The NASCAR Cup Series will race near the Music City in Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
This will be the 14th points-paying race of the 2026 Cup Series season as drivers take on the 1.33-mile track in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Corey Heim will drive the No 67 23XI Racing Toyota. The event will be Heim’s fifth in NASCAR’s premier series this season, with a season-best 15th-place result at Kansas Speedway in April.
Thirty-eight cars are entered into this weekend’s event.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will race near the Music City in Friday’s Allegiance 200 at Nashville Superspeedway (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
This will be the 11th points-paying race of the 2026 Truck Series season as drivers take on the 1.33-mile track in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Five full-time NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers — Brandon Jones (No. 1), William Sawalich (No. 5), Rajah Caruth (No. 7), Parker Retzlaff (No. 62) and Jesse Love (No. 77) will compete in the event. NASCAR Cup Series full-timer Ross Chastain will also compete in the event, piloting the No. 45 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet.
Thirty-eight trucks are entered into this weekend’s event.
CONCORD, N.C. — Darnette Vickers stood outside Charlotte Motor Speedway’s garage area Saturday wearing a brown Kyle Busch hoodie and a sodden look of sorrow. “He was my guy,” she said, the reason she fell in love with NASCAR, the reason she is spending her retirement chasing the sport in her RV for 11 races a year.
Busch became famous and better yet infamous driving the M&M’s car. Vickers worked for Mars Inc. (which makes M&M’s) for 38 years, and she met Kyle and his mom, Gaye, when they toured the facility two decades ago. She took a break from her job coloring M&M’s to meet them, which is just about perfect: She made M&M’s colorful and became a devotee of a driver who made NASCAR colorful.
Vickers and Gaye hit it off, and their friendship has grown through Kyle’s two championships, his marriage, the births of his two children, and now, his death.
Vickers learned the crushing news when Gaye called to tell her on Thursday. “I was bawling like a baby,” she says. “I couldn’t grasp it at all.”
Vickers’ heart was broken for Busch’s wife, Samantha; his children, Brexton and Lennix; his parents, Tom and Gaye; his brother, Kurt; and the sport she loves so much. That grief brought her to the race track, where she stood waiting, watching, mourning, just outside the metal fence that separates the garage area from the campground.
She had driven from her home in New Jersey to Charlotte in search of healing, relief from the pain. She hoped, no, she knew, she’d find it within the NASCAR community. To get it, there was something she needed to give, something she needed to get, and something she needed to share.
Photo courtesy of Darnette Vickers
Love your enemies
At its best, most fascinating, most entertaining, the NASCAR industry is a traveling circus crossed with Lollapalooza, all set at a family reunion where half the people dislike the other half. There is nothing like it in the sports world, or even the broader culture, an insular nation with its own ethics (race him like he races you, the opposite of the Golden Rule), its own language (loose, tight, whoa’d up, etc.) and its own cultural standards (wrecking someone to win is wrong; unless you really want to win, then it’s fine).
The drivers can see each other as arch enemies. The stakes feel massive, and within the context of this self-contained NASCAR bubble, they are. It’s a zero-sum game. One driver wins, and all the rest lose. Millions of dollars hang in the balance. They fight for speed, they fight for sponsors, they fight for trophies and they fight because they get on each other’s nerves … all while living right next door to each other 38 weeks a year. If “normal” neighbors fought like that, one of them would move away. But in NASCAR, they move together.
And yet somehow, when tragedy strikes — as it has repeatedly in the last 13 months, with the sudden deaths of Hendrick Motorsports’ Jon Edwards, Denny Hamlin’s father, Dennis, Greg Biffle and Busch — NASCAR stops being a cutthroat sport and becomes a heartfelt community.
“It’s bad when you can’t get away from it. It’s good when you’ve got that to lean on,” says driver and team owner Brad Keselowski, who learned that lesson firsthand when his daughter had a life-threatening illness and the sport rallied around him. “There’s more support here just in terms of life than there is in other sports because of that community.”
Keselowski first saw the sport’s family dynamic through his relationship with his own brother, Brian. They fought like, well, like brothers. “Wait a minute,” Brad says. “At home, away from the race track, we’re damn near enemies, adversaries. But when someone else is mad at me, you’re going to defend me? It’s hard to rationalize.”
Hard, yes, and also beautiful.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
That dichotomy provides a powerful source of comfort in NASCAR, a fact magnified this weekend. These drivers who just last weekend were trying to rip each other’s guts out were now hugging each other’s necks. “Life’s fragile. The people who you think are evil” — and here Keselowski laughed, as he doesn’t mean that word, not really, except he kind of does — “you find out they’re not.”
Jeff Burton, the former driver and current TV analyst who was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame last week, says being in the NASCAR community requires “a split personality.”
Burton said after Busch’s death several rough, tough “unbelievable bad asses” told him ‘I love you.’
“And I’ve said it to them, too,” he added.
Only the NASCAR garage fosters that kind of relationship.
