-50 calls,” Bell said after he was checked and released at the track’s infield care center. “Me and Denny were side by side and I saw him (Gilliland) spinning and Denny lifted, and I thought that I could shoot the gap on the bottom. And I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom but I got clipped.”

Bell entered Sunday’s 400-miler ranked ninth in the Cup Series standings, and he dropped four spots to 13th after his worst finish of the season. Gilliland slipped three spots to 25th. He was able to continue at reduced pace after sustaining front-end damage, and finished the race 32nd — 13 laps down — after he was once flagged by NASCAR officials for failing to meet the minimum-speed requirement.

MORE: Bell on recent skid: ‘It’s so painful’

Bell is still searching for his first victory of the season, and he’s gone five consecutive races without a top-five finish. His mini-slump has caused him to slip back from his high-water mark of sixth in the points after Las Vegas in mid-March.

“Just, I don’t know. I’m very thankful to be in the position I am in, and I’ve got great race cars to drive, got great sponsors behind me, and obviously I wish that I could make them proud for other reasons, of good results,” Bell said. “We haven’t had that lately, but they’ve stuck behind me, and I’ve got more opportunities ahead of me, so that’s what I’m thankful for.”

Posted on by Dustin Albino

FORT WORTH, Texas – One month removed from turning 18, Brent Crews continues to take the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field by storm.

After a fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 340 at Texas Motor Speedway, Crews became the youngest driver in series history to win the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. It’s his fourth straight top-five finish overall, spanning a variety of tracks, including his first two trips to a 1.5-mile venue. It comes on the heels of a career-best runner-up effort last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.

“It means a lot,” Crews said of his newest accolade. “Continuing to learn. Don’t know what I’m going to do with the money; I’m sure my parents aren’t going to let me do anything too exciting but it’s pretty cool.”

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Texas

Crews was a pillar of the top five at Texas, finishing fifth in Stage 1. The No. 19 Toyota improved throughout the second stage and finished second to Cup Series regular Connor Zilisch.

During the final stage, eventual race winner Kyle Larson and Zilisch were side-by-side for the lead, allowing Crews to close the gap and get to their inside. The three cars made contact but carried on.

“I was trying not to crash; I got really loose,” Crews said. “Kyle doesn’t care who you are, he’s going to put it right on your door as fast as he can. Connor is the same way. That’s how we race up there, and it’s clean, hard racing. It’s the fastest way to learn is with them.”

Larson, who raced Crews on dirt at Millbridge Speedway as the youngster was on the rise, is not surprised that he was in the mix in just his second attempt at an intermediate-sized race track.

“If you don’t know about him it’s unbelievable, but if you know about him it’s very believable,” Larson said in his winning post-race press conference. “He did a super good job again. Definitely races like a veteran. He’s young, but he’s got a lot of experience racing with a lot of different types of racing through his upbringing. It’s not surprising, especially in a JGR car; they are really strong. Justin [Allgaier, the runner-up] got really good again at the end, but I felt like [Crews] was the best car and if he ever got the lead, he was going to drive away.”

After a late restart with 17 laps remaining, Crews dropped to fourth but was never challenged by Sheldon Creed or Sammy Smith for the Dash 4 Cash bonus. The fourth competitor, Corey Day, wrecked out on the opening circuit.

By banking 48 points at Texas, Crews is only 12 points below The Chase cutline with 14 races remaining in the regular season. And by frequently running inside the top five, JGR brass believes a checkered flag is coming soon.

“I actually think he’s meeting expectations based on feedback we got before even came to us and what we saw in his younger years,” Steve de Souza, executive vice president of O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and development for JGR, told NASCAR.com. “Pretty impressive driver and has a tremendous skill set under pressure and yet still has a lot of aggression too.

“We are happy for him. I suspect that a win is not too far in the distant future for him.”

That coveted triumph could come as soon as next week at Watkins Glen International. Racing through the proverbial ladder, Crews was known for his road-course prowess and placed sixth in his series debut at Circuit of The Americas at the end of February.

Posted on by Dustin Albino

FORT WORTH, Texas — Drivers who race on the ragged edge are rewarded at Texas Motor Speedway. Crossing that line, however, pays a steep price.

