KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Severe weather washed away Friday’s on-track activity for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Kansas Speedway.
The cancellation of O’Reilly Series practice and qualifying forced NASCAR officials to use the rule book to set the starting lineup for Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 (7 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). That placed JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil in the pole position at the front of the 37-car field in Saturday’s 300-miler.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series teams arrived Friday to windy conditions at the 1.5-mile track, and pre-qualifying inspection was completed without issue under darkening skies. When a tornado watch went into effect Friday afternoon, speedway officials closed access to the grandstands. Lightning and rain followed, drenching the racing surface and the 1,200-acre facility.
Qualifying for the ARCA Menards Series was also scrapped by the inclement weather at Kansas. Jack Wood will start from the pole in that circuit’s Tide 150 on Saturday (12:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).
Kyle Larson is returning to a familiar track in a very unfamiliar position.
Larson and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team have spent the last two spring races at Kansas Speedway celebrating in Victory Lane. His visit in May 2025 was his last trip to any Victory Lane in NASCAR.
They return to the 1.5-mile track this weekend at the crossroads of a juxtaposition: They’re the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champions and the race’s defending winner. But Larson hasn’t won a Cup Series race since May 2025, nearly one year ago at this very track.
The winless streak has extended to 32 races, by most measures a totally normal span of time to go without winning if your name isn’t Kyle Larson. But Larson is Larson, and he’s never gone this long without winning at Hendrick Motorsports.
“It’s kind of wild to think that, yeah, it’s almost been a year since I’ve won,” Larson said in a recent teleconference. “I don’t feel like we’re that bad. I think ultimately celebrating the championship in Phoenix felt like a win in a lot of ways. But yeah, ultimately, I mean, we want to get back to Victory Lane. We’re working as hard as we ever have worked, I feel like, as a group. We want to win. It’s just gotten really tough for whatever reason. Got some good tracks coming up for us, and hopefully we can do a good job and execute.
“But, yeah, this series is tough. I know a lot of times we’ve made winning maybe look easy, but it’s not, and I’ve never felt that it was easy.”
Winning with ease was a staple of Larson’s first year with Hendrick Motorsports. That 2021 season produced a staggering 10 wins, an All-Star Race victory and a championship right off the bat. His win count dwindled to three in 2022, the first year of the Next Gen car, a successful season yet one that left the team — especially crew chief Cliff Daniels — frustrated at times.
“Maybe our expectations and our bar got set too high in 2021, and then in 2022, that was as crazy as Cliff ‘s ever been,” Larson said. “He was really, really intense that year. Drove himself crazy by the middle of the playoffs. We won like three races or something that year, and now we’ve gone a lot longer without a win, but I feel like the way he handles himself and the way that he handles others working with him […] I feel like he’s handled all of it really well. His leadership qualities have always been great, but he’s continued to evolve them into a good place where he still has a lot of that intensity, but in the right way.
“He’s the most competitive person I know, so I’m sure it’s killing him that we haven’t won in almost a year now. But I feel like he’s doing a good job of harnessing his emotions and keeping us all focused.”
If 2022 was a learning year, 2025 was a graduate-level course. The team experienced grief in multiple ways, most publicly with the death of public relations representative Jon Edwards and privately as crew members battled personal losses behind the scenes, all while a new pit crew joined the fold. Daniels held the team together, instilling book clubs in which the No. 5 group read three books together through the 2025 season. That perseverance and unity combined to win them a championship in November.
“When you get the opportunity to have new teammates, fresh perspective, it does push us to evolve in ways, and to continue to push ourselves to get better,” Daniels said in an October 2025 availability. “That, I think, is great. I sometimes get rigid in our structure and our process of knowing that it’s been built for a reason, and it’s been successful. And now more than ever, after seeing the way this (2025) year has played out for us, I don’t want to be quite so rigid in things that we do, and be able to take in fresh perspective and new ways to just improve, be more efficient, even mix it up with team dynamics and fun things that we do, all the way down to the gritty details of how we execute and build a race car.”
Jacob Kupferman | Getty Images
The lessons from 2025 are already resonating in the spring blossom of 2026, particularly in how Daniels has led the team toward stability despite a goose egg in the win column.
