Posted on by Dustin Albino

Editor’s Note: Keep tabs on this page for lineup advice following qualifying, including changes you should consider.

Fantasy Update: One thing is for certain, Toyota should lead the way in your race-day lineup at Kansas Speedway. The manufacturer swept the top five positions in practice and backed it up with four of the top five in qualifying. The lone change here is swapping pole sitter Tyler Reddick in over Chase Elliott, though the No. 9 car wasn’t far off in either practice or qualifying. The best non-Toyota in the field could be Chris Buescher, who is my new 36 for 36 pick, ranking runner-up in 15- and 20-lap averages in practice. Kyle Larson just didn’t seem to have that same dominant No. 5 pace that we’ve been accustomed to in recent Kansas races, and RFK Racing’s strong point is intermediates. 

My lineup: Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Chase Briscoe.
Garage: Christopher Bell.

To steal a line from WWE Superstar and 2020 Daytona 500 honorary pace car driver Sheamus, Kansas Speedway has delivered banger after banger after banger in recent seasons. It’s noteworthy that Toyota had the race locked up in the fall until it went haywire at the end. Last spring’s race is also the site of reigning champion Kyle Larson’s last victory, leading 221 laps, the most laps led by any driver in a 400-mile race on a 1.5-mile track in Cup history.

Returning to Fastlane this year is my weekly NASCAR 36 for 36 pick, where you can come play along. It’s a season-long points battle introduced in 2024 where strategy is the primary emphasis. With 36 chartered cars and 36 races on the 2026 schedule, players can choose each car once for the duration of the season.

RELATED: NASCAR Fantasy Live hub | Play 36 for 36 

MUST START

Driver: Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Selections remaining: 7
Comment: Larson sits atop the food chain in the famed barbecue city. He has nine top-five and 13 top-10 finishes in 22 Kansas starts, and he is the only repeat winner (three times) in the last 11 visits to the Sunflower State. Since joining HMS in 2021, he’s led 761 laps at Kansas, more than double the next closest driver (Denny Hamlin, 337).

Driver: Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Selections remaining: 6
Comment: While Larson has had recent Kansas success, it could be argued that Hamlin is the gold standard; he has four victories (a track record) and a 12.6 average finish through 35 starts there. In the last nine Kansas events, the No. 11 Toyota has seven top-five and eight top-10 finishes, with the lone outlier being last spring when the car had a mechanical failure.

Driver: Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Selections remaining: 8
Comment: It was Elliott who capitalized on Toyota’s mishap in the fall, scoring his second victory at Kansas. His 9.9 average finish at Kansas is the best all-time of drivers who have made at least six starts. His 13 top 10s at Kansas rank second among his personal best at any venue (15 at Martinsville Speedway).

Chase Elliott celebrates in Victory Lane at Kansas Speedway.
Sean Gardner | Getty Images

DRIVERS TO AVOID

Driver: Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Selections remaining: 9
Comment: Gibbs enters Kansas on a career heater, with six consecutive top-10 finishes, highlighted by his first Cup victory at Bristol Motor Speedway. Kansas, however, is among his worst tracks on the schedule, with finishes of 25th or worse in five of seven attempts.

Driver: Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford
Selections remaining: 7
Comment: Logano’s sheer pace in recent years at intermediate tracks remains a mystery. Statistically, Kansas is his worst 1.5-mile venue, with an average finish of 16.7. Take the good with the bad, however, as he has also reached Victory Lane on three occasions.

Ty Gibbs looks on.
Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

SLEEPERS OF THE WEEK

Driver: Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Selections remaining: 10
Comment: After an adverse start to the 2026 season, which includes missing four races due to vertigo, Kansas could be the calling card for Bowman. The No. 48 team has six top-10 finishes in the last seven races. He holds a 9.75 average finish in 16 Kansas starts with Hendrick.

Driver: Ryan Preece, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford
Selections remaining: 10
Comment: Preece is well known for his short-track prowess, but as it turns out, he’s adapted well to intermediate tracks with RFK. He has six top-10 finishes in the last nine visits to 1.5-mile venues and scored stage points in both stages at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the most recent 1.5-mile track.

