Down to one: How Truck Series bubble picture looks before regular-season finale

Posted on August 21, 2026 by Nathan Solomon

It’s officially do-or-die in the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series quest for The Chase.

The regular-season finale is on tap Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), with four of the 10 postseason positions still up for grabs. Mathematically speaking, 10 drivers remain eligible to claim the final quartet of Chase spots, which will be decided over 175 laps at the 1.058-mile oval.

As the Truck Series shifts northeast for the final time in 2026, take a look at The Chase bubble, including who’s locked in and who needs a strong showing in Loudon.

Who’s locked in

Layne Riggs leads the tailgaters through 17 races, owning a 61-point lead over Kaden Honeycutt in pursuit of the coveted No. 1 seed. Riggs could have clinched the top spot last weekend at Richmond Raceway, but a pair of slow pit stops — along with a perfect 76-point day and victory for Honeycutt — allowed the Tricon Garage driver to chip 39 points off his deficit. It would take a Herculean task to dethrone Riggs at New Hampshire alone, but more importantly for Honeycutt, he brings momentum into the championship fight. Riggs has been solid all year long, and Front Row Motorsports in particular thrives at shorter, flatter ovals like Loudon. He needs just 15 points at New Hampshire to clinch.

Chandler Smith and Christian Eckes are third and fourth, respectively, too far behind to contend for the top seed but constantly the best of the rest. Smith’s two wins this season have all but solidified the No. 3 seed for The Chase, while Eckes continues to search. The No. 91 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing driver is winless since returning to the organization over the winter, a far cry from his eight victories between 2023 and 2024. Don’t count out either driver from making a Chase rally.

Gio Ruggiero sits fifth in points coming off a ninth-place effort at Richmond, recovering from an early lost lap. The No. 17 Tricon Garage driver has made significant strides from last year, improving his average start and average finish and is tracking toward a career high in top 10s amid his first postseason bid. Ruggiero won last fall at Talladega Superspeedway — and more victories could soon be on the horizon. Ty Majeski is sixth, 48 markers behind Ruggiero. He clinched a Chase spot at Richmond despite a flat tire setting him a lap off the pace, resulting in a 19th-place finish. Majeski’s earned back-to-back top 10s just once this year in a season defined by feast or famine — he’s finished outside the top 20 seven times, and remains winless since his championship-claiming triumph in 2024 at Phoenix Raceway.

MORE: Full New Hampshire entry list

Who’s safe

Grant Enfinger is all but officially locked into The Chase, entering New Hampshire 65 points above the cutline. He earned a crucial fifth-place finish at Richmond, attacking the final stage on an alternate strategy that positioned him for a potential victory. That effort marked his best result since taking CR7 Motorsports to a season-altering triumph last month at Lime Rock Park. Regardless of other drivers’ results, a 10-point day in Loudon will confirm his championship aspirations. He finished sixth there in 2025, the series’ first visit to the track in eight years.

ThorSport’s Ben Rhodes maintains the eighth spot, holding 53 points above the cutline. Similarly to Enfinger, he’s safe — and a solid trip to the “Magic Mile” positions him to pursue a third Truck Series title. He’s earned just two top 10s in the last 10 races, though, and has gradually slipped three spots in the overall ranks during that span. Rhodes can clinch a Chase spot with 22 points.

Behind him, McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Daniel Hemric is ninth, 35 markers to the good. That’s certainly not a sure thing, but it’s a notable advantage over the cut. The 2021 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion has top 10s in three of his last five contests and seems headed in the right direction after a slow start to 2026. Without help, Hemric can clinch with 40 points.

Who has work to do

This is where the plot thickens.

Tyler Ankrum holds the final provisional Chase spot by 20 points over Stewart Friesen — who suffered a brutal blow to his postseason aspirations with a crash last weekend at Richmond. The Halmar Friesen Racing driver suffered a tire issue during the final stage and pounded the Turn 1 wall, resulting in a last-place finish. That dropped him 28 points, surrendering the 10th position to Ankrum — who banked 29 points and came home 11th. He can now clinch a Chase spot with 55 points.

MORE: Enfinger, Ankrum firm up Chase footing

Friesen’s 11th in points by just one marker over Jake Garcia, who’s searching for a second-consecutive postseason berth. He gained 11 points to the cutline with a sixth-place Richmond effort, his first top-10 finish in five races.

Should Friesen — who missed last year’s Loudon race due to a dirt modified injury — overcome this deficit, it would be his fifth postseason appearance. He made the Championship 4 in 2019 and most recently made the playoffs in 2022. Both Friesen and Garcia need to earn 75 points without help Saturday to clinch Chase spots.

Four other drivers remain Chase-eligible, but all need help. Brenden Queen leads the Kaulig Racing Ram brigade in 13th, 47 points below the cut. Andrés Pérez is minus-49, followed by Tricon’s Tanner Gray (minus-59) and Kaulig’s Justin Haley (minus-70). Queen, Pérez and Gray are all searching for their first career postseason appearances.

Additionally, four full-time drivers are eliminated: Dawson Sutton, Cole Butcher, Mini Tyrrell and Kris Wright.

Posted on August 20, 2026August 21, 2026 by Pat DeCola

Richmond Raceway did not “fix” Hendrick Motorsports’ summer.