“If you don’t have that mentality of I have to destroy you, you can’t exist,” Burton says. “But you have to find a way to take the helmet off, take the crew uniform off, and have compassion and care for someone. It’s very hard to do both.”
Sometimes the disdain is real.
Always the love is.
This weekend proved it.
Stories live on
At its best, most fascinating, most entertaining, NASCAR fandom is a traveling circus crossed with a high school beer bash crossed with a campground whose owners have completely given up on enforcing the rules because nobody follows them. Quiet hours are 2 p.m. until 2:01 p.m. unless you want to be loud then, too, in which case go ahead.
Like the driver community, the fan community comprises a unique, self-contained world. A neighborhood forms, disappears and reforms the next week as fans travel from race to race, just as the drivers do. The stakes are lower, of course, but NASCAR has thrived for 78 years because fan passion is real. Fans root for their heroes and rail against villains and share food, beer and laughs with fans of both.
And this week, all across the Charlotte Motor Speedway campground, they shared stories — stories about Kyle Busch and why they loved him, hated him and loved to hate him.
A Kyle Busch flag flew overhead as Steve Gordon cut and salted cantaloupe outside his refurbished 1969 school bus, painted white, in the same site near Turn 3 that he has occupied since the 1990s. He loved Busch because he loved Dale Earnhardt first, and it wasn’t lost on him that Busch’s loss is perhaps the biggest and most unexpected since Earnhardt.
In addition to tragic deaths, they had this in common: You always needed to know where each was on the track. If Busch was leading, you’d watch because a post-race victory bow and a zinger of a quote were coming. It was even better if he was deep in the field because he’d slice his way forward, part ballet dancer, part MMA fighter, and then the bow would be more dramatic, and the quote would be a double zinger.
Between Steve, his wife, Leslie, and their daughter, they own 40 Kyle Busch T-shirts. Leslie Gordon was shocked, crushed and confused when their daughter called to tell her the news. She’ll miss the way he pissed the whole of NASCAR off, and she’ll miss being delighted hearing people gripe about him. “I loved it when everybody booed Kyle,” she says. “That pumped me up. I was like, YEAH! Because they knew he was going to kick their ass.”
Ethan Smith for NASCAR Digital Media
Over near Turn 4, Dominic Elliott stood under a Kyle Busch flag flying over his motorhome. He grew into his Busch fandom as Busch grew as a man and father. Elliott was there when Greg Moore died in 1999 at California Speedway, he was there when Dan Wheldon died in 2011 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and he lives in Statesville, North Carolina, and saw the smoke from Biffle’s fatal plane crash in December.
Elliott never considered not coming to the race. He, his wife and daughter instead wanted to be around people who love what they love. “It’s the only way to heal,” he said.
That healing came through stories. Grief makes you cry, grief makes you angry, and grief makes you laugh, and the stories about Busch make you do all three. He was lightning in a fire suit, a beast of a driver who fans loved and hated and for the same reasons: He was smirky, cocky, strutting and you were never quite sure when Kyle stopped and his alter ego Rowdy started or if they were really the same guy. He could slice you with a scalpel or pummel you with a sledgehammer, and either way he’d bow and you’d lose.
Vickers was eager to share her Busch stories. “First,” she said, “let me show you something.”
She pulled out her phone and scrolled through pictures. She skipped over one of her hugging Busch on stage after his first championship, kept going by another of her hugging him on stage after his second championship, zoomed right on by any number of pictures of them in any number of places.
Finally, she found the one she was looking for and held it up.
Taken two Friday nights ago, it showed her and Busch smiling broadly together in Victory Lane at Dover after the last of Busch’s unapproachable record of 234 national series wins.
Oh, the love Vickers has for the story behind that photo, and every other one on her phone. And, oh, how they make her sad to tell. Vickers’ stories about Busch sustain her now, and team owners, drivers, and other fans said the same thing.
In the garage and the campground, these stories were passed around all weekend, as if by sharing them the tellers could laugh at the memories instead of cry about the fact that there won’t be any more.
Daniel Suárez, whose Coca Cola 600 win was an emotional high point of the weekend, told one about an ass-chewing he received when he raced a truck owned by Busch. Team owner Joe Gibbs, for whom Busch won both of his championships, told of watching Busch grow as a man, husband and father and of what a pain Busch could be. NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell told one about Busch mocking NASCAR for making him go (unnecessarily, he thought) to the infield care center. He sprawled on a cart like a chalk outline. “I was mad at the time, but I look back, and that was damn funny,” O’Donnell said, a quote that just about everybody could have ended their stories with.
The stories will be told and retold today, tomorrow, and if conversations this weekend were any indication, for decades to come.
That’s what happens with legends.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
The power of shared suffering
Only people we love can hurt us like this.
Ryan Blaney wore shock like a mask he couldn’t take off. William Byron said he didn’t want to get out of bed Saturday morning. Chase Briscoe drove to the track in an emotional fog as thick as the clouds that covered the track.