Since the inception of the Next Gen car in 2022, no track has produced more cautions per race than the 1.5-mile oval (14). The longest stretch of racing in those four races is a mere 50 laps (twice). All three races held here since the race distance was altered to 400 miles have resulted in at least 11 cautions, including tying the track record in 2024 with 16 yellow flags. Dating back to 2019, seven of the last eight TMS races have hit double digits.

RELATED: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Texas

“It’s (Steve) Letarte that always jokes, ‘Tell me when the caution is, I’ll tell you what the right call is,’” Brian Wilson, crew chief of the No. 2 car driven by Austin Cindric, who led 60 laps en route to a Stage 1 victory in 2025, told NASCAR.com. “You are trying to time those correctly and making sure you’re ahead of it. Track position it’s key around here, so making sure we make our pit stops at the right time is going to be crucial.”

Among the challenges at Texas includes the narrow racing groove. While Turns 1 and 2 are plenty wide, the quickest way around is planting the bottom line, as the surface flattens out quickly on corner exit. The preferred lane moves up through Turns 3 and 4, with the commitment level at an all-time high. Chase Briscoe said last week that there is no other set of corners on the circuit that compares to that sensation of speed.

Should a driver miss the groove ever so slightly through Turns 3 and 4, a patch of bumps can sneak up and wad them up.

“If you shy up as the race goes on, one-and-a-half lanes will open up,” Mike Kelley, crew chief for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., said. “But if you step out and get in the bumps at the wrong time with the wrong air pressure, your load limiters in the back are very sensitive to that and you see guys bust their ass all the time.

“It’s a product of the race track since they’ve changed it and went to the multi-groove angles. The tire, the car and all the things that go with the Next Gen car. These guys are running on them on the edge.”

Being on the right side of the caution flag from a strategy standpoint is paramount. Kelley recalled having a hot rod in 2024 that he thought could contend for the win and short-pitted with several leaders. When a caution flew during a cycle of green-flag pit stops, the No. 47 car was forced to take the wave around and finished 23rd. Stenhouse ran a stint long last year and was rewarded when the caution flew during another set of green-flag stops, driving to a sixth-place effort, one of two top 10s in the last three trips to TMS for Hyak Motorsports.

New this go around is the Goodyear tire. This compound has previously run in 2026 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Darlington Raceway and most recently Kansas Speedway. Having that setup could throw teams a curveball come the main event, as there was one natural caution apiece in Sin City and the Sunflower State.

MORE: What to Watch at Texas | Cup Series standings

“We’ve seen a rash of the opposite [in 2026] and all these races have gone almost the whole stage lengths without a caution,” Kelley added. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when these two worlds collide. You come to the track that has the most cautions with the package that has had the least. I would bet on Texas biting some people still.”

As with any high-speed venue, hitting the balance precisely will be commended. Track position could reign supreme, however, with plenty of unknowns on the horizon.

“I still expect Texas is going to [have more cautions] than those races. But is it going to be calmer than last year?” Wilson pondered. “You’re gambling on when you’re going to get the caution and how it plays out.

“Both of those races, you’ve been able to see guys take two tires, stay out. That’s something that’s been in the playbook here at Texas. I think you’re going to see a lot of guys gamble on strategy and try to get the track position with different pit calls.”

Posted on by Staff Report

The Dash 4 Cash program has concluded for the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, and the initiative packed plenty of excitement from start to finish in the four-race set. Continue reading for more information on the program, with winners and recaps from each Dash 4 Cash race.

RELATED: 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule

What is Dash 4 Cash?

Starting in 2009, the Dash 4 Cash is a midseason program now sponsored by O’Reilly Auto Parts that financially rewards drivers for performing well during a select stretch of four races in each O’Reilly Series season. The qualifier to determine the field for the first Dash 4 Cash race was held at Rockingham Speedway on April 4. The official four-race slate began at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 11, the seventh time the Tennessee short track has hosted the program. The second contest was at Kansas Speedway on April 18, a first for the 1.5-mile facility.

After hosting the Dash 4 Cash each year from 2018-24, the program moved to the iconic Talladega Superspeedway on April 25 for the third installment. The 2026 Dash 4 Cash finale took place at Texas Motor Speedway on May 2, the second time the track has hosted the program (2024).

How does Dash 4 Cash work?