Alex Bowman walks before a NASCAR Cup Series race.
Chris Condon | Getty Images

FEATURED MATCHUPS

Ty Gibbs vs. Bubba Wallace
Pick: Wallace
Comment: Wallace was in position to score his second Kansas victory in the fall until he was nudged out of the way by Hamlin on the final lap. This is arguably Gibbs’ worst track on the schedule, though it’s been a strong point for Toyota overall. It’s time for Wallace to rediscover some of that early-season magic.

Tyler Reddick vs. Kyle Larson
Pick: Larson
Comment: Larson’s statistics speak for themselves at Kansas, but Reddick is no slouch here. He has one Kansas win with 23XI (2023), and it’s the organization’s most successful venue with three victories. But an average finish of 16.9 isn’t that appealing when going up against the Kansas master.

Ross Chastain vs. Chase Elliott 
Pick: Elliott
Comment: Chastain could be a sneaky pick for this weekend, having won at Kansas in 2024. But the lack of speed displayed by the No. 1 team through eight races puts a pause on that. Meanwhile, Elliott flies under the radar at Kansas, and when the pay window opens, he’s in the picture.

William Byron vs. Ryan Blaney 
Pick: Byron
Comment: It’s hard to argue that any driver is faster on a weekly basis than Blaney. But Team Penske’s intermediate program has been shaky as the No. 12 car was a non-factor at Las Vegas. Byron leads the league with a 9.59 average finish at 1.5-mile tracks in the Next Gen car.

MY LINEUP

Starting five: Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe.
Garage pick: Bubba Wallace.

36 FOR 36

Pick: Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports, No. 5 Chevrolet
Comment: Go big or go home. Larson has led at least 64 laps in six of his 10 Kansas races with Hendrick, resulting in three victories. He has won the spring Kansas race each of the last two seasons by the slimmest of margins – literally the closest finish in NASCAR history – and routing the field. This weekend, it falls somewhere in the middle.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

JR Motorsports returned to a familiar place last Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway — Victory Lane.

And though he didn’t win the race — teammate Connor Zilisch did the honors in a double-duty role — JRM driver Justin Allgaier continued to rake in cash as the winner of the first Dash 4 Cash event of the season.

Allgaier, the runaway NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series leader, finished fourth at Thunder Valley, highest among the four eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers. He’ll try for a second straight $100,000 bonus in Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway (7 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Kansas weekend schedule | O’Reilly Series standings

The prize at Bristol was Allgaier’s eighth in 24 tries, the most all-time. At Kansas Speedway, he’ll face off against Sheldon Creed, Carson Kvapil and Brent Crews — none of whom has ever won a Dash 4 Cash bonus — with the highest finisher among them taking home the $100,000 prize.

“We’ve been really solid at Kansas over the last few years, and I know that that will be the case again this weekend,” said Allgaier, whose career-best finish in 16 Kansas starts is a second in 2022. “Andrew (Overstreet, crew chief) and all the guys on this Brandt Professional Agriculture team have done such a tremendous job all season long and I feel like we have a really good chance to not only come away with the Dash 4 Cash, but to also race for the win on Saturday night.

“This is a place we’ve come close at before. We just need to go out and execute, and I feel like we will be in a great position at the end.”

JRM, which has won six of the last seven races, has a significant streak on the line. The organization has placed at least one car in the top 10 in 66 consecutive races, second only to RFK Racing’s inactive string of 79.

In his first full-time season, Corey Day has a streak of his own, having posted top-10 finishes in eight consecutive races.

JRM has beefed up its lineup for this race with the addition of full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver William Byron in the No. 88 Chevrolet.

MORE: Paint Scheme Preview: Kansas

Recent results at the track, however, have mitigated against the Chevrolet teams. Toyota drivers have won six of the last eight O’Reilly Series races at the track — including the last three — with series regular Brandon Jones taking the checkered flag from the pole in last year’s event.

Jones is a three-time winner in that eight-race span.

Cup driver Cole Custer is also entered in Saturday’s race for his second of five scheduled starts with SS GreenLight Racing. Custer finished second to Aric Almirola in his last O’Reilly Series start at Kansas (2024).

Posted on by Press Release

SOUTH BOSTON, Va. — Anna Mayo is like many young racers approaching the start of their respective racing seasons, experiencing a mix of joy, excitement, and nervousness.

There is no doubt about one thing though – she can hardly wait for the start of the 25-lap Southside Disposal Pure Stock Division race that will be part of the six-race Bojangles Race Day event on Saturday afternoon, April 18 at South Boston Speedway.

