DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Due to potential weather forecasted for the Martinsville area late Friday night, NASCAR and Martinsville Speedway officials will move up the start time for the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200 to 7 p.m. ET.
Friday’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event was originally scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. ET start time.
Justin Bonsignore enters Martinsville Speedway with momentum firmly on his side. After opening the season with a victory at New Smyrna Speedway in February, Bonsignore has also captured each of the last two Modified Tour races at Martinsville. A win this weekend would place him alone in the record books, as no driver in series history has ever won three consecutive Modified Tour events at the historic half-mile.
Reigning NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Austin Beers enters Friday’s race in the midst of a historic run of consistency. Beers has recorded 31 consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to April 7, 2024, at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, marking the longest streak of its kind in series history. During that span, he has earned three victories while posting an average finish of 4.77 and has finished outside the top 10 just four times since the start of the 2023 season.
Friday’s event also marks the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour’s return to Martinsville Speedway in the spring for the first time since 2021. The previous spring race at the venue, held on April 8, 2021, saw Eric Goodale take the checkered flag.
Fans unable to attend Friday’s race in person can watch live on FloRacing. For updated event information as available, fans can visit nascar.com/regional.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series resumes competition Saturday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway with the NFPA 250 (3:30 p.m. ET on CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill is the defending race winner, leading only the last lap of overtime to claim the win last spring after that day’s most dominant driver, Connor Zilisch — now a NASCAR Cup Series rookie — spun on the last regularly-scheduled lap, resulting in an overtime restart. Zilisch had started from pole position and led 100 of the opening 250 laps.
Taylor Gray’s 87 laps out front were second to Zilisch, and the 21-year-old Gray answered that production later in the year, scoring his first series victory the following October race at Martinsville.
Three other championship contenders own Martinsville clocks, including last week’s Darlington winner, JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier (2023), Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones (2022) and Sam Hunt Racing’s Harrison Burton (2020).
The 2024 series champion Allgaier holds a 52-point edge over last year’s champ, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love atop the standings. JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil (-84), Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed (-88) and Love’s teammate Hill (-96) round out the top-five atop the standings.
JR Motorsports has won the last four races (with three different drivers), and a victory Saturday would mark the second-longest streak of wins for a team in series history. Joe Gibbs Racing won six consecutively in 2008.
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Practice & Kennametal Pole Qualifying at Martinsville is scheduled for Friday at 4:30 p.m. ET (CW App). The last time a pole sitter won this race was 1987 (Jimmy Hensley).
Tyler Reddick is racing like a man on a mission to win every single race – and he sure picked the right year to do it.
The driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota is off to an absolute season for the ages so far in 2026, winning again last Sunday at Darlington for his fourth victory in the first six races on the schedule. Going back to the dawn of NASCAR’s modern era in 1972, only two other drivers also won four times in the first six races of a season: Dale Earnhardt in 1987 and Bill Elliott in 1992 – and Reddick had greater consistency and/or a higher floor in his non-wins:
Simply put, we haven’t really seen a performance like this in the early phase of a season in a long time, if ever. And the benefit to Reddick in the standings is disproportionate this particular season, due to the new Chase system’s points format. As part of the trade-off for mothballing the old win-and-in mechanism for clinching a playoff spot, each trip to Victory Lane carries an extra 15-point bonus (compared with last year) to encourage a priority on winning.
And as it turns out, when you win almost every race in a season, those bonuses really start to pile up quickly.
Here’s a comparison between Reddick’s cumulative lead in the standings each week of the 2026 season under the current Chase points system – currently +95 over Ryan Blaney – and what his lead would be under the old system, without the 15-point bump for winning:
Under the old points format, Reddick would still be the clear standings leader at this point of the season. But he would “only” be up 50 points on the rest of the field: a healthy margin for sure, but also well within striking distance of a win, plus a strong performance in the stages, under the old system. Instead, as the wins have piled up within this new format, Reddick’s lead over Blaney and company is nearly doubled compared with what it would have been a year ago.
The better he keeps driving, the more Reddick leaves the competition further and further in the standings dust. Of course, the extra bonus potentially makes a comeback quicker to pull off as well – it’s a bit like the 3-pointer for a trailing team in basketball that way. But to catch the guy with a big winning streak, you need to put together one of your own, which feels like the way it should be.
Now the main question might be, how many wins can Reddick reach by season’s end?
The record for wins in a single Cup Series season was 27 by – who else? – Richard Petty in 1967, though he did it in 48 races. Pro-rated to a 36-race schedule, that works out to 20.3 wins, which means Reddick’s current 24-win pace is actually ahead of the record as we sit one-sixth of the way through the 2026 calendar. But before we get too excited, Reddick will obviously not go on to win anything close to two out of every three races he enters all season, so winning at the requisite 54.2% clip to match Petty from here is probably out the window. (Sorry to disappoint!)