Like Vickers, Elliott and the Gordons, the drivers didn’t know what to do with their grief. They didn’t know how to process it, they couldn’t make sense of the dual facts that Kyle Busch won a Craftsman Truck Series race last Friday in Dover and tragically died the following Thursday.
It didn’t feel real in the garage.
It didn’t feel real in the campground.
The grief of drivers in the garage ran parallel to the grief of fans in the campground, just as their lives run parallel as they caravan from track to track. They were alone and yet together, telling the same stories, feeling the same fears, choking on the same emotions, separated only by the metal fence.
But as Darnette Vickers waited outside that metal fence, those parallel griefs converged, inched closer together, until they wrapped around each other like strands in a rope.
These two communities that rely on each other for their existence now rely on each other for healing.
Noah Gragson emerged from behind the metal fence riding a two-wheeled motorized scooter. Someone sitting on a golf cart mimed the motion to do a wheelie, and Gragson obliged by lifting up, leaning back and zooming away.
Vickers caught Gragson’s eye. She had met and befriended him when he drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports. He stopped his scooter next to her, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her in a deep, full-bodied, heads-on-each-others-shoulders hug. They pulled back, looked each other in the eye, spoke for a minute, and hugged again.
Then Bubba Wallace, another former KBM driver, came out of the garage area. He signed a few autographs, and when he saw Vickers, he embraced her. She heaved as she rested her chin on his shoulder. He looked stricken as he held her tight.
They split up to stand at attention for the national anthem.
When it was over, they hugged more.
She walked away as if unburdened of a heavy weight, even if just momentarily, even if it would soon reattach itself to her. Maybe it would weigh a little less the next time, and still less the time after that.
She came to Charlotte Motor Speedway to give those hugs, to get hugged, to share her grief.
“The thing that saves me are the people that you saw me hug,” she says. “It also saves me that I have tons of beautiful memories from Kyle. In life, that’s what you want. People who know you, love you, care about you and want to help you heal as best you can.”
In the garage and the campground, she was surrounded by those people. Only people we love, who share our suffering, can heal us like this.
For the second consecutive week, Goodyear will bring the same tire setup for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Cup Series teams will have the same Goodyear Racing Eagle left- and right-side tire combinations used in last weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This will be the sixth time this tire compound has appeared this season, all at intermediate-style tracks: Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Darlington Raceway, Kansas Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Charlotte.
“One of our main goals at concrete tracks like Nashville is to rubber in the racing surface,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “Concrete surfaces always present a challenge when it comes to taking rubber, so we design the tread compounds to do that as quickly and consistently as possible. This will be the sixth race this season that teams use this setup designed for intermediate tracks, and we’ve been pleased with its performance at similar high-speed ovals.”
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams will have a slightly different tire setup, with the left-side tires from Charlotte and right-side tires from Dover Motor Speedway set for use in Music City.
Meeting the standard for 1-mile tracks or longer, the 15-inch Goodyear tires will also feature inner liners.
Tire allotments for each team competing this weekend:
Cup Series: 11 total sets — 9 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 1 for practice.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 1 for practice.
Craftsman Truck Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 1 for practice.
For the 78th time in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour history, New York’s Riverhead Raceway will welcome NASCAR’s oldest division Saturday night for the running of the Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 (8 p.m. ET on FloRacing).
The race, named in honor of five-time Riverhead Raceway Modified champion Don Howe, is the fifth race of the 2026 Whelen Modified Tour season and the first of two races this year at the historic bullring located on Long Island.
Justin Bonsignore leads all competitors with 12 Whelen Modified Tour triumphs at Riverhead. Other notable winners at Riverhead include Mike Ewanitsko, Jimmy Spencer, Reggie Ruggiero, Mike Stefanik, Donny Lia, Ryan Preece, Ted Christopher, Doug Coby and Steve Park, among others.
Tickets to Saturday’s Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 are available trackside. Below is everything you need to know about Saturday’s race.
Austin Beers is the most recent NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour winner at Riverhead Raceway; he emerged victorious last fall. (Photo: Mike Lawrence/NASCAR)
Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 at Riverhead Raceway
A betting man would find it hard to wager against Justin Bonsignore at Riverhead Raceway.
A native of nearby Holtsville, New York, Bonsignore leads all Modified Tour drivers with 12 victories at the quarter-mile oval. His most recent Riverhead triumph came last year in the Miller Lite Salutes Steve Park 200, when he 122 of 200 laps en route to the 46th victory of his Modified Tour career.
As if that wasn’t good enough, in 31 starts at Riverhead, Bonsignore has finished outside the top five on just five occasions. He’s led 1,740 laps and has an average finish of 4.9 across his 31 career starts at Riverhead.
Bonsignore will go for his 13th Riverhead win Saturday, but in doing so, he’ll have to beat a slew of talented competitors looking to deny him the privilege of visiting Victory Lane.
They include defending Modified Tour champion Austin Beers, who drove to victory last fall at Riverhead in the Eddie Partridge 256. Beers enters Saturday’s event with a 34-race top-10 streak, and the best way to continue that streak would be a victory for the driver from Northampton, Pennsylvania.