“I’m more happy than nervous,” the Halifax County (VA) High School senior said. “I’ve been eager to get into the car and race. I’ve been excited all winter with us working on the car and everything that goes with it. It will mean a lot to have all of the people and supporters I have come see me be in the car again.”

Saturday’s 25-lap Southside Disposal Pure Stock Division race will be Mayo’s second career race. She finished eighth in her first race, a 25-lap race held in September of last year.

“I feel I did pretty well for my first race, the Halifax, Virginia resident remarked. “Obviously, I need more practice and more time to get better.”

Mayo has been around racing all her life. Her father, veteran racer Bruce Mayo, has competed in the Pure Stock Division at South Boston Speedway for more than two decades.

“That’s how I have come to love the sport,” she pointed out. “My dad has been racing since when I was little. I’ve always wanted to race since I saw him out there doing it.”

Racing is a tough sport and has its obstacles.

“All of the time we’ve spent working on the car is the hardest thing,” she pointed out. “It’s just dad and myself. We’re a two-man team.”

Mayo said there are some difficult lessons to be learned in racing.

“The hard thing is trying to learn how to get better and realizing that I am not going to be the best as soon as I get out there,” she explained. “It’s going to take time to get better. Some of it is learning how to race with other cars. It’s hard to be out there racing with a bunch of other people. You don’t really know what they’re going to do, and they don’t know what you’re going to do.”

The high school senior has been involved in three other sports along with racing. She is a current player on the Halifax County High School varsity girls soccer team, played basketball on the high school’s varsity girls basketball team and plays recreation league softball.

Anna Mayo
Anna Mayo (10) speeds down the backstretch during a recent testing session at South Boston Speedway. (Photo: Joe Chandler/South Boston Speedway)end

“Soccer is probably my number one sport right now,” Mayo said, “but racing has always been up there since I was little. Soccer has taught me a lot about how to be mentally strong and be prepared for anything and everything that could happen. Sports, as a whole, teaches you patience and sportsmanship.”

Her father, Bruce Mayo, a four-time winner in the Southside Disposal Pure Stock Division at South Boston Speedway, is looking forward to seeing his daughter compete in Saturday’s Bojangles Race Day event at South Boston Speedway.

“I’m tickled to see her out there,” he remarked. “I’m super proud of her. Anna has been absorbing a lot of information. We came over to South Boston Speedway and practiced the car last year. She did real well right off the trailer. She ran her first race at the last race of last season. Anna got a lot of comments from a lot of different drivers that watched her, how she handled the car, and how she ran her line.

“We’re hoping to build on that this year,” he continued. “We’re not setting any lofty goals. We just want her to learn and get better.”

Like any father that has a daughter out of the track racing, Mayo goes through a mix of emotions.

“It’s nerve-wracking sometimes,” he admitted. “The good thing is I’m thinking about what we need to do with the car to make her better. As far as my nerves go, I try not to think about what is actually happening as far as her being in the car.”

The veteran racer has competed in only two races since being involved in a spectacular crash at South Boston Speedway in the final race of the 2024 season. He says he hopes to be able to race again sometime around mid-season.

“I ran one race at Orange County Speedway and one race here at South Boston Speedway last year and then put Anna in the car,” Bruce Mayo explained. “I’ve been working on a car for myself, but Anna is the priority this year. We’re going to try everything we can to keep her out here every race we can.

“That wreck (in 2024) did take some wind out of my sails,” he continued. “That was the hardest hit I’ve ever had anywhere. It was pretty bad. It killed the car. I had a couple of injuries I had to get over after that.

“I definitely want to get back out here and compete,” Mayo added. “The desire is still there,” added Mayo. “I’m hoping that I will be back, maybe at mid-season. It’s a great class and a great group of people that race here.”

Six races will be featured in the Saturday afternoon, April 18 Bojangles Race Day event at South Boston Speedway, the last of the three daytime racing events on the track’s 2026 season schedule.

A 125-lap race for the Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division, the longest race the division’s competitors will encounter at South Boston Speedway until mid-June, headlines the afternoon’s racing action. Fans will also see the first twin-race event of the season for the Budweiser Limited Sportsman Division competitors who will battle it out in twin 30-lap races.