The modern-era Cup record of 13 wins, however, is held by Jeff Gordon in 1998 and Petty himself in 1975, and Reddick would need to win 30% of races from here on to match that. (Still a very tall order – although, incredibly, Gordon won 39.4% of his races that season, so it can be done … in theory at least.)
More realistically, at the most basic level, Reddick has won 5.4% of his career Cup races, which works out to an expectation of 1.6 additional wins over the rest of the year (and 5.6 overall). But that includes his early seasons with Richard Childress Racing, which may not be very relevant; at his 7.9% win rate since moving to 23XI, we might expect 2.4 additional wins (and 6.4 overall) for Reddick by season’s end – still only half of the record number.
This method is simplistic, treating every remaining race the same (regardless of track type) and lumping all seasons together, which isn’t ideal. We can do a better job of estimating Reddick’s true odds of winning each remaining race by looking at track-specific data weighted by recency. If we anchor his win percentages in recent years at each track type to the typical rates for a top-10 driver in the standings during the Next Gen car era, giving more weight to more recent years (including 2026), we can come up with more reasonable guesses at his “true” chance to win at each track type.
(This includes an estimated 5% chance to win at short tracks, even though Reddick himself is 0-for-36 on short tracks in his career – the only track type he’s never won on before. Through our method, he still gets some small odds of winning because the average top-10 Cup driver wins 8% of the time on short tracks.)
Plug all of those values into the remaining schedule, simulate the rest of the 2026 season a bunch of times, track how often Reddick wins a given number of races and we arrive at a plausible distribution of winning outcomes for his year in full:
According to this method, there’s around a 7% chance he doesn’t win another race all year, which would be somewhat shocking but absolutely possible – think about Christopher Bell winning three of the first four races last year, then not winning again for more than six months.
More likely, though, Reddick will win at least one more race. On average, he wins 2.5 additional times to finish with either six or seven victories on the year. (Exactly six wins was the most common outcome in the simulations.) There is a 47% chance he ends up with at least seven wins, which would break the Next Gen-era record of six (co-held by William Byron in 2023, Kyle Larson in 2024 and Denny Hamlin in 2025), a 4% chance he gets to double-digits – joining a club with Jimmie Johnson (2007) and Larson (2021) for the most of the 2000s – and even a 0.15% probability (1 in around 600 to 700) that he gets to 13 and ties Gordon’s record.
So we’re saying there’s a chance!
But just the same, Reddick doesn’t need to catch Petty or Gordon to make history. He’s looking for his first career Cup Series title, so although a wins record would be nice, the main function of these victories is to keep padding that standings lead with the extra emphasis on winning in this year’s points format. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake of a season that’s already off to a historic start.
As NASCAR’s oldest track, Martinsville Speedway presents a timeless challenge. Fitting for the track that presents its winners a grandfather clock.
Its drag-strip straights connected by abrupt, flat U-turns on either end create its iconic paperclip shape, a layout accentuated by a winding pit road.
Some drivers naturally find success in Martinsville’s tight confines. But others, well, they need a minute to feel around in the dark to find the light switch.
Heading into Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion is easily considered a favorite to win again at Martinsville. But once upon a time, it wasn’t hard to consider him an also-ran there.
The sample size was small for Blaney back in 2017, his second full-time season at the Cup level. He was steady in five NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts from 2012 through 2014, with three fifth-place efforts and an eighth-place finish in that span. But his first three Cup starts there were forgettable, finishing 19th twice in 2016 and 25th in the 2017 spring race.
That all changed in October 2017.
“Fall 2017, it really clicked for me of, hey, here’s what I need to have the car feel like, and here’s how I need to drive it,” Blaney told NASCAR.com. “And I can’t say it was really anything specific. It’s just that we had a good race there, and it’s like, ‘Oh!’ Like a light switch all of a sudden. And, you know, fortunately, it’s transferred to the current car as well.”
Boy, has it. After those three throwaway starts, it now seems Blaney is inevitable every time the series heads to Martinsville: In 17 starts since the 2017 fall race, Blaney has two wins to bolster an astonishing 11 top fives and 13 top 10s. He has finished worse than eighth only four times in that span.
What changed between April 2 and Oct. 29, 2017? As always, the details are in the data. Then driving for Team Penske affiliate Wood Brothers Racing and its No. 21 Ford, Blaney leaned on quasi-teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano for feedback and input, with the added benefit of having their in-car data available to him before that information became public in the garage in 2019. He also studied film to analyze who did what well around the 0.526-mile short track, particularly six-time Martinsville winner Denny Hamlin and two-time winner Kyle Busch.