Before the four-race stretch begins, a qualifying race determined the participants in the first official Dash 4 Cash bout. The four highest-finishing series regulars in the O’Reilly race at Rockingham qualified for the first Dash 4 Cash race at Bristol. The highest finisher of that quartet at Bristol collected a $100,000 prize and automatically qualified for the next Dash 4 Cash race. The next three highest-finishing O’Reilly Series regulars in the race at Bristol also qualified to participate in the next Dash 4 Cash race at Kansas, with another $100,000 on the line. These rules repeat for subsequent Dash 4 Cash races.

To qualify for the program, drivers had to declare to collect O’Reilly Series points.

MORE: Every Dash 4 Cash winner 

2026 Dash 4 Cash recaps:

At Rockingham Speedway (April 4 qualifier)

Recap: William Sawalich captured his first career O’Reilly win in convincing fashion, doing so after dominating the final 79 circuits en route to the Rockingham Speedway victory. The opportunity to collect a little prize money is additionally in the cards for the 19-year-old Sawalich, qualifying for the opening Dash 4 Cash bout along with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Brandon Jones, seven-time Dash 4 Cash winner Justin Allgaier and Rajah Caruth. A late-lap sprint helped Caruth claim the fourth and final spot over Carson Kvapil and Sheldon Creed.

MORE: Sawalich scores first O’Reilly win with Rockingham triumph

***

At Bristol Motor Speedway (April 11)

Dash 4 Cash drivers: William Sawalich, Brandon Jones, Justin Allgaier, Rajah Caruth.

Recap: After running consistently in the top five all night long at Bristol Motor Speedway, Justin Allgaier claimed the first $100,000 Dash 4 Cash prize of the year with a fourth-place finish in Thunder Valley. It was also the JR Motorsports driver’s eighth Dash 4 Cash victory of his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career. His fellow Dash 4 Cash competitors William Sawalich finished seventh, followed by Rajah Caruth (14th) and Brandon Jones (19th).

MORE: Allgaier cashes eighth Dash 4 Cash prize at Bristol

***

At Kansas Speedway (April 18) 

Dash 4 Cash drivers: Brent Crews, Justin Allgaier, Carson Kvapil, Sheldon Creed.

Recap: In the closing laps of the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed held off JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, as a runner-up finish helped the No. 00 Chevrolet driver claim the second $100,000 Dash 4 Cash prize of the 2026 season. Allgaier finished third, as rookie Brent Crews brought his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota home in fifth place. Carson Kvapil’s Dash 4 Cash hopes ended on the second lap of the 200-lap race when the No. 1 JRM driver flipped on the backstretch multiple times and came to a stop after sliding on his roof.

MORE: Kvapil Dash 4 Cash hopes end after Kansas rollover

***

At Talladega Superspeedway (April 25)

Dash 4 Cash drivers: Taylor Gray, Sheldon Creed, Justin Allgaier, Jesse Love.

Recap: Corey Day overtook Sheldon Creed during a chaotic final lap at Talladega Superspeedway and was leading when the caution flag waved due to a multi-car accident to capture his first win in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. That left Creed without a trophy, but he did walk away with a third-place finish and the $100,000 check for winning the Dash 4 Cash prize for the second week in a row. The Haas Factory team driver will go for three straight big paydays next week at Texas Motor Speedway.

MORE: Creed emerges from late frenzy with Dash 4 Cash prize

***

At Texas Motor Speedway (May 2)

Dash 4 Cash drivers: Corey Day, Brent Crews, Sheldon Creed, Sammy Smith.

Recap: Brent Crews paced the other three eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers for most of the afternoon, using a fourth-place finish to secure his first career $100,000 bonus and become the program’s youngest winner. He led two laps, contending for the race victory with winner Kyle Larson and second-place finisher Justin Allgaier before fading back on the final run of the afternoon. Sheldon Creed finished sixth, ending his quest for a third consecutive payday. Sammy Smith came home 13th, while Corey Day, winner last week at Talladega, suffered terminal damage in a Lap 1 crash, ending his day nearly before it started.