Another anticipated contender Saturday is Ron Silk, who’s won three of the last six Modified Tour events at Riverhead dating back to 2023. He has yet to find Victory Lane this season but has finished second in two of the four events held thus far.
A contingent of local Riverhead Raceway Modified competitors are also expected to defend their home turf against the Whelen Modified Tour regulars this weekend. They include Mark Stewart, who will take the reigns of Dave Sapienza’s No. 36 Modified for Saturday’s 200-lap affair. Other Riverhead locals entered in Saturday’s race include Chris Rogers, Roger Turbush, Matthew Brode and Chase Grennan.
Other notable entrants include Long Island native Timmy Solomito, Modified Tour points leader Stephen Kopcik, Jon McKennedy, Patrick Emerling, Tyler Rypkema, Craig Lutz and Eric Goodale, among others.
The full entry list for Saturday’s Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 is available here.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has been racing at Riverhead Raceway since the series’ inaugural season in 1985. (Photo: Mike Lawrence/NASCAR)
SCHEDULE: Saturday, May 30: Practice from 3:20 – 4:05 p.m. ET … Final practice from 4:15 to 4:45 p.m. ET … American Racer Pole Award qualifying at 6:15 p.m. ET … Start of the Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 at 8 p.m. ET (200 Laps / 50 Miles)
QUALIFYING: Two consecutive qualifying laps. Faster lap determines qualifying position. Adjustments or repairs may not be made on the vehicle after the vehicle has taken the green flag at the start/finish line. NASCAR reserves the right to have more than one vehicle engage in qualifying runs at the same time. Starting field for the Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 is limited to 26 starters including Provisional Positions.
TIRE ALLOTMENT: The maximum tire allotment available for this event is eight (8) tires per team. All tires used for qualifying and the race must be purchased at the track and scanned by NASCAR Officials, unless otherwise approved in advance by the Series Director. Four (4) tires must be used for qualifying and to begin the race. All qualifying tires must remain in impound until released by NASCAR Officials. The remaining tire allotment may be used for practice tires during the event. The tire change rule is zero (0) tires, any position for the event.
RE-DRAW PROCEDURE: The fastest qualifier will spin the wheel to determine the number of drivers that will re-draw for their starting positions: 4, 6, 8 or 10 positions will re-draw. Once the fastest qualifier spins the wheel, NASCAR will have the various buckets ready to immediately start the re-draw procedure. Driver will re-draw in their qualifying order after qualifying has been completed (1 through 10, or however many are applicable). The pole position and/or any bonus point(s), if applicable, will be awarded to the fastest qualifier and will be the pole of record. If, due to adverse conditions, qualifying is canceled, the field will be set in accordance with the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Rule Book. The re-draw procedure will still take place regardless of how the field is set.
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Daniel Suárez’s Coca-Cola 600 win at Charlotte Motor Speedway and before Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Ryan Blaney enters as the defending winner.
Analysis: Reddick didn’t get the Coca-Cola 600 win he appeared poised to claim Sunday night, but the points leader once again proved to be the benchmark of the 2026 season. No. 45 led a race-high 119 laps at Charlotte and remained in contention until the rain-shortened finish, ultimately settling for fourth after battling Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs in a frantic late-race stretch. Now comes a Nashville Superspeedway trip that quietly aligns well with his recent form. Reddick owns two top 10s in five Nashville starts, including a third-place finish there in 2024, and has finished on the lead lap in every race this year — the only Cup driver to do so. With five wins, 10 top 10s and a staggering 332-point cushion above the Chase cutline, Reddick continues operating from a position of weekly control entering Tennessee.
Analysis: Hamlin looked every bit like a Coca-Cola 600 winner for long stretches Sunday night, pacing the field for 75 laps and winning Stage 2 before late-race restarts and rain shuffled the finishing order. No. 11 still salvaged a third-place finish for his sixth top five of the season and ninth career top five in NASCAR’s longest race. Nashville has consistently been one of Hamlin’s strongest intermediate tracks since the venue appeared on the Cup schedule. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran owns a 9.0 average finish there, has led 344 laps in five starts and finished top three in two of the last three races at the concrete oval. Hamlin also enters the weekend second in points with a series-leading 117 stage points, reinforcing how consistently fast the No. 11 team has been even without stacking wins.
Analysis: Blaney overcame an early pit-road issue in the Coca-Cola 600 and methodically clawed his way back to a seventh-place finish, continuing a quietly steady stretch for the defending Nashville winner. No. 12 dropped from sixth to 20th after a jack issue during the race’s first caution, but rebounded into the top 10 by the final stage and remained there through the rain-shortened finish. Few drivers have been better at Nashville than Blaney. He dominated last year’s race with 139 laps led en route to victory and now owns three top 10s in five starts at the 1.33-mile track. The Penske driver sits third in the standings entering the weekend and continues trending upward after Charlotte despite not having the outright race-winning speed of the Toyotas over the final runs.