“Those four guys, especially around that time — like ’16, ’17 — I really studied those guys a lot,” Blaney said. “And for me, just being able to talk to Joey and Brad, who were teammates at the time, like, picking their brains about how do they approach or see these certain things and moments in corners really helped me out. And then you can apply it, and you hope that it works, you know? So I’d say those three or four guys I really watched and tried to learn from more than others.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
William Byron has a shockingly similar stat line to Blaney’s, down to the crummy first three starts — 20th, 39th (DNF, crash), 22nd — and only four finishes worse than eighth since. So it’s only fitting that last year’s penultimate race came down to a thrilling battle between Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford and Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, with Byron getting the upper hand and earning his third Martinsville victory.
Now boasting a total of three wins, six top fives and nine top 10s in 16 starts, Byron had strong results at the short oval before breaking through for his first win there in the spring of 2022 — including a runner-up performance in 2019. But it wasn’t until that victory that he found what he was looking for.
“We had been pretty good there, but not great. There was always that little bit missing,” Byron said. “And I feel like there was just the last little bit of getting through the corner that I needed to understand. And I feel like when I understood how to make that part of the corner work, I feel like everything started to flow and I had more pace and just could take care of the tires better. So I would say it takes a good car, but it takes that feel and what you’re looking for to put it all together.”
Unlike Blaney, though, Byron said he didn’t lean on his teammates to figure out what was missing. That had to be found behind the wheel.
“I feel like I just kind of figured that out myself,” Byron said. “I had some advice from different people. … I think it kind of took a few races, and then it took my own learning to figure it out.”
In contrast to his younger counterparts, Denny Hamlin never quite had that light-switch moment. Instead, his background competing on short tracks around the Southeast prepared him for one of the Cup Series’ most unique challenges by the time he arrived for his first start in October 2005.
“It really started in late models,” Hamlin told NASCAR.com. “I had gotten to participate in the big late model race there for quite a few years before I got to the Cup Series. So if anything, it was one of the more easier tracks for me to adapt to. Speeds weren’t all that much different. Like, every other Cup Series track that I went to for the first time, it was like a late learning experience. And there, it was like my let-off points are similar, how you get back on the throttle was similar, how you roll the corner was similar. So I was able to adapt to it pretty early, just because of the short-track experience.”
Hannah Gentlesk | NASCAR Digital Media
What’s more fascinating is the prolonged success all three have found. All three had already proven themselves as Martinsville contenders long before the Cup Series shifted from team-built stock cars through 2021 and introduced the Next Gen vehicle in 2022, a radically different ride than what they had grown up racing.
But the success kept pouring in. Blaney and Byron each earned all of their Martinsville wins in the Next Gen car, and Hamlin enters Sunday’s Cook Out 400 as the event’s defending winner, with top fives in five of his last seven Martinsville starts.
“It is different, and how you make speed at Martinsville has changed with shifting, tires and the car,” Hamlin said. “But the general premise of what you need is the same.”
The driver has never been busier at Martinsville, shifting four times per lap through upshifts and downshifts while trying to nail braking points lap after lap — 400 times in the spring, 500 times in the fall.
The greats, though, know how to handle those stressors nearly unconsciously.
“It’s a lot of stuff going on in there, for sure,” Blaney said. “But at those places like Bristol and Martinsville, the shorter places like that, you just get into this trance of doing it to where you’re not really thinking about it. But then you’re constantly having to adjust as the run goes on. So I feel like if you could just get into that rhythm zone quickly …
“And yeah, it’s pretty crazy that the old car drives completely different than this one with downshifts, brakes and roll speed, stuff like that. But the feel itself — like, this is how I feel like I have to roll through the corner (and) enter this certain way — that stuff kind of translates.”
This week’s race will present its own challenges. NASCAR arrives at Martinsville with 750 horsepower under the hood for the first time in the Next Gen era — an 80-horsepower increase from years past — with a simpler diffuser underneath, helping reduce the aerodynamic impact. There may be some unanswered questions, but Blaney, Byron and Hamlin surely know the feel they will need to earn another grandfather clock on Sunday.
Legacy Motor Club announced Wednesday that Grammy Award-winning artist Darius Rucker has joined the organization as an investor.
In a team statement, Legacy stated Rucker has joined the team to further strengthen the team’s “commitment to growth, innovation and expanding its cultural footprint.”