MORE: Crews extends top-five string at Texas, becomes youngest D4C winner

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Track: Texas Motor Speedway
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Track length: 1.5 miles
When: 3:30 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: FS1, HBO Max, FOX One, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,233,037
Race distance: 267 laps | 400.5 miles
Stages: 80 | 165 | 267
Sunday’s starting lineup | Cup Series pit stall assignments

Texas-sized task ahead for Cup drivers in Fort Worth

The NASCAR Cup Series field has tackled two 1.5-mile ovals in 2026 already — but none of Sunday’s 38 entrants have faced something like Texas Motor Speedway yet this year.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway are D-shaped ovals, symmetrical at either end of the course, making them the only true intermediate tracks on the schedule thus far. But Texas is anything but symmetrical, with a wide, flat corner through Turns 1 and 2 and a tighter, quicker, higher-banked groove through Turns 3 and 4, all rounded out by a double-dogleg on the front straightaway.

“This place is hard because it’s so narrow, so if you lose track position, you’re kind of jacked,” Ty Gibbs said Saturday afternoon. “So it’s kind of like a Darlington in a way, but just got to keep working forward, keep making everything the best you can be and winning spots on pit road and just maximizing everything you can do. That’s what wins races here, I feel like.”

MORE: Weekend schedule, TV info | At-track photos

Gibbs and his Toyota housemates at Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing have been the class of the field thus far on the intermediate tracks, with Denny Hamlin victorious at Las Vegas and Tyler Reddick a winner at Kansas. But there to challenge were the Chevrolets from Hendrick Motorsports.

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, nearly won at Kansas before settling for second in overtime behind Reddick. He expects the speed they’ve shown to be back in play Sunday in the Lone Star State.

“I think you always see the same teams good on intermediates every time,” said Larson, the defending Cup Series champion. “So I think we were good at Vegas, better at Kansas and we’ll hopefully be even better here at Texas as we’ve learned more about our cars. So I’m excited about this weekend.”

The layout of Texas necessitates more compromise, both from drivers behind the wheel and crew chiefs setting up their vehicles. RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Ford, enters with high confidence in his team’s ability to fight for a strong finish Sunday, even if they’re a tick behind the Toyotas and Chevrolets.

“You have a little bit of give and take here compared to some other mile-and-a-halfs,” Buescher said. “But all the principles are still there. The fundamentals are the same. It’s just how do you balance it out to not give up potential but still be able to (handle) — with the speed and the bumps of (Turns) 3 and 4 and as slow and as much off-throttle time as you have in 1 and 2. I guess it feels strange to me to be this far in the season and say we only have two real mile-and-a-halfs under our belt, but both of them were solidly top-10, almost top-five races for us. So with that, we know we’ve had some work to do to get to that next group of cars that have been so strong this year and everybody’s been diving off into that. It will certainly apply. It’s just got some little unique twists here.”

RELATED: Buescher hopes to end jinx at his home track

Those quirks have played a hand in creating chaos at Texas. There have been 10 cautions or more in seven of the last eight Cup races at Texas, with crashes leading to 10 DNFs in the 2025 edition of the race.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of cautions and a lot of penalties here,” Gibbs said. “So if you can stay out of those and be smart and not get penalized, not get trapped a lap down, you can make it happen, and you can get rewarded on that, which is cool.”

In the details …

The finishing orders of the first two intermediate races of the season were strikingly similar. A whopping nine drivers earned top 10s at both Las Vegas and Kansas — the only exception being Kansas winner Tyler Reddick … perhaps ironic for the guy who’s won five of 10 races this season.

Here are the nine drivers who enter Texas with a perfect top-10 record at 1.5-mile tracks in 2026, hoping to be 3-for-3 after Sunday:

DriverLas VegasKansas
Denny Hamlin1st4th
Chase Elliott2nd8th
William Byron3rd7th
Ty Gibbs5th9th
Chris Buescher6th10th
Kyle Larson7th2nd
Chase Briscoe8th3rd
Bubba Wallace9th5th
Brad Keselowski10th6th

Speed reads

Race-day essentials:

• Texas hub: Key information, pit-stall assignments, results | Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Paint schemes worth a look in Fort Worth | View gallery
• Hauler Talk: Officials consider changes for superspeedway package | Listen now
• How the “Hurricane” began: Meet the people, places that made Hocevar who he is | More
• Power Rankings: Cup Series’ top 20 drivers after Talladega | This week’s ranks
• NASCAR Classics: Inside the video vault from Texas | Watch now

Contributing: Dustin Albino

Posted on by Reid Spencer

FORT WORTH, Texas — During the final caution of Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 340 at Texas Motor Speedway, crew chief Andrew Overstreet radioed an encouraging message to pole winner Justin Allgaier.