Analysis: Gibbs continues inching closer to being a no-doubt title contender in his breakthrough season. No. 54 finished sixth in the Coca-Cola 600 after spending much of the night in the lead pack, collecting stage points in all three stages and briefly leading during a cycle of green-flag pit stops. The finish matched his career-best Coca-Cola 600 result and extended his run of consistently competitive intermediate-track performances. Nashville has historically been more uneven for Gibbs, but the current version of the No. 54 team looks considerably sharper than in past seasons. Gibbs sits fourth in the standings with nine top 10s through 13 races and gained 42 points on the playoff cutline at Charlotte alone. If the long-run pace from Charlotte carries over, Gibbs has a legitimate opportunity to contend for his second win of 2026 this weekend.
Analysis: Charlotte was a disaster for Elliott before the race ever properly developed, as No. 9 spun and hit the inside wall on Lap 90, ending his night in 37th and halting the momentum he’d built up throughout a strong spring. The result cost Elliott two spots in the standings and dropped him nearly 200 points behind Reddick. Fortunately for Elliott, Nashville has been one of his better tracks since its return to the national-series schedule. The Hendrick Motorsports driver won there in 2022 and owns a 9.6 average start across five appearances. Even after the Charlotte crash, Elliott still ranks fifth in points with seven top 10s through 13 races, keeping the No. 9 team firmly among the championship contenders entering a track where recovery is realistic.
Analysis: Larson finally stabilized his season after a rough stretch the past few weeks, bringing the No. 5 Chevrolet home fifth in the Coca-Cola 600 after claiming Stage 1 and pacing 14 laps. No. 5 spent much of the race inside the top five and avoided the chaos that trapped several contenders late. The result ended a three-race skid of finishes 23rd or worse. Nashville should provide another opportunity for Larson to keep rebuilding momentum, too, as he owns the best average finish among active drivers at the track at 5.2 and has never finished worse than eighth there.
Analysis: Bell arguably had the fastest late-race car Sunday night, but a pair of pit-road penalties forced the No. 20 team to repeatedly recover throughout the Coca-Cola 600. No. 20 still rallied to second place and led 44 laps, including the final green-flag stretch before Daniel Suarez’s winning two-tire call shuffled the order and the race was called for rain. Bell’s Nashville numbers are quietly elite despite lacking a victory. He owns four top 10s in five starts there and led 134 laps across those races. Combined with the raw speed shown by Joe Gibbs Racing at Charlotte, Bell enters Nashville as one of the strongest win threats in the field despite sitting eighth in the current standings.
Analysis: Buescher’s final Charlotte result of 30th doesn’t remotely reflect how competitive the No. 17 Ford looked for most of the night. Buescher spent significant time inside the top 10 and earned stage points in Stage 2 before late contact from Chase Briscoe triggered a spin and effectively ruined the evening for both. There’s reason to expect a bounce-back in Nashville, however. Buescher finished fifth there in 2024 and owns a 12.6 average start at the track, with clear improvements in his finishing positions. Despite the Charlotte frustration, Buescher still sits seventh in points and remains one of the steadiest weekly performers in the garage.
Analysis: Hocevar’s Charlotte night was quieter than his usual headline-heavy performances, but the underlying pace remained strong. Hocevar led four laps during green-flag pit cycles and ran solidly inside the top 10 before fading to 23rd by the finish after strategy and tire issues shuffled the field late. Nashville has already been one of Hocevar’s best Cup tracks, finishing runner-up there last year for Spire Motorsports, and now he returns with more experience than he carried into that breakout run. Hocevar sits ninth in points entering the weekend and continues helping elevate Spire into a legitimate multi-car threat on intermediate tracks and beyond.
Analysis: Suárez authored one of the wildest, most emotional Coca-Cola 600 victories in history on Sunday night, and it’s possible a moment like that sparks an entire season. After battling vibrations, losing laps and spending 182 circuits a lap down, Suárez vaulted from 14th to the lead on a two-tire stop during the Lap 356 caution and survived two rain-soaked restarts before the race was ultimately called, winning in honor of his mentor Kyle Busch. The victory completely changes the complexion of Suárez’s season, as it’s clear that he and Spire Motorsports are capable of big things — right now. He jumped four spots in the standings and now sits comfortably above The Chase cutline entering Nashville. The track itself hasn’t historically been one of No. 7’s best venues, but he and Spire Motorsports are clearly riding high after the organization’s second win of 2026.
Analysis: Byron quietly pieced together another resilient Coca-Cola 600, recovering from going a lap down to finish ninth and secure his fourth consecutive Charlotte top 10. No. 24 lacked the dominant pace shown by Hendrick teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott earlier in the race, but the team again maximized the final result, taking a hit in the rankings after he was leapfrogged by Suárez and Bell. Nashville has generally treated Byron well, and he could keep it rolling. He owns three top 10s in five starts there, along with a 6.4 average start — second-best among active full-time drivers. While Byron has slipped to 12th in the standings after an uneven month, the concrete intermediate layout offers a strong opportunity to stabilize before the summer stretch intensifies.