In addition, there will be a 25-lap race for the Southside Disposal Pure Stock Division and a 20-lap race for the Dollar General Hornets Division. The regional touring East Coast Flathead Ford Racing Association will be making its only visit of the season to South Boston Speedway for this event and will be featured in a 25-lap race.

The race day schedule has practice starting at 10:25 a.m. and frontstretch spectator gates opening at 10:30 a.m. Qualifying starts at 1 p.m., pre-race ceremonies will start at 1:45 p.m. and the first race of the day will get the green flag at 2 p.m.

Bojangles representatives will be handing out gift cards at the gate starting at 10:30 a.m. and continuing while supplies last.

Adult advance tickets are priced at $12 each. Adult admission at the gate on race day is $15. Suite passes are $40 each. Seniors ages 65 and older, veterans and military personnel, first responders, healthcare workers and students with ID may purchase tickets for $12 each at the gate on race day. Kids ages 12 and under are admitted free.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect additional changes made late Thursday evening.

Team Penske has made a change to the No. 12 pit crew that services Ryan Blaney’s car in the NASCAR Cup Series, the team confirmed.

Graham Stoddard will join as the team’s new jackman for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway (2 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Stoddard had been the jackman for the No. 4 Front Row Motorsports Ford driven by Noah Gragson.

Stoddard replaces Landon Honeycutt, while Honeycutt joins the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team with driver Josh Berry.

MORE: Kansas schedule | Cup standings

Patrick Gray, who began the season as the jackman on the No. 21 Ford, was originally announced Thursday as the jackman who would replace Honeycutt until a late change was made Thursday evening.

The move comes as the No. 12 pit crew has been under scrutiny this season. Although Blaney sits second in the points standings with one win, three top fives and six top 10s in eight races, his pit crew has statistically been ranked among the lowest in the Cup Series. Per NASCAR Insights, the No. 12 crew ranked 35th of 36 full-time entries in season-long stats following last week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Blaney finished second but lost a total of 11 spots on pit road on Sunday, with his crew ranking 30th.

According to Racing Insights, the No. 12 crew has posted an average time of 12.54 seconds for a four-tire change — ranked 35th in the series — while making a series-worst six mistakes. In total, the No. 12 team had lost 88 positions on pit road, earning a position-retention rate of just 51% for just the 35th-best. At Phoenix Raceway, Blaney overcame two loose wheels and a net loss of 45 positions to rally to the race win.

The No. 4 pit crew Stoddard leaves ranked 26th at Bristol and is ranked 34th overall per NASCAR Insights, tied with Blaney’s crew for six mistakes this season, three of which are attributed to the jackman. However, the No. 4 crew holds the sixth-best plus-minus in positions gained or lost on pit road at minus-1. Replacing Stoddard on the No. 4 car is jackman Tommy Bebie, who served as jackman on the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet for driver Cody Ware.

The No. 21 pit crew that Honeycutt joins ranked 15th at Bristol despite sitting 27th overall for the season. Per Racing Insights’ stats, the No. 21 team has averaged a 20th-best average time of 11.12 seconds for four-tire stops with a 36th-place retention percentage of 46%.

In addition to a new jackman, Berry will also have a different crew chief on the headset at Kansas. Matt Swiderski will serve as the acting crew chief this weekend as regular crew chief Miles Stanley will not travel this weekend for personal reasons.

Blaney has two top fives in his last three Kansas starts. In five Kansas starts, Berry has a best finish of sixth.

Posted on by Neil Paine

In a sport as fickle as auto racing, correct predictions can be hard to come by — so whenever you land on one, it’s important to crow about it as much as possible, for as long as possible.

(I’m kidding, of course.)

But I did feel suitably validated when Ty Gibbs delivered on our prognostication that he could earn his first-ever win at Bristol this past weekend. The way he did it, too, saw Gibbs hold off Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick — basically the last trio of drivers you want in the rearview mirror — on a late restart to claim his debut victory the hard way.

Now we’re on the hunt for the next phenom who might join the same club as Gibbs … if not right now, then at least fairly soon. And that’s why we’ve got our eye on the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevy of Carson Hocevar.

Just like Gibbs, Hocevar is a 23-year-old phenom with a documented history of — let’s just say “aggressive” — driving, which hasn’t always endeared him to his colleagues out on the track. But he also possesses tremendous talent, which eventually ought to translate into his own Cup Series win sooner rather than later.