“Nothing stops a hungry gator,” said Overstreet, referencing Allgaier’s “Little Gator” nickname. “Not even the so-called ‘Greatest of All-Time.’”

But Kyle Larson, the “G.O.A.T.” that Overstreet referenced, proved too much for Allgaier during a 17-lap green-flag run to the finish. Though Allgaier caught Larson in the closing circuits, he couldn’t find a way past his JR Motorsports teammate, who won his second NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts event in four starts this season.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Texas

“I really didn’t think I had a chance there with Justin behind me,” said Larson, who beat Allgaier to the finish line by 0.293 seconds. “He was really good, catching me there on that long run after the (earlier) green-flag stop (on Lap 145 of 200).

“I was just hoping in clean air I could kind of get away, like I did the run before to start stage 3, but he was (able to get) behind me, and he could run a lot of different lanes back there, too. I was trying to do what I could to take his air away while also maintaining a good corner for myself, but he was always closing on me.

“Thanks to him for racing me clean … that was a great little run to the end there.”

The victory was Larson’s second straight at Texas and third overall and the 19th in the series of his career.

Though Allgaier matched his best finish at Texas and increased his series lead to 121 points over second-place Sheldon Creed, the disappointment was etched in the face of the runner-up.

“Without contact, I don’t know if there was any way to get around him, and I tried everything I could possibly try and just unfortunately came up short,” said Allgaier, a three-time winner this season. “JR Motorsports 1-2, obviously that’s a big deal…

“I don’t know. I’m going to go back and watch this one a bunch and try to figure out what I could have done better.”

Larson was first off pit road under caution for Rajah Caruth’s crash off Turn 2 on Lap 179. Allgaier was third behind Brandon Jones and lined up behind Larson in the bottom lane for the Lap 184 restart.

Allgaier quickly cleared Jones and took off in pursuit of Larson, using the top lane to gain time on his teammate. Though Allgaier got to Larson’s bumper in the closing laps, he was stymied in his efforts to pass for the win.

Sam Mayer finished third, one spot ahead of rookie Brent Crews, who collected a $100,000 bonus as the highest-finishing eligible Dash 4 Cash driver. It was the first such payout for Crews in the final Dash 4 Cash event of the season.

Parker Retzlaff came home fifth, followed by Sheldon Creed, Austin Hill, Jones, Jesse Love and Jeremy Clements.

MORE: O’Reilly Series standings | Weekend schedule: Texas

The race was punctuated by seven cautions (for 36 laps), the first of which was a bifurcated five-car wreck on the opening lap.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Corey Day entered the race fourth in the series standings and exited the event after a hard crash into the Turn 2 wall on Lap 1.

Day started the race sixth in the outside lane and lost control near the exit of one of NASCAR’s most treacherous corners.

“Starting outside, you’ve got to run up there through the first corner,” Day said. “I don’t know. I didn’t feel like I was faster through the corner than the guys in front of me, but I was all good, and all of a sudden I’m sideways, and there’s no saving it coming off of (Turn) 2 like that.

“I hate it for my 17 guys. We had such a good car yesterday, and for me to go ruin it like that on the first lap of the race, I feel terrible.”

Larson led a race-high 93 laps, followed by Allgaier (54), who won the first 45-lap stage wire-to-wire. Connor Zilisch won Stage 2 before fading to 21st in the final segment after an unscheduled stop for a flat tire.

Larson, Crews and Zilisch provided a breathtaking moment on Lap 105, running three-wide through Turn 4 and bouncing off each other before Larson took the lead. Larson was amazed all three cars escaped without harm.

“I thought for sure it was going to be big,” said Larson, who will race as defending NASCAR Cup Series champion in Sunday’s Würth 400 Presented by Liqui Moly (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The next race for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is scheduled next Saturday, May 9 at the Watkins Glen International road course (4 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Note: Post-race technical inspection was completed in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage at Texas without major issue, confirming Larson as the race winner. Two cars — the No. 9 JRM Chevrolet of Carson Kvapil and the No. 26 Sam Hunt Racing Toyota for Dean Thompson — were each found with one unsecured lug nut in a post-race check. Competition officials indicated that those two teams will forfeit pit-stall selection next weekend at Watkins Glen.