Analysis: Keselowski’s 15th-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 wasn’t flashy, but it was a decent stabilizer for the No. 6 team after a pair of finishes 30th or worse in the previous three races. Keselowski quietly collected Stage 3 points, avoided the late-race carnage and climbed another 14 points above The Chase cutline. Nashville Superspeedway hasn’t historically been kind to No. 6 statistically since it first appeared on the Cup schedule in 2021 — no top 10s in five starts there — but RFK Racing as an organization has shown improved intermediate-track speed throughout 2026. Keselowski’s value entering the weekend is less about outright dominance and more about the consistency that has started returning to the veteran’s program.
Analysis: Van Gisbergen continued showing rapid growth on ovals Sunday night, bringing the No. 97 Chevrolet home 11th after running inside the top 10 for much of the final stage at Charlotte. SVG even led 11 laps after a late restart before fading slightly in the closing laps before the rain stoppage. Nashville remains somewhat of an unknown for van Gisbergen after just one Cup start there, but the larger trajectory is obvious. SVG now sits 14th in points, 28 above the cutline, and has steadily improved his intermediate-track comfort level over the past two months. The Trackhouse driver no longer looks like a road-course specialist trying to survive on ovals — he increasingly looks like a legitimate weekly Chase-caliber threat.
Analysis: Wallace’s Coca-Cola 600 never fully came together strategically, but the No. 23 team still escaped Charlotte with a 22nd-place finish after recovering from early contact and an unscheduled pit stop. Wallace spent portions of the race trapped off sequence but continued adding to what has quietly become one of the steadiest seasons of his Cup career. Nashville has produced solid results for Wallace historically, including two top 10s in five starts and a 12.0 average finish. Wallace currently sits 13th in points, just 40 above The Chase cutline, meaning the margin for error remains thin entering one of the more important stretches of his season.
Analysis: Briscoe looked capable of winning the Coca-Cola 600 before late-race chaos unraveled everything, but No. 19 led 34 laps and remained a consistent top-five presence until contact and damage from the Lap 329 accident dropped him to 34th. Despite the ugly result, there were real positives for the No. 19 team, which clearly has the speed saddled along with some difficult luck. Briscoe gained 22 points on The Chase cutline and now sits safely inside the provisional postseason field. Nashville has been tougher historically — no top 10s in five starts despite leading laps there — but the speed shown at Charlotte reinforces that Briscoe remains dangerous anytime the series unloads at an intermediate track.
Analysis: Preece’s Charlotte result spiraled late after what had been one of the stronger runs of his season. No. 60 briefly led during a strategy cycle and spent much of the night inside the top 15 before the Lap 329 stack-up left him with a 33rd-place finish. The bigger concern entering Nashville is positioning. Preece now sits just 15 points above The Chase cutline despite strong overall speed from RFK Racing in recent weeks. Nashville itself has been mediocre statistically for him, but his fourth-place run there in 2024 (while with Stewart-Haas Racing) offers a reminder that the upside exists if the No. 60 team can avoid mistakes and attrition.
Analysis: Logano delivered one of the sneakiest strong runs in the Coca-Cola 600 field, charging from 33rd to eighth while ending a brutal four-race streak of finishes of 30th or worse. It was badly needed momentum for the 2024 Nashville winner, whose season has largely lacked rhythm despite flashes of speed. There may not be a better spot to carry the momentum for Logano than Nashville as the three-time champ now owns four top 10s in five Nashville starts with an 8.6 average finish. Even sitting 29 points below The Chase cutline, Logano remains one of the more dangerous sleepers entering the weekend because of his track history and Penske’s recent Nashville strength.
Analysis: Cindric’s Charlotte night effectively ended before it ever began. Cindric spun in Turn 2 on Lap 53 and was collected by Connor Zilisch, resulting in a 38th-place finish and another major hit to the No. 2 team’s playoff positioning. Now below The Chase cutline by 15 points, Cindric enters Nashville needing urgency. The good news: Nashville has produced decent results for him historically, including a near-top-15 average finish. Plus, Team Penske has seemed to have this one cornered, and it may just swing around to him this weekend.
Analysis: Smith made a bit of noise Sunday night at Charlotte in one of the best runs of his Cup season in the Coca-Cola 600, leading 31 laps and scoring a 10th-place finish despite a speeding penalty earlier in the night. Smith’s ability to hold the lead for an extended stretch during the middle phase of the race reinforced how much Front Row Motorsports has improved on intermediate tracks this year and re-emphasized why he was such a hot prospect coming up through the ranks. Nashville has also been a productive territory for Smith, finishing runner-up there in 2024. While he still sits outside the current Chase grid, the No. 38 team increasingly looks capable of stealing a victory somewhere this summer.