Because they were born within 117 days of each other in the fall/winter of 2002-03, it’s natural to compare the two young drivers. But although they have both risen to make names for themselves in Cup, it hasn’t been done completely in parallel. While Gibbs famously skipped the Truck Series entirely — winning his first-ever NASCAR national series race in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series just 4½ months after turning 18 — Hocevar spent all or parts of five seasons in the Trucks, working up to a fourth-place finish in the standings in 2023.

By then, Gibbs had already won the O’Reilly title and was in his first full-time Cup season after a part-time season spent driving in relief of an injured Kurt Busch for 23XI Racing:

 

So even though Hocevar went straight from a primary Truck Series ride — with 14 additional races spread across the O’Reilly and Cup Series — to a full-time spot in Cup starting in 2024, he’s always been running a bit behind the meteoric pace set by Gibbs. That’s why Hocevar has only 89 career Cup starts, versus 131 for Gibbs (and why Gibbs was so much younger than the other drivers who took 130+ races to record their first career Cup wins), despite the two being the same age.

Gibbs may also have more potential than Hocevar at baseline. If we plot out their rolling projected Driver Ratings — according to my Cup Series ranking method, which assigns each driver a number based on their recent performance — after each race of their Cup Series careers, the two followed very similar early trajectories, but ultimately seemed to settle into a pattern with Gibbs in a higher range than Hocevar has reached recently.

(Granted, JGR equipment is no doubt helping Gibbs here. By comparison, Hocevar is with a less-established team but has long outperformed its standard to date, with a 98-71 career head-to-head record against his Spire teammates.)

All of that being said, Gibbs also began a dramatic downturn in performance right before the same point where Hocevar is now, by career race number. So, technically speaking, Hocevar is actually currently ahead of where Gibbs was then — though Gibbs eventually recovered and returned to (even later surpassing) his previous norms for performance.

 

It’s still unclear what drove Gibbs’ extended slump in late 2024 and early 2025 — but whether due to personnel turnover at JGR (switching crew chiefs from Chris Gayle to Tyler Allen, among other moves), frictions with former competition director Chris Gabehart, or other factors, he had an uncharacteristic period of 20 or so down races before returning to form.

Hocevar, by contrast, has enjoyed a measure of stability as Spire’s focal-point driver, leveling off at an above-average Driver Rating relative to the rest of Cup without too many abnormal changes in recent performance. But will that be good enough to win?

Most likely, Hocevar will need to improve at least a bit more in order to become a race winner — much like Gibbs has done this season. If we plot out the rolling expected Driver Ratings for all race winners since 2005, the large majority of winners were better at the time of their wins than Hocevar is right now:

That’s not to say it’s impossible for Hocevar to win at his current performance level. But only 4.1% of winners since 2005 had a lower rating than his current mark of 76.3 at the time of their win, while 95.9% of winners had a higher rating at the time they won.

One thing working for Hocevar, though, is that time is on his side — and this is where the comparison with Gibbs comes in handy again. Here’s a plot of all the current rolling expected Driver Ratings for 2026 Cup Series regulars, with their ages listed (as of July 1):

 

There is a notable generational “void” in the chart between William Byron (age 28) and Austin Cindric (27), and Gibbs and Hocevar (both 23). The only driver in the middle zone between them is Todd Gilliland (26), and he carries a rating well below Cup average. Meanwhile, on the other side of Gibbs/Hocevar is just Connor Zilisch, who’s still just 19 and remains one of the sport’s greatest-ever prospects, but for now is struggling as a rookie to adapt to the Cup Series learning curve.

Others in a similar age range are currently competing in the O’Reilly Series: William Sawalich (19), Corey Day (20), Jesse Love (21), Sammy Smith (21), Carson Kvapil (22) and Parker Retzlaff (22). Like Zilisch, all will eventually be threats to win at the Cup level, potentially siphoning away chances to win from Hocevar.

But as things currently stand, Hocevar has an uncommon amount of runway in front of him. He’s at an age when great drivers begin to make rapid progress; he only has one proven rival in the same age bracket (Gibbs) — who was in the midst of a deep slump at the same moment (in terms of career Cup races) when Hocevar has been busy putting together a solid season — and who later provided a template for how a young, brash, hard-charging driver can mature into a race winner.