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Staff Report

See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series drivers will pit this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Cup Series

nascar cup series pit stalls for texas

NASCAR Cup Series Würth 400 presented by Liqui Moly at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Texas weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on FOX

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

o'reilly auto parts series pit stalls for texas 2026

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Andy’s Frozen Custard 340 at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: How to watch O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races on The CW

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

Graphic of Truck Series pit stalls at Texas Motor Speedway. NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series SpeedyCash.com 250 at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: How to watch NASCAR on FOX

Posted on by Staff Report

Texas Motor Speedway has had its fair share of ever-changing variables over the years, and with nine winners in the last nine races there, more unpredictability could be in store for the NASCAR Cup Series when drivers tackle the 1.5-mile track on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won three of the last five Texas races — Kyle Larson in 2021, William Byron in 2023 and Chase Elliott in 2024 — but Team Penske enters Sunday as the team with the defending winner, with Joey Logano taking the 2025 honors.

RELATED: Starting lineup | Saturday recap

Will a powerhouse organization find Victory Lane at the facility once again, or will a wild card emerge to tame the Lone Star State? View the full projected results, courtesy of Racing Insights, for the 267-lap contest.

DRIVERS TO WATCH

JOEY LOGANO: The defending Texas winner gets a nod here for obvious reasons. But it’s worth noting that the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver has had an up-and-down stretch as of late. Logano’s last five races have included two top 10s and three finishes of 30th or worse. That said, Texas has been kind to the three-time Cup Series champion at times, with Logano tallying two wins, 13 top fives and 16 top 10s in 30 Texas starts.

CARSON HOCEVAR: Coming off his first career Cup Series triumph at Talladega Superspeedway, the 23-year-old now heads to a track where he started on the pole last season — and he did it again Saturday. While the No. 77 Spire Motorsports driver has a best finish of 24th here, momentum is at an all-time high, even banking a win in Friday night’s Truck Series race. Hocevar collected a top-15 finish at Kansas last month, another 1.5-mile facility that could signal better things to come at these venues for the blossoming star.

TY GIBBS: Though a 34th-place result at Talladega snapped a seven-race top-10 streak, Gibbs’ 2026 has been a breakout, with the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing driver earning his first career Cup win at Bristol Motor Speedway in April. In four Texas Cup starts, Gibbs’ best finish is 13th (2024). That said, two of his six top 10s on 1.5-mile tracks have come this season. Similar to Hocevar, momentum could be the young star’s biggest ally.

MORE: At-track photos 

FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR WÜRTH 400 PRESENTED BY LIQUI MOLY (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1)

FINISHCAR NUMBERDRIVER
15Kyle Larson
245Tyler Reddick
311Denny Hamlin
49Chase Elliott
524William Byron
620Christopher Bell
717Chris Buescher
819Chase Briscoe
977Carson Hocevar
1054Ty Gibbs
1112Ryan Blaney
126Brad Keselowski
1322Joey Logano
147Daniel Suárez
152Austin Cindric
1660Ryan Preece
1723Bubba Wallace
181Ross Chastain
198Kyle Busch
2043Erik Jones
2148Alex Bowman
2271Michael McDowell
2347Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2435Riley Herbst
253Austin Dillon
2616AJ Allmendinger
2738Zane Smith
284Noah Gragson
2921Josh Berry
3097Shane van Gisbergen
3167Corey Heim
3242John Hunter Nemechek
3334Todd Gilliland
3410Ty Dillon
3541Cole Custer
3688Connor Zilisch
3751Cody Ware
3866Chad Finchum
Posted on by Staff Report

MONTEREY, Calif. – Alex Zanardi competed in only one IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race, but the charismatic Italian left an impression on nearly everyone in the IMSA paddock.

Zanardi, who died at the age of 59 Friday, May 1, earned his respect and reputation by winning 15 races and two CART-sanctioned IndyCar championships in a three-year period from 1996-98. He dominated the ’97 and ’98 seasons in swashbuckling style and created the memorable tradition of celebrating race wins by spinning smoky donuts in the iconic Target-sponsored Reynard/Hondas fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing.

Zanardi lost his legs in a CART race at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in 2001 just four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Twenty months later in May 2003, he made an emotional return to the Lausitzring and drove 13 laps at speed in a Reynard Indy car fitted with hand controls to “finish the race.” The experience inspired Zanardi to return to auto racing full-time, where driving for BMW, he scored four sports car wins in the World Touring Car Championship between 2005-09.