“Darius is someone who understands the power of connection with fans, with communities and through storytelling,” Legacy owner Jimmie Johnson said in a press release. “What he’s built in music, the authenticity he brings to everything he does aligns directly with who we are as a Club. We’re excited to welcome him into Legacy and to build something meaningful together.”
Rucker also revealed the news on “The Dan Patrick Show” earlier Wednesday, with host Dan Patrick jokingly alluding to Rucker as now “Johnson’s Michael Jordan” (co-owner of 23XI Racing with Denny Hamlin.)
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>.<a href=”https://twitter.com/dariusrucker?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@dariusrucker</a> announced that he is a new co-owner of NASCAR's Legacy Motor Club! <a href=”https://t.co/ZYarCTWc1D”>pic.twitter.com/ZYarCTWc1D</a></p>— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) <a href=”https://twitter.com/dpshow/status/2036850604082094569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 25, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
According to the team, Rucker will work with Legacy on initiatives to bridge sports, music and fan engagement, while supporting the team’s continued efforts and development.
Legacy Motor Club currently fields two full-time NASCAR Cup Series entries with drivers John Hunter Nemechek (No. 42) and Erik Jones (No. 43). Johnson, a seven-time Cup champion, pilots the No. 84 entry in select events and previously expressed the team’s plan to add a third full-time entry for the 2027 season.
CONCORD, N.C. — Kyle Petty stepped out of the NASCAR Cup Series garage Wednesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway amazed. He said his fingers were cut up, and could not believe it had already been an hour.
No, Petty – a retired driver turned analyst – wasn’t coming off hot laps around the 1.5-mile oval, site of the crown-jewel Coca-Cola 600 (May 24, 6 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). His giddiness came from meaningful charity work at “America’s Home for Racing,” helping pack meals for Coca-Cola Consolidated and the America 250 initiative, the semiquincentennial celebration of the country’s inception.
“So many people just came out and volunteered, that’s what’s really cool about it,” Petty told NASCAR.com. “When Coca-Cola does something, they’re gonna do it right. When Charlotte Motor Speedway does something, they’re gonna do it right. And they’ve both teamed up with America 250 … I’m impressed, man.”
Petty and Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon, both members of the Coca-Cola Racing Family, joined 150 volunteers to fill meal boxes for distribution around the Greater Charlotte area under the Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. Members from Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Spire Motorsports and Team Penske joined them, coming together for the largest America 250 event to date, officials said. Four different packing lines were set up in the Cup Series garage area, with canned fruits and vegetables, proteins and grains included in each meal.
In total, 4,500 boxes were filled over three hours, enough for 50,000 meals for families in need.
“It shows what our racing community is about,” Dillon, driver of the No. 3 Chevrolet, told NASCAR.com. “We want to give back and help any way we can with our communities. I’ve been familiar with the Second Harvest Food Bank for a while now; one of our pit coaches has Pit Stops For Hope, a charity that gives to the Second Harvest Food Bank. So, it’s a true problem. We have problems each and every day in our lives, whether it be at work, at home, whatever it may be. But God slows you down sometimes and shows you where you should really be focused on, and that’s giving back to those who are helpless, and we got to help those in need.”
The process started with a group of volunteers taping up boxes and passing them down the line for fulfillment. Then, the boxes were filled with the non-perishables before another group taped the boxes shut and lifted them onto pallets, which were then pushed out of the garage area and loaded into tractor-trailers. Many of the pit crew members in attendance did the quite literal heavy lifting, naturally, either loading the aforementioned pallets or restocking the packing lines.
Still, the competitive juices were flowing. The race teams were split among the four packing lines, of course, trying to make speed.
“That’s what we got to do; you’ve got to dig in, create a little competition,” Dillon exclaimed. “Everybody wants to be the fastest in there, packing the most meals that you can. So Kyle and I were trying to figure out how to make our line faster.”
Nathan Solomon | NASCAR Digital Media
Wednesday morning’s meal pack is one of many America 250 events across the country, which in NASCAR, leads up to the inaugural San Diego street-course race (June 21, 4 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). All three national series will converge on Naval Base Coronado for a celebration of the United States Navy and recognizing those who have and currently serve.
For the Cup Series’ Anduril 250, each driver was recently selected to represent a specific naval squadron leading up to and throughout the June weekend. For Dillon, he’s honorarily part of the Maritime Expeditionary Security Training and Evaluation Unit ONE.
“I love the patriotism and what is going on with America 250 this year, and I think the San Diego race out on the base there in Coronado is going to be awesome to see the representation from all of our military branches,” Dillon explained. “Coke 600 is very similar in that way. I think NASCAR does a very good job of showing our veterans and our military men and women the respect that they deserve.”