Analysis: McDowell’s Coca-Cola 600 was another example of strong speed being undermined by circumstance. No. 71 led three laps early and ran near the front before tire issues and strategy shuffled him backward, though he still salvaged a 14th-place finish. Nashville has generally been more difficult for McDowell statistically, but the broader intermediate-track pace from Spire Motorsports gives the No. 71 team reason for optimism. McDowell enters the weekend 55 points below The Chase cutline, making stage points and execution increasingly critical if he wants to remain within realistic postseason striking distance.
CONCORD, N.C. — Daniel Suárez spent the 72 hours before Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 grieving a friend, a mentor and a personal role model in the wake of Kyle Busch’s death.
Five hours later, Suárez climbed out as the race leader from his No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet — a car prepared in the shop that previously housed Kyle Busch Motorsports — as rain began to fall harder at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And in that moment, when NASCAR race control decided the competition was over, Suárez masked his tears in the falling precipitation, celebrating his first crown-jewel victory in the NASCAR Cup Series’ first race since Busch’s passing on Thursday.
The through lines connecting Suárez and Spire Motorsports back to Kyle Busch are inseparable to those on the Spire team. That’s how Suárez wanted to honor Busch in victory.
“I want to make sure that the focus and the most important thing about this victory is not Spire Motorsports. It’s not Daniel Suárez. It’s Kyle Busch,” Suárez said, “because he was a very, very important piece for me to be here and for Spire Motorsports to be where it is right now.”
Suárez’s immigration from Mexico to the United States came in pursuit of stock-car racing glory. But when he arrived stateside in the early 2010s, he was a young man with a lot of talent but no ability to speak the English language. Nevertheless, his ability to drive and his work ethic in his rise through regional ranks caught the eye of none other than Busch. So when the two became teammates through Joe Gibbs Racing in 2015, when Suárez landed in what is now the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Busch opened his playbook to the up-and-coming Suárez.
“Back in 2015, Kyle and I, we used to be on the phone every single week because he was helping me, trying to understand what I needed to look for, trying to understand the race track,” Suárez said. “Back then, we didn’t have SMT, we didn’t have data, so everything was by feel. If you had experience, you had an advantage. So he didn’t have to help me. He didn’t have to help this Mexican kid that can barely speak English. He was already a legend of the sport. And he took the time every single week to help me.
“And that, for me, spoke very, very highly of not who he is as a driver, but who he is as a person. And most people didn’t know that side of him. I got to know that side of him. Those are the kind of things I want to remember about him. And honestly, because of those things, he made me want to be like him, wanting to help others, wanting to give a hand to those upcoming drivers who need a hand. He was a role model.”
Spire’s shop today in Mooresville, North Carolina — about 20 miles northwest of Sunday’s celebration in Concord — was the house Kyle Busch built for Kyle Busch Motorsports and then sold to Spire Motorsports in 2023 along with other assets. Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson served both as Busch’s spotter and business manager when Busch was at Hendrick Motorsports, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet as a teammate to Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. And Spire Motorsports president Bill Anthony worked alongside Dickerson through their agency, Motorsports Management International. Dickerson traces Spire’s racing DNA directly back to those days in the No. 5 car.
That the Spire team earned just its second Cup victory Sunday since moving into that shop for the 2024 season was poignant. Busch earned his last NASCAR victory on May 15 in a Craftsman Truck Series race at Dover Motor Speedway, driving the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. Sunday, the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was back in Victory Lane, this time on one of NASCAR’s grandest stages in a crown-jewel event at Charlotte.
“There’s a lot of symbolism in that,” Anthony told NASCAR.com in Victory Lane. “When we represented Kyle back in the Motorsports Management days, we were there when he built this shop. And how it started out, it was going to be a small late model shop, and then at the same time, he was buying and expanding his Truck team, and that was a very important moment in his life. So we were there a lot for that journey, and there were some really hard parts and some really good parts. But obviously, he built something that was totally amazing.
“When we moved into that building, and you look at the 100-plus trophies that he put in there, he had more trophies than he had places to put them. And we’ve emptied those cases out, and we’re starting to fill them, But to be able to comprehend what he accomplished over two decades is unbelievable.”
Walking through the halls of Spire Motorsports today, remnants of KBM still persist both physically and visually. Where KBM’s legacy lives in reality, though, is within the team’s identity, its mission statement in the pursuit of victory.
On Sunday, Dickerson recalled a story from his spotting days, when Busch was following Kevin Harvick’s Chevrolet around the same 1.5-mile Charlotte oval some 20 years earlier. Busch took the opportunity to relay everything he could see mechanically back to his crew chief, Alan Gustafson, who today sits atop Chase Elliott’s pit box.
“I just remember [Busch] driving around telling Alan exactly where the track bar was on the 29, how much you know rake was in it,” Dickerson said with a smile. “And you’re just like, ‘he’s only going like 200 miles an hour into the corner.’ But he was just so gifted. He just strived for perfection, and you just had to meet it. And it just made everybody better. And he was just so maniacal about it.