MORE: Full IMSA coverage

He then took on the new challenge of hand cycling and won his division in the 2011 New York Marathon before earning four gold and two silver medals in the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games. His final car race came at IMSA’s 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona, where he shared a BMW M8 GTE with Jesse Krohn, John Edwards and Chaz Mostert at the Daytona International Speedway.

Alex’s resilience was put to the ultimate test when he suffered a devastating hand bike crash in Italy in June 2020 that put him in an induced coma and led to his withdrawal from public life. He passed away peacefully at home the evening of May 1, in the company of his wife Daniella and son Niccolo.

Zanardi’s legend was sparked by “The Pass” at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on September 8, 1996, when he made an audacious last-lap move on Bryan Herta in the famous Corkscrew. He overcooked the entry, slid through the dirt, yet somehow maintained control and emerged ahead for the win.

Former driver Alex Zanardi poses with team owner Chip Ganassi during a presentation of Zanardi's 1998 championship-winning Target Honda Reynard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Chris Graythen | Getty Images

Herta and Zanardi’s Ganassi Racing teammate, Jimmy Vasser, are both at Laguna Seca this weekend, as the owner of teams that compete in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and the WeatherTech Championship.

Herta, who fields four Hyundai Elantra N TCR cars, including the pole-sitting entry for the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca 120, wrote on social media: “Respect and love Alex. For millions you were an inspiration and a doer of the impossible. My last and best memory is of us at Daytona Rolex, I appreciate your kindness for Colton (Herta) and everything you accomplished. Godspeed!”

Herta’s son Colton was a teammate to Zanardi with BMW M Team RLL in the 2019 Rolex 24; Colton was part of the winning GT Le Mans class entry with current BMW WeatherTech Championship drivers Connor De Phillippi, Philipp Eng and veteran Augusto Farfus.

Vasser, meanwhile, was a key part of Ganassi’s first era of open-wheel brilliance with Zanardi and is celebrating 30 years since his own Long Beach race win and the 1996 championship, achieved here in Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway. The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 won the most recent WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) race at Long Beach.

“In 1998, we went 1-2 in the championship, and that for me, is the greatest year in my racing career as a driver, for sure,” Vasser said. “And Alex and I, over the course of the three years that we raced together, developed one of the best friendships of a lifetime. We had the most fun. It was competitive, but truly, I was happy for him when he did well and won, and I felt the same from him to me when I did well. He was truly happy for me.

“He was one of one.”

IMSA President John Doonan also paid tribute to Zanardi.

“He will forever be known for his accomplishments, not just on the race track, but as a one-of-a-kind and genuine personality,” Doonan stated. “From unforgettable moments on race tracks all over the world – including his last-lap pass for victory in The Corkscrew right here at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, where we are racing this weekend – to his remarkable achievements as a Paralympic gold-medal winner and IRONMAN record holder, Alex was an inspiration and exemplified the epitome of perseverance to anyone who had the good fortune to encounter him or learn his story.

“Having him join us for the 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona as a competitor remains a cherished memory for our IMSA community and everybody who attended or viewed that event,” Doonan added. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, his teammates, and his many friends all over the world.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

Perhaps the most telling statistic relative to the difficulty of Texas Motor Speedway is the active streak of top-10 finishes at the 1.5-mile track.

Daniel Suárez leads the category with three straight top 10s. Austin Dillon has two. No other NASCAR Cup Series driver has more than one.

RELATED: Texas starting lineup | At-track photos

“That’s not very long,” Suarez said with a laugh. “We’ll take the small victories, right? It’s just very tricky. It doesn’t take a lot for you to crash or get out of the groove. I love it, though. I think it’s a great race track.

“I would say that five, eight years ago, more drivers used to hate this track, but right now, the race track is getting to a point where it’s not a brand new race track anymore. It’s tough. There are some bumps. It’s getting some wear. So, it’s a lot of fun.”

The consensus among Cup drivers is that passing is difficult at Texas because of the narrow nature of the racing line. Suarez doesn’t see it that way.

“I think it’s already to the point where we have two-and-a-half lanes in (Turns) 1 and 2 and maybe two or two-and-a-quarter lanes in 3 and 4,” Suarez said. “I think it’s getting wider every single year, so that’s positive.”