“Last year was a really tough year for our team personally and professionally with different members of our team passing away or team members having family members pass away,” Larson said. “A fresh pit crew came in. Like, there were so many things last year that could have derailed us. But I think Cliff’s leadership kept us on the right track. You’re doing different things, like the book studies and different team gatherings and events. I think [that] was all really important stuff to kind of lay the foundation with a relatively new group of men and women on our team.
“I would say that’s kind of carried over into this year, and I think probably helps keep us more motivated than maybe we could have been had we not done all those things. So I feel like, although we haven’t gotten the wins, I feel like we’re still one of the strongest, if not the strongest, team out there, and that’s just due to the leadership.”
Larson’s mindset is notably different than perhaps any other time in his Hendrick tenure. Wins at one point seemed nearly automatic. Now, he’s just hoping for a chance.
“We would love to just get back to leading bunch of laps and top threes in stages and top threes in the race,” Larson said before last week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway. “Ultimately, we’d love to get a win to break the streak, I guess. But more than anything, I just want to have good runs where I feel like I can contend for a win.”
That wish came true at Bristol, where Larson was back to form like he hadn’t missed a beat, leading 284 laps and finishing third. That makes sense, particularly when you consider he led 411 laps in that race one year ago and went to Victory Lane. The two-time champion feels like he needs a tinge more to break the streak, but Bristol brewed progress.
“We had moments where I thought we were a definite contender …,” Larson said. “We executed great today. I thought our pit crew did an awesome job. Felt like really fast stops from inside the car, and then the restart execution was good. I thought the way I executed through lapped traffic was good with a loose race car. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, it could have been worse. We made the most out of the day.”
The stats are far from concerning as Larson looks to get back to Victory Lane. In eight starts this year, Larson has two top fives and five top 10s, with laps led in three of the last four races. The numbers across his 32 races since a victory, provided by Racing Insights, offer a cross-section of competitive runs that feature the No. 5 Chevrolet in the mix:
CATEGORY
NUMBER
RANK
Second-place finishes
3
T-3rd
Top fives
9
T-6th
Top 10s
18
T-2nd
DNFs
2
T-5th fewest
Laps led
710
5th
Races led
17
4th
Average start
10.56
3rd
Average finish
14.53
10th
Stage wins
4
T-5th
But Larson and the rest of the Chevrolet drivers are navigating a new Chevrolet body — one that has just one win in eight races this year, thanks to Chase Elliott at Martinsville Speedway. The notebook is growing, but finding success is taking time, patience and perspective.
“I feel like our window of performance is just really narrow currently,” Larson said on NASCAR Inside the Race. “I feel like my balance just kind of goes back and forth each run. So maybe that’s the new body. Maybe that’s something else. Maybe that’s me. I’m not really sure. But we’re trying to figure it out, and that’s what’s cool about Hendrick Motorsports is we work really hard. It was good to see Chase get that win because it shows that Chevy’s capable of winning. But I still think we’re a little bit of work away from being exactly where we want to be each and every week.”
Perhaps Kansas can deliver what Larson needs on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Larson has won three times at Kansas since joining Hendrick, and no one has led more laps here than his 761 laps out front in the No. 5 car. Plus, it’s nearly become a spring tradition for him to taste the Kansas City barbecue awaiting the winner in Victory Lane.
Until then, Larson and the No. 5 team will journey forward, seeking an end to their longest winless drought since Larson’s Hendrick arrival.
By Hendrick Motorsports’ standards, the legendary four-car NASCAR Cup Series stable has been a bit off through eight races in the 2026 season. The standings show three of its drivers fifth through seventh in the series ranks, but with just one Chase Elliott victory thus far, the Chevrolet stronghold hasn’t necessarily passed the eye test.
Hendrick has 13 top-10 finishes, with only four occasions where multiple entries finished inside the top 10. Its lone victory — at Martinsville Speedway — is a minority to 23XI Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, which have four and two wins, respectively.
Last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kyle Larson finished third and led 284 laps, while the other three Hendrick cars had a plethora of issues. Elliott spun twice — including on the final lap — and finished 22nd. William Byron — purely on pace — finished five laps down in 30th. Alex Bowman, returning to the driver’s seat after missing four races due to vertigo, suffered terminal damage in a Stage 2 crash and finished 37th. Thunder Valley — in a way — epitomized the start of Hendrick Motorsports’ 2026 campaign.