“I think that’s that through line for all of us, I think, that worked with him along the way. I mean, I don’t think that story’s just original to me. I think anybody that ever worked with him on a race team or in business, right — because I mean, he just wants to know every detail. He wants to tell you how you’re screwing it up and doing it wrong, and he just wants to know. But yeah, I think the thing that carries on in our place, and certainly some of these other teams here, too, it’s really just that high bar, and you had to meet it.”
— Spire Motorsports (@SpireMotorsport) May 25, 2026
There are numerous people who today work at Spire who once worked at KBM. Among them is Andy Gee, Spire Motorsports’ vice president of partnerships. Gee began working for Busch’s program in 2011 as its communications director, a role he held until 2022, when he became its director of marketing operations.
“When Spire purchased KBM and the building,” Gee joked of the 2023 transaction, “I think he got an extra dollar for me to be included in the sale.”
When Busch won the Truck Series race this February at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, it marked his first NASCAR win in a full calendar year, his 68th total in the series and 44th since Gee showed up in 2011.
“Gee comes up to me in Victory Lane,” Busch recalled in his winning press conference, “and I was like, ‘you want a photo?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I’ll take a photo. It’s been 14 years, might as well get another one. We don’t have enough, right?’ And I said, ‘Well, you never know when the last one is, so you better freaking get one today, OK?’ And I mean, that’s true, the honest truth. I think I said that for years, even when I was clipping them off at 25 at a time. You just never know when the last one is going to be.”
Gee’s emotion in Victory Lane Sunday was palpable, reflecting on a heavy day, a heavy weekend, and a heavy absence, emphasized during pre-race ceremonies Sunday as the NASCAR community honored the Busch family, including his wife, Samantha and children, Brexton and Lennix.
“It was just an unbelievable moment to see the whole NASCAR community come together for Brexton and Samantha and the whole family and Lennix,” Gee said. “So then to have it end here in Victory Lane with Daniel, who means so much to Kyle, and Kyle means so much to him, it’s just been a tough week. There’s still some toughness coming in the coming weeks. But this is a moment, I’m sure, Kyle’s looking down — he might have been the one helping out with a little bit of the rain to get Daniel to Victory Lane.”
Suárez will now forever be known as a Coca-Cola 600 champion, and Spire a winning team in a crown-jewel event. But they also remain reflections of Busch’s lasting legacy as a mentor, a competitor and a racer.
“One of my goals this week and weekend is for people to understand these stories of him,” Suárez said, “because a lot of people didn’t know who he was as a person. Many people, fans, they knew him as a racing driver. But the person … the person who is behind that fire suit, behind that helmet, that’s what counts the most, that family man. Every time that you talk to Kyle about Brexton, his eyes light up. He was a family man. And because of that, this race is so special.”
The all-time list of NASCAR Cup Series winners starts with Richard Petty (200 wins) and includes more than 60 drivers who won just a single time at NASCAR’s top level.
Below is the list of all-time winners, in order, in the Cup Series.
Last update: After Race 13 of the 2026 season (Charlotte Motor Speedway).
CONCORD, N.C. — For the second time in three years, the Coca-Cola 600 was halted before its full distance by rain.
Two years ago, Christopher Bell and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team were beneficiaries of the shortened crown-jewel event. Sunday evening, however, they fell one spot short as Daniel Suárez led at the time of caution on Lap 373 as the skies opened at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The last 72 hours have been a time of shock and mourning for the racing community as legend and icon Kyle Busch tragically died Thursday after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis.
One of the members of the NASCAR family feeling the weight of Busch’s passing the most is No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens, who won 28 races and two Cup Series championships with “Rowdy” from 2015-2020.
“It was especially hard on myself and a lot of people. Not something I’ve been through before,” Stevens said post-race. “Just the constant lot of emotions and just not knowing how to feel, you know, I am just heartbroken for his whole family. Somewhere, you’re grateful for the time you had with him, too. It’s really mixed emotions and it hasn’t been easy.”
Bell led 44 laps Sunday evening in a heated contest throughout the 600-mile marathon with the likes of his JGR teammates Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs.
All four drivers for the organization Busch drove for for 15 years led over 10 laps in the race and occupied the top four spots in the final 200 laps.
Bell was within reach of a second Coke 600 victory, but couldn’t find the space to sneak by a fellow Kyle Busch Motorsports alum in Suárez.
“Daniel did a great job,” Bell said. “He did everything right to defend the position and win the race. I knew that it was going to come down to keeping him pinned on the restart, not letting him clear me for the lead, and he cleared me for the lead.”
The overall picture of the weekend at Charlotte was bigger than the results sheet, but there is a sting Stevens will leave with not taking the No. 20 to Victory Lane.
After winning the 2018 Coca-Cola 600 with Busch, Stevens said Sunday was another one he wished he could’ve accomplished.
“I wanted to win this race. This was Kyle’s favorite track,” Stevens said. “We’ve had a heartbreaker here and we’ve won one here, and Bell and I have already won one here. It’s a special place to win a race. This is a very special day, being Memorial Day with soldiers on the cars and meeting the families and then you put the KB layer on top of it. It was something that I deeply, deeply wanted to do.”