Beyond the race track, Petty is well-known for his extensive charity work, particularly his Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America. He spearheads an annual motorcycle trip across the country, raising funds for Victory Junction and other children’s non-profits. Last year, the ride went from Michigan to West Virginia, highlighted by stops at Niagara Falls and Watkins Glen International in Upstate New York. This year, Petty explained, is a full cross-country trip starting at Sonoma Raceway in California and ending at Charlotte Motor Speedway, commemorating the 100th anniversaries of historic Route 50 and Route 66.
But what continues to impress him, he says, is how rivals on the track come together for greater causes away from it.
“That’s racing. That’s NASCAR,” Petty said. “Back in the day, when I drove, and we’d be in this same building here for a driver’s meeting, and Michael Waltrip or somebody would stand up and say, ‘Hey, in three weeks, I’m having a golf tournament. It’s to benefit this, this and this. If anybody wants to come, can you come and see me when the driver’s meeting is over,’ and you’d see seven or eight drivers talking to Michael say, ‘Yeah, I’ll come help you, man. I’ll play in your tournament, whatever you want to do.’ So I think that’s the way it’s always been.
“It takes one person to raise their hand, and the rest of the community came. I think Coca-Cola raised their hand and the Speedway raised their hand, and you see these different teams that came out and helped.”
*1st place monies includes the $3,500 Special Award Whelen Engineering “Winner of the Race” award paid to winning driver.
1st-$14,506
2nd-$5,503
3rd-$4,127
4th-$3,191
5th-$3,155
6th-$3,119
7th-$3,082
8th-$3,046
9th-$3,010
10th-$2,973
11th-$2,937
12th-$2,900
13th-$2,864
14th-$2,828
15th-$2,791
16th-$2,755
17th-$2,718
18th-$2,682
19th-$2,646
20th-$2,609
21st-$2,573
22nd-$2,536
23rd-$2,500
24th-$2,500
25th-$2,500
26th-$2,500
27th-$2,500
28th-$2,500
29th-$2,500
30th-$2,500
31st-$2,500
32nd-$2,500
($10,000 of the above purse is contributed by FloRacing.com)
QUALIFYING AND SPECIAL AWARDS
$1,500 American Racer “Pole Award” per event award to the eligible driver with the fastest qualifying time eligible to participate under the Manufacturers’ Prize Money Conditions.
$1,000 American Racer “Hard Charger” per event award to the highest finishing eligible driver who advances the most positions from the start of the race to the end of the race. In the case of a tie, the highest finishing driver will receive the award.
$550 Sunoco Spec Fuel per race award divided: 1st-$300 5th-$150 10th-$100
$400 Phil Kurze “Halfway Leader” Award presented by Josten’s per event award to the race leader at the halfway point of the event, regardless if the race is running under green or yellow.
One set of American Racer Tires – Product Award valued at $800 to be awarded as follows: At the conclusion of the event, the race winner will draw a pill to randomly select which finishing position of 10th through 25th will win this award.
One set of American Racer Tires – Product Award valued at $800 to be awarded to the highest finishing new team participating in the race. New team is defined as a new Car Owner to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour or a Car Owner who has not participated during the past three (3) seasons of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. If there are no new teams that qualify for this award, a second pill will be drawn by the race winner, and the tires will be awarded to a team that finishes between 10th and 25th positions.
One set of American Racer Tires – Product Award valued at $800. The American Racer Hard Luck Award shall be awarded to one (1) team, selected by media vote, that encountered significant and unforeseen adversity during the event despite a competitive or promising showing.
Even after a rocky start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season for both Austin Cindric and teammate Joey Logano, the organization’s collective nerves have remained steady. Trust the process, trust the speed and keep moving forward — all aspects of the fundamental ethos of the “Penske Way.”
Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway offered the first meaningful validation of that approach … for one of them, at least.
Cindric’s fifth-place finish marked the No. 2 Ford team’s first breakthrough result of the season, halting an early skid of frustrating finishes despite speed under the hood, delivering a performance that better reflected the pace the group felt it had shown since the opening weeks of the year.
“Definitely an important day from a points perspective, no doubt, but for the team, just having a small reward for the, honestly, the job that everyone’s done so far to start the year with a lot of fast cars,” Cindric said during a Ford Performance media call Wednesday morning. “But you know, racing works in a lot of different ways, and a lot of things are possible, good or bad. So yeah, it’s nice to kind of go get the monkey off our back there a little bit on our side.”