However, with a trip to Kansas Speedway on the horizon Sunday (2 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), it could finally mean a breakout for HMS at a place it has recently ruled.
Hendrick is responsible for three of the last four Kansas victories, including a sweep last year with Larson in May and Elliott in September. Larson’s victory marked his second straight springtime triumph, coming after winning the 2024 race by 0.001 seconds — the closest finish in NASCAR history.
But since Larson’s most recent heartland victory, it’s been goose eggs in the win column — even despite winning last year’s championship. The two-time titleholder is staring down a year since a trip to Victory Lane, a streak currently at 32 races — his longest since moving to Hendrick in 2021. If there’s a time to break the drought, it might be Sunday.
In his last 10 Kansas starts, Larson has finished eighth or better eight times. He’s led 761 laps in that timeframe (424 more than Denny Hamlin, the next closest), including three races with more than 130 circuits out front. At 221 laps, his 2025 victory set a record for the most led in a 400-mile race at a 1.5-mile track. Should the No. 5 Chevrolet lead 25 laps Sunday, he’ll pass Kevin Harvick (949) for the most laps led all-time at the venue.
Through eight races, Larson’s numbers are promising: his five top 10s tie Denny Hamlin for fourth most in the Cup Series, and he is second in stage points, only to Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney. His average running position of 9.6 is the third-best in the league, and according to NASCAR Insights, Larson ranks fifth in Speed Rating. His strong statistical start and success at Kansas are on a collision course.
Elliott, the lone Hendrick victor in 2026, nearly won the Daytona 500 but settled for fourth, and later finished 11th at EchoPark Speedway. For good measure, he added a top 10 at Circuit of The Americas to put the No. 9 team third in points after three early wild cards. But the last five weeks on traditional ovals have been feast or famine.
David Jensen | Getty Images
The Dawsonville, Georgia, native finished 23rd at Phoenix Raceway, followed by a runner-up to Hamlin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He finished 15th at Darlington Raceway a week before his Martinsville win. NASCAR Insights shows Elliott 13th in the speed category thus far, but between the second-best pit crew and a top 10 rating in passing, he’s found instances where he can thrive — even if he’s off on pace.
Coming off a race in the proverbial “loss column” at Bristol, Elliott heads to one of his best tracks in Kansas. He’s statistically king, owning the best average finish at the track all-time, and has won twice. Of his last six races in Kansas, he’s only finished outside the top 10 once — the outlier coming last spring after leading 29 laps.
Much less heralded, but Bowman — back after his vertigo bout — has also performed well in the Sunflower State. He finished 28th two laps down last fall, but before that, the No. 48 driver had a streak of six consecutive top-10 finishes. Bowman led 107 laps in the fall 2022 race before ultimately finishing fourth, and paced the field on two other occasions during that span. In total, his 191 circuits out front are the second most by a driver without a Kansas win, and his 14.8 average finish — skewed down by four sub-30 results early in his career — is his second highest among all ovals.
With Bowman’s month-long absence, he faces a giant hole in the standings — sitting 36th in points and 153 points below The Chase cutline. It’s certainly a big ask to make the postseason, but a strong weekend at Kansas, as he’s proven before, is the first step toward turning the No. 48 ship back in the right direction.
Finally, Byron’s been the most inconsistent of the Hendrick bunch at Kansas, but when the No. 24 team hits it, they’ve been with the frontrunners. Byron owns nine top 10s in 16 starts, but two of his last four trips to the Midwest resulted in finishes of 23rd or worse. But at mile-and-a-halfs across the board, he’s been solid — his 912 laps led in the Next Gen era are second to only Larson, and he also has a pair of victories. He finished third at Las Vegas, the only other 1.5-mile track this year.
Widening the scope, Byron’s average position is seventh best at 12.8, a touch lower than last year (11.0), when he led the series over 36 races. Per NASCAR Insights, he has the eighth-highest speed rating, the second-highest in the organization. But for reference, all four JGR Toyotas, plus Reddick’s 23XI Toyota, are in the top seven, evidencing a disparity between the teams early on.
That said, all signs are pointing toward Hendrick this weekend at Kansas. Could this be where the four-car squad finally hits its stride in 2026?
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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 (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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