Yes, the sport’s many mid-to-late-prime superstars will have plenty to say about when (or even whether) Hocevar reaches Victory Lane. But like all forces of nature, don’t be surprised if “The Hurricane” blows his way into that conversation, too.

Posted on by Staff Report

Matt Swiderski will serve as acting crew chief for Wood Brothers Racing’s No. 21 Ford this weekend at Kansas Speedway, the team confirmed to NASCAR.com on Wednesday.

Miles Stanley, the permanent crew chief for Josh Berry, is not traveling this weekend due to personal reasons, according to a team spokesperson.

Swiderski joined Wood Brothers in the offseason as the team’s performance engineer director after five years as a Cup Series crew chief. He spent the last two seasons at Trackhouse Racing, leading Daniel Suárez and the No. 99 team. Swiderski also spent three seasons at Kaulig Racing. Swiderski has three Cup victories – one with Suárez and two with AJ Allmendinger.

RELATED: Cup standings | Kansas schedule

Through eight races, Berry sits 25th in the Cup Series standings with a pair of top-10 finishes, the most recent coming at Martinsville Speedway last month. He finished 32nd last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Stanley has been Berry’s crew chief since he joined Wood Brothers ahead of the 2025 campaign.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series head to Kansas Speedway for their annual springtime visits to the heartland. Below are the qualifying orders for both series.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on TV

Cup Series
Single-car qualifying will occur at 5:10 p.m. ET on Saturday, with practice earlier in the day at 4 p.m. ET (Prime Video).

POSITIONNUMBERDRIVERMETRICGROUP
167* Corey Heim(i)40.11
248Alex Bowman36.41
388Connor Zilisch #33.01
442John Hunter Nemechek32.91
551Cody Ware32.51
610Ty Dillon29.91
721Josh Berry29.91
841Cole Custer29.81
997Shane van Gisbergen28.61
104Noah Gragson27.51
118Kyle Busch24.71
1235Riley Herbst23.41
1324William Byron23.11
1443Erik Jones23.01
1571Michael McDowell22.51
1620Christopher Bell21.61
1747Ricky Stenhouse Jr.20.91
183Austin Dillon20.71
191Ross Chastain20.31
2038Zane Smith19.92
219Chase Elliott16.92
222Austin Cindric16.62
2316AJ Allmendinger16.52
246Brad Keselowski13.12
257Daniel Suárez12.92
2617Chris Buescher12.12
2734Todd Gilliland12.02
2877Carson Hocevar10.92
2923Bubba Wallace10.12
3060Ryan Preece9.82
3119Chase Briscoe8.62
3222Joey Logano8.52
3311Denny Hamlin7.22
345Kyle Larson3.92
3545Tyler Reddick3.12
3612Ryan Blaney2.02
3754Ty Gibbs1.92

O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Single-car qualifying will occur at 8:05 p.m. ET on Friday, with practice earlier in the day at 7 p.m. ET (The CW App).

POSITIONNUMBERDRIVERMETRIC
135Blake Lothian36.4
20Cole Custer(i)34.7
387Austin Green34.4
491Mason Maggio33.7
555Joey Gase32.5
642Nick Leitz31.8
796Anthony Alfredo31.5
892Josh Williams31.4
902Ryan Ellis31.2
10274Dawson Cram31.0
1145Lavar Scott #30.8
125Luke Baldwin(i)27.8
1328Kyle Sieg26.8
1448Patrick Staropoli #25.5
1507Josh Bilicki25.1
1626Dean Thompson23.7
1731Blaine Perkins21.4
1824Harrison Burton19.1
1941Sam Mayer18.8
2051Jeremy Clements18.0
2144Brennan Poole18.0
2227Jeb Burton16.9
2321Austin Hill16.8
2420Brandon Jones16.0
2532Rajah Caruth14.3
2639Ryan Sieg11.9
278Sammy Smith11.5
2854Taylor Gray10.9
292Jesse Love9.9
3099Parker Retzlaff9.6
3118William Sawalich8.5
3217Corey Day7.4
3319Brent Crews #5.1
3400Sheldon Creed5.1
357Justin Allgaier3.1
3688William Byron(i)2.0
371Carson Kvapil1.9

* Required to qualify on time
# denotes series rookie
(i) denotes ineligible for driver points

Posted on by John Crane

Ty Gibbs’ first NASCAR Cup Series victory came in electric — and emotional — fashion, outlasting the field on older tires to prevail at Bristol Motor Speedway in what was his 131st career start in NASCAR’s premier circuit.