For Cindric, the result stopped the early-season slide dead in its tracks, with his position in the standings heading into Darlington eliciting nowhere near a semblance of comfort. Through the first stretch of the year, the No. 2 team had shown flashes of competitive speed — there’s nothing fluky about a P3 starting spot at Phoenix, for instance — but struggled to translate it into strong finishes, with a P19 at Las Vegas marking his best result until his smooth dance with “The Lady in Black.”
It’s the kind of start that can quickly create pressure in a consistency-of-results-driven campaign, especially when driving for perhaps the most results-driven owner in motorsports. Inside the Penske garage, however, the tone never shifted toward desperation.
“I think it’s not a surprise to our group,” Cindric said. “I think you have to look at yourself first, and whether that’s me as a driver or us as a team, and I think it would be hard to identify things, especially in the first four weeks of the year, that you know, we would regret or feel like we put ourselves in those positions.”
Instead, the approach remained rooted in repetition, preparation and concentration — a philosophy that has long defined Roger Penske’s operation.
Just keep your head down and grind.
“So I think having the patience, you know, as a group, we have enough experience, but also enough experience together and enough processes together that you kind of just get lost in the work,” Cindric said.
David Jensen | Getty Images
Darlington also illuminated another storyline inside the Penske camp, however.
While Cindric and teammate Ryan Blaney — who’s one of the two drivers to win a race other than Tyler Reddick this year — both ran inside the top five, the three-time champion Logano endured his toughest race of the young season, struggling mightily throughout the afternoon at the notoriously difficult South Carolina oval to finish 33rd.
From the outside, such stark disparities between teammates can spark speculation about equipment, setup, you name it. But from Cindric’s perspective, Logano’s sudden challenges simply underscore how narrow the competitive margins are at NASCAR’s highest level.
“I mean, I find it a bit difficult to speak for (the No. 22 team), but I think more than anything else, it speaks to how easy it is to be off in the Cup Series,” he said. “And by off, I don’t mean, you know, having a bad day, but like that it’s the cars themselves, the competitive nature, like, everything’s all really sensitive.
“So it’s kind of one of those things that, you know, the smallest piece or part, or not necessarily the car itself. But like a decision, or, you know, a mindset, or just how things fell. When we’re talking about tenths of a pound of air pressure making balance swings throughout a run, nothing really surprises me anymore. …
“ … I don’t think there’s any reason to hit the panic button in that scenario.”
Even minute adjustments can dramatically shift performance over the course of a run. Perhaps six races is too small a sample size, and the No. 22 team — along with the No. 2 group to a smaller degree — just happen to be using their mulligans now. Would you be shocked if, for instance, Logano went on a five-race stretch of top fives, perhaps starting Sunday at Martinsville Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, HBO Max, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where he hasn’t finished outside the top 10 this decade?
Exactly.
That sensitivity is also why Penske’s internal reaction to a tough race — whether it belongs to Logano, Cindric or any of the organization’s teams — rarely involves trepidation. “Throwing the baby out with the bathwater” isn’t exactly an idiom that exists in Penske’s lexicon. Instead, the response is measured, analytical and data-driven.
What also helps make a challenging month a bit more digestible for Cindric is leaning on another perspective during the team’s uneven start: the sheer length of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. With 20 races remaining before The Chase begins — and as a driver who once locked up his postseason spot in February — early standings rarely tell the full story, and they’re not something Cindric has historically put a ton of stock in.
“I mean, ignorance is bliss,” Cindric said. “I’ve never really been in a position to, like, care a ton about points until the playoffs, so I don’t really look at points anyway.”
Instead, experience — the 2020 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champ is now, somehow, in his fifth full-time Cup Series season — has shown him how quickly things can change.
“You watch all these races from early last year and guys that were low in points that ended up being high in points; like, it’s a long season,” he said. “And things can go right or wrong, and the cream usually does rise to the top.”
Even so, Cindric recognizes the ultimate goal extends beyond simply qualifying for the postseason. And even though a rebound appears to be in motion, a gaping points hole — a nine-place jump in the standings after Darlington still has him outside the top 20 — is still his current reality.
If he’s aiming to round out Penske’s driver lineup and check the box so that all three are champions, he’s got some work to do if he wants that to happen this year.
“If I’m seeded 16th, cool, I made it, but you’re probably not gonna win the championship with the way that maths out,” he said. “But the first goal is to make it to have a shot, period.”
The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will tackle the Virginia half-miler in Martinsville Speedway this weekend. Below are the qualifying orders for both series.
Cup Series
Single-car qualifying will take place at 1:40 p.m. ET, with practice earlier in the day at 12:30 p.m. ET (Prime Video).
Position
Number
Driver
Metric
Group
1
33
Austin Hill
39.8
1
2
51
Cody Ware
35.7
1
3
35
Riley Herbst
32.6
1
4
10
Ty Dillon
30.1
1
5
41
Cole Custer
29.8
1
6
47
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
29.6
1
7
22
Joey Logano
27.9
1
8
48
Justin Allgaier (i)
27.6
1
9
4
Noah Gragson
26.9
1
10
42
John Hunter Nemechek
26.4
1
11
16
AJ Allmendinger
26.4
1
12
5
Kyle Larson
25.4
1
13
3
Austin Dillon
25.3
1
14
34
Todd Gilliland
25.1
1
15
23
Bubba Wallace
24.7
1
16
88
Connor Zilisch #
22.5
1
17
8
Kyle Busch
21.6
1
18
21
Josh Berry
21.5
1
19
38
Zane Smith
21.1
1
20
71
Michael McDowell
19.1
2
21
1
Ross Chastain
17.2
2
22
20
Christopher Bell
15.7
2
23
19
Chase Briscoe
15.0
2
24
97
Shane Van Gisbergen
14.3
2
25
43
Erik Jones
14.2
2
26
60
Ryan Preece
12.7
2
27
9
Chase Elliott
12.0
2
28
2
Austin Cindric
9.8
2
29
7
Daniel Suárez
9.1
2
30
11
Denny Hamlin
8.9
2
31
17
Chris Buescher
8.4
2
32
54
Ty Gibbs
7.5
2
33
24
William Byron
7.4
2
34
77
Carson Hocevar
6.7
2
35
6
Brad Keselowski
4.1
2
36
12
Ryan Blaney
2.7
2
37
45
Tyler Reddick
1.0
2
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Single-car qualifying will take place at 5:35 p.m. ET on Friday, with practice earlier in the day at 4:30 p.m. ET (The CW App).
Position
Number
Driver
Metric
Group
1
35
Justin Carroll (i)
41.6
1
2
174
Dawson Cram
40.7
1
3
91
Ross Chastain (i)
37.1
1
4
30
Myatt Snider
34.8
1
5
45
Lavar Scott #
34.8
1
6
28
Kyle Sieg
34.6
1
7
42
Brad Perez
34.0
1
8
55
Joey Gase
32.8
1
9
02
Ryan Ellis
31.7
1
10
92
Josh Williams
28.2
1
11
87
Austin Green
27.7
1
12
5
Luke Baldwin (i)
27.4
1
13
31
Blaine Perkins
27.3
1
14
48
Patrick Staropoli #
26.3
1
15
21
Austin Hill
26.3
1
16
0
Garrett Smithley
25.8
1
17
24
Harrison Burton
24.4
1
18
27
Jeb Burton
23.6
1
19
26
Dean Thompson
23.1
1
20
07
Josh Bilicki
21.5
1
21
51
Jeremy Clements
20.5
2
22
32
Andrew Patterson
19.7
2
23
25
Nick Sanchez
19.0
2
24
44
Brennan Poole
17.7
2
25
18
William Sawalich
16.7
2
26
96
Anthony Alfredo
15.0
2
27
39
Ryan Sieg
14.8
2
28
54
Taylor Gray
14.7
2
29
9
Lee Pulliam
14.3
2
30
41
Sam Mayer
10.9
2
31
99
Parker Retzlaff
8.9
2
32
8
Sammy Smith
8.4
2
33
2
Jesse Love
8.3
2
34
17
Corey Day
6.6
2
35
00
Sheldon Creed
6.1
2
36
1
Carson Kvapil
5.0
2
37
19
Brent Crews
4.8
2
38
20
Brandon Jones
4.4
2
39
88
Rajah Caruth
3.7
2
40
7
Justin Allgaier
1.0
2
* Required to qualify on time # denotes series rookie (i) denotes ineligible for driver points
Justin Bonsignore is no stranger to making history on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
The four-time series champion has 48 wins, which ranks him second on the all-time win list behind only the legendary Mike Stefanik. Only four drivers – Stefanik, Doug Coby and Tony Hirschman – have won more Modified Tour championships.
Bonsignore has won 12 times at his home track, Riverhead Raceway, which is a series record. His 14 wins at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, one of the Tour’s most traditional stops, leaves him just one shy of Stefanik’s record 15 wins at the track.
On Friday at Martinsville Speedway, Bonsignore will try to add another record to his legendary resume when he attempts to become the first driver to win three consecutive races at the Virginia oval.
“Anytime you can have opportunities to do something nobody has ever done in 40 plus years of the Tour, that’s awesome,” said Bonsignore, who began the 2026 season with a victory in February at New Smyrna Speedway. “It means that we’re being successful and doing our job when we get to the race track. It’s a cool thing to have in front of you, but it doesn’t really change our goal.”