The 23-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver has had his fair share of trials and tribulations in the lead-up to Sunday’s conquest of “The Last Great Colosseum.” There were close calls, headlined by 21 career top-five finishes for Gibbs spanning back to his 2023 rookie campaign. There were some misses, too; look no further than his 17 career DNFs.

Such is the journey — a journey that requires time and patience — that every driver must take. That patience has paid off, and if recent history is any indication, more fruit from Gibbs’ labor could blossom into even more Victory Lane appearances.

RELATED: Bristol results | Bristol analysis

Success can come in bunches, and if Gibbs follows a similar path to his peers, his next victory would come much sooner than 131 starts.

Following his Bristol win, Gibbs ranks fourth in the driver standings, trailing Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin, with Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson and William Byron behind the No. 54 driver. Among these seven drivers, let’s see how many starts it took each driver to collect their second career win following their first, with information courtesy of Racing Insights.

DRIVERFIRST WIN STARTSTARTS FROM FIRST TO SECOND WIN
Tyler Reddick924
Ryan Blaney6851
Denny Hamlin216
Ty Gibbs131TBD
Chase Elliott998
Kyle Larson9917
William Byron9813

Gibbs is the outlier at first glance, picking up his first victory in start No. 131; the other six averaged their first win in only 80 starts. But when looking at when those six drivers collected their second victory, the gap between the first and second wins is starkly reduced. In this instance, Blaney is the outlier, with 51 starts between his first two Cup wins. The other five drivers collected their second victory in 17 or fewer starts.

MORE: Where Gibbs stands in latest Power Rankings

Combine the numbers, and even with Blaney’s mark, the average start total for the six drivers between their first and second wins was 17 starts. If Gibbs followed this trend, that means his second win would come this season.

Of course, this is entirely hypothetical. Gibbs still has to go to the track and race. Numbers can only suggest so much. But let’s stick with the hypotheticals and say Gibbs were to pick up his second win this season. Sticking with the same drivers as before, what was the start gap between the second and third wins and beyond?

DRIVERGAP FROM SECOND TO THIRD WINGAP FROM THIRD TO FOURTH WINGAP FROM FOURTH TO FIFTH WIN
Tyler Reddick81222
Ryan Blaney381829
Denny Hamlin332551
Chase Elliott21412
Kyle Larson1083
William Byron38331

The numbers here tend to fluctuate a little bit more. Hamlin, for instance, has gaps of 25 starts or more between his third, fourth and fifth wins. Blaney is roughly similar, with gaps of 38, 18 and 29, respectively. But even these start totals for both drivers are but a blink of an eye compared to their career start accumulations. Blaney has tallied 386 starts in his career with 18 total wins, while Hamlin has logged 729 starts with 61 Cup victories.

Then there is the other extreme. Reddick’s gap from his second win to fifth equaled 42 starts, but even this doesn’t come close to the Hendrick Motorsports duo of Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson. Elliott’s gap from his second win to his fifth was 28, while Larson — the defending Cup Series champion — went from his second win to fifth in 21 total starts.

MORE: Cup Series standings | Cup Series schedule

So, what does this suggest for Gibbs? If nothing else, the 23-year-old has contended with the sport’s elite through the opening eight races of the 2026 campaign. While Gibbs has only one victory, many more could be on the way soon should he follow a path similar to his championship-winning competitors — once they started winning, they started winning.

Whatever the case, though, one thing is for certain: Ty Gibbs can now call himself a Cup Series winner. And if momentum — and prior history — is any indicator, the next win could be right around the corner.

Posted on by Nate Ryan

NASCAR officials had a “pretty healthy discussion” and a “thorough” review before declining to penalize Christian Eckes for wrecking Corey Heim at Bristol Motor Speedway.

During the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, NASCAR vice president of race communications Mike Forde said there will be a follow-up conversation with Eckes, who denied the crash was intentional, before the next NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

Truck series managing director Seth Kramlich assembled a PowerPoint-style slide presentation with multiple angles of the incident from the FS1 broadcast and NASCAR’s own cameras.