Bonsignore has been dominant at Martinsville the last two seasons. He’s won the American Racer Pole Award each of the last two years and led a combined 258 of a possible 406 laps en route to his consecutive wins.
Justin Bonsignore (51) has led more than half of the laps completed in Modified Tour competition at Martinsville Speedway in the last two years. (Photo: Ted Malinowski/NASCAR)
Across six starts at the track, Bonsignore has five top-five finishes. His only result outside the top 10 came in 2022 and was due to a mechanical failure.
“We’ve been really good there since we returned after COVID,” Bonsignore said. “In 2021, we led a bunch after starting 35th and just missed it on the last pit stop a little bit. We could have won that one. We were running second in 2022 and broke a track bar. We finished second to Ryan (Preece) in 2023, and then we’ve won the last two.”
Bonsignore said his Ryan Stone-led team used lessons learned from a runner-up finish in 2023 at Martinsville to make their car even better, which has led them to consecutive wins at the 0.526-mile track.
“I think we figured out in 2023 when Ryan beat us that he rolled the center of the corner just a touch better than us,” Bonsignore explained. “As you’re watching for 50 or 60 laps a car just edge away from you, you get a lot of opportunities to dissect what your car is doing and try to learn from it. Since then, we’ve just fine tuned our car just a little bit, and the last two years have obviously been very good.”
In the previous 40 Modified Tour events at Martinsville, seven drivers have scored consecutive wins. They are Bonsignore, Reggie Ruggiero, Mike Ewanitsko, Mike Stefanik, Tom Baldwin, Brett Bodine and Charlie Jarzombek.
Bonsignore admitted it’s an incredible group to be a part of, but his goal Friday is to set himself apart.
“Those are the guys,” Bonsignore said. “I grew up idolizing Ewanitsko. He still texts me every time I win. Those are the names and those are the guys you want to be as good as. It’s just really cool. Typically, those people who have the cool stats are the best of our series. It would be cool to get another (win) and surpass them possibly.”
Austin Beers has finished in the top 10 of every NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event for nearly two years. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
Austin Beers carries unique streak to the paperclip
There is no doubt that reigning Modified Tour champion Austin Beers has been incredibly consistent for the last two years.
How consistent, you ask? He hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in nearly two years.
Beers has finished in the top 10 of every Modified Tour event since a seventh-place finish at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on April 7, 2024.
In those 31 races, Beers has scored three wins and has an average finish of 4.77.
The 31-race streak is a Modified Tour record. The next closest such streak belongs to Mike Stefanik, who had a 24-race top 10 streak from Aug. 24, 1997 at Watkins Glen International to Aug. 14, 1998 at Stafford Speedway.
Going back even more, since 2023, Beers has finished in the top 10 in all but four Modified Tour events. His last finish outside the top 10 came in 2024 at Richmond Raceway when his day ended early due to a crash.
Paulie Hartwig III, Jack Baldwin debuting at Martinsville
Paulie Hartwig III (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
A pair of young drivers will make their Modified Tour debuts Friday evening at Martinsville Speedway.
The first is Paulie Hartwig III, who is set to drive his family-owned No. 73 during the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 200.
Hartwig comes to the series fresh off an incredible week at Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway during the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing.
The 15-year-old, who was too young to race with the Modified Tour in the 2026 season-opener, competed in the 602 Modified and Tour Modified divisions as part of the World Series. He scored wins in both classes and claimed the World Series 602 Modified title.
The other debuting driver is Jack Baldwin, the older brother of Luke Baldwin and the son of Daytona 500 winning crew chief Tommy Baldwin Jr. He will drive the No. 38 Modified for PSR Racing at Martinsville.
Jack got a late start racing Modifieds but has been studying his craft by competing in Modified events across the Southeast.
Ryan Newman is a four-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race winner. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)
Same Ryan, new rocket
Ryan Newman is no stranger to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
The 18-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner has been competing with the series for nearly two decades as his schedule has allowed.
After beginning the season with an eighth-place finish at New Smyrna in February aboard Tim Connolly’s No. 4 Mystic Missile, Newman is back in the field again at Martinsville.
The difference is he’ll be doing so in a different car for a new team owner.
Newman will pilot the No. 0 Modified owned by Glenn Styres, who is making his Modified Tour debut as a team owner.
If Styres’ name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s raced a bit of everything over the last 10 years. The driver from Ohsweken, Ontario spent several seasons racing in the NASCAR Canada Series and owns Ohsweken Speedway, a popular Canadian dirt track.
Now Styres is expanding his motorsports reach by fielding an entry on the Modified Tour for the first time.