RELATED: Craftsman Truck Series standings | Craftsman Truck Series schedule

“We had a camera in Turn 1 that was looking at the trucks that was, ‘Oh, that looked a little worse than the broadcast and the above angle,’ ” Forde said. “From above and back, it didn’t look that bad. The Turn 1 (camera), it looked like he missed it way worse than the above or behind view. I’m not saying that it looked like he did it intentionally, it just looked like he got more of (Heim’s) truck than I realized at first glance.

“Seth did a really good job of laying it all out. As we have in the past, any time you’re talking about anything that remotely smells of a right-rear hook, we take that pretty seriously. So Seth did take it seriously. After that review, we decided not to penalize.”

NASCAR agreed with Heim’s assessment, who believed Eckes misjudged the timing of the move. Forde said Kramlich also talked with Heim and Eckes about the wreck before making his presentation in NASCAR’s weekly competition briefing on Tuesday.

The crash cost Heim the chance at a Bristol victory that would have paid a $500,000 total bonus in the Triple Truck Challenge. During the episode, NASCAR senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis explained the eligibility rules for the Triple Truck Challenge.

Forde also addressed why there was no yellow flag in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race after Chase Elliott spun his No. 9 Chevrolet coming to the white flag.

“When that happens, we kind of look for two different things,” Forde said. “One is how close to the start-finish line are they? And then how into the racing surface and racing groove are they?

“(Elliott) stayed on the apron, and Tim Bermann, the race director, chose to hold (the yellow). He wanted to get a green-flag finish. As long as we can do it safely, we’ll do our best to do that for the fans. And luckily, Chase never came up to the racing surface, and then we were able to have that fantastic finish between (Ryan) Blaney and Ty Gibbs and see Gibbs get his first win under green.”

Other topics covered by Forde and Ellis during the 49th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:

— The official reveal of the new stage lengths for the April 26 race at Talladega Superspeedway.

— The Bristol tiff between Riley Herbst and Kyle Busch.

— The rash of pre-race inspection failures at Bristol and why one team received a different penalty for failing twice.

— The record number of Cup drivers in the Truck Series race at Bristol.

— The car fire involving driver Mason Maggio in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Bristol.

— The rules of the Triple Truck Challenge.

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 “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He has also covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.

Posted on by Staff Report

A familiar Goodyear tire combination will return to the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series this weekend at Kansas Speedway.

New right-side rubber featuring a tire-construction update debuted in both series for last September’s events at the 1.5-mile Kansas City oval. That same setup will be back in place for the Cup Series’ AdventHealth 400 on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series’ Kansas Lottery 300 on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Weekend schedule | Power Rankings

“We introduced new right-side Goodyear Racing Eagle tires last fall, which help give teams different strategy options as the race unfolds,” Goodyear NASCAR product manager Rick Heinrich said. “This will already be the third time Cup Series teams have run this setup in 2026, so they come to Kansas with valuable data under their belts.”

This same Goodyear configuration also ran in the Cup Series this year on intermediate-style tracks at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway. O’Reilly Series teams used this tire setup on the 1.5-mile Vegas oval.

Cup Series teams will have 10 total sets for the weekend — eight new sets for Sunday’s 400-miler, one for practice and another for qualifying that will transfer to the race. O’Reilly teams will work with an allotment of six sets of tires — four new for Saturday’s 300-mile event, one practice and one for qualifying that carries over.

Todd Gilliland, fresh from a sixth-place finish Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, said he expects teams to be aggressive with tire pressures with a forecast for chilly temperatures in the series’ first of two Kansas visits this year.

“I think all the work Goodyear’s been doing has been super-helpful,” Gilliland said. “Over even the last four years now, it’s just been a continual progression of all that stuff. I mean, we put them in a really, really tough spot at these mile-and-a-halfs, going as low as possible on air, and probably even a half-pound lower at times, just because you have to get every ounce of speed you can out of the car and the tires. That puts them in a tough box. … It’s going to be cooler this weekend, speeds are going to be up. I don’t think we had a ton of tire issues on the right sides (last year), so I’m sure the teams will keep pushing it. The more the tires have been wearing out, the more it seems like at these places, it just becomes easier to pass. A place like Kansas is very wide, so it makes the racing more fun.”