It did, however, give the organization something it had been missing for months: four cars pointing in the same direction.

No. 9 Chevrolet driver Chase Elliott finished fifth under the lights on Saturday night, his best result since winning at Texas Motor Speedway in May, ending a career-long nine-race streak outside the top 10. Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson followed in sixth, snapping his own run of four consecutive races off the lead lap and scoring his first top 10 since Sonoma Raceway in June. A somehow winless William Byron came home ninth for his second straight top 10; his first consecutive pair since March, while Alex Bowman finished 10th for the first time since Chicagoland Speedway in July.

Individually, none of those results qualify as a breakthrough.

Collectively, they might.

Richmond marked the first time all four Hendrick cars finished in the top 10 since Talladega Superspeedway in April 2025. More importantly, it came immediately after a four-race stretch in which 16 Hendrick starts produced zero top fives, one top 10, five top-15 finishes and just 27 laps led.

At Richmond, though? Four starts, four top 10s.

A modest spark, perhaps, but with only Sunday’s Dollar Tree 301 (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and next weekend’s Daytona International Speedway cutoff remaining before The Chase, there is little time left to determine whether there is any actual heat behind the flame.

MORE: Weekend schedule | Entry list

That makes the “Magic Mile” an unusually useful test for a team that by now typically already has its sights set on paving a path to a championship in the fall rather than wondering if it’ll go a whole summer winless.

Daytona will settle the regular season a week later, but drafting tracks tend to introduce their own variables. Loudon offers Hendrick one final conventional look at itself before The Chase begins — 301 laps around a flat, technical 1.058-mile oval where speed, balance, track position and execution tend to have enough time to reveal themselves.

If Richmond was simply a pleasant one-night reprieve from an uneven summer, New Hampshire could expose it. If something is genuinely beginning to click again across the Hendrick campus, this is where the evidence can start stacking up.

And there is plenty to prove.

Even with two early-season victories from Elliott, Hendrick’s 2026 numbers remain almost unrecognizable compared with the organization’s production through the same 24 races last season.

The championship team had six wins at this point in 2025, and its top-five total has fallen from 32 to 21, with top 10s dropping from 52 to 37. The most dramatic gap is up front: Hendrick led 2,328 laps through 24 races last year compared with 1,073 this season — a decline of 1,255 laps. Meanwhile, DNFs have climbed from eight to 13.

The unfortunate flip side for the team is that, in the process, its greatest competitors have moved in the opposite direction. Joe Gibbs Racing has led 2,067 laps this season and Team Penske 1,287 (split between just three drivers, as opposed to Hendrick and JGR’s four apiece), both ahead of Hendrick. JGR has seven wins (with another seven tacked on by Toyota affiliate 23XI Racing), while Penske has four itself, and three in the last four races alone.

This is not to suggest Hendrick suddenly became an also-ran. Elliott is already locked into The Chase, Larson sits eighth in points and Byron is 12th. Bowman would likely be in the mix for a Chase spot as well, had he avoided injury earlier this season. Larson, to his credit, remains one of the sport’s most prolific lap leaders, even while riding a career-long Hendrick winless streak, and ranks just behind season stalwarts Denny Hamlin (880) and Ryan Blaney (708) for third best in the series.

By its own recent standards, though, the organization has spent much of 2026 producing isolated flashes rather than the sustained, four-car pressure we’ve grown accustomed to.

But Richmond looked different — and New Hampshire now gets to determine whether it actually was.

There is some irony in choosing Loudon as the proving ground, because Hendrick’s relationship with the track has been simultaneously productive and maddening for more than a decade. That’s also what makes it a perfect location for a late-summer barometer.

The stat has been repeated ad nauseam at this point, but, in case you’re unaware, it was Kasey Kahne who delivered the organization’s ninth and most recent New Hampshire victory. The same Kasey Kahne who last drove in the Cup Series in 2018 and not for Hendrick since ’17.

The team has won 118 Cup races at 28 different tracks since the former No. 5 driver claimed a lobster in 2012 just weeks after the team’s current driver, then a spry 19-year-old, made his NASCAR debut with a top 10 in a Truck Series race at Kentucky Speedway.

It has won five championships since, two of them going to that 19-now-34-year-old.

At New Hampshire, Hendrick cars have finished in literally every position from second through 15th since Kahne’s victory — but never first. Clearly, not the profile of an organization incapable of competing at Loudon, but almost the opposite, as Hendrick has repeatedly gotten close enough to make the absence conspicuous and perhaps down to just peculiar circumstances.

Last year was a prime example.

Byron finished third, Elliott fifth and Larson seventh, while Bowman came home 15th. Byron essentially spent the entire afternoon near the front, with a 4.7 average running position, while Larson’s was 6.0. Elliott charged from 27th to fifth and spent three laps out front.

The ingredients were there. The trophy went elsewhere. Again.

No current Hendrick driver illustrates that relationship better than Larson. Among drivers with multiple New Hampshire starts, Larson’s 10.93 average finish ranks behind only Josh Berry’s absurd two-race sample (2.5) and Denny Hamlin’s 9.94. Larson owns six top fives and nine top 10s in 15 starts and carries an active streak of three consecutive top-10 finishes at the track.

He has also finished second three times — the most runner-up results in New Hampshire history by a driver who has never won there.

The stranger number might be “26,” though.

That is how many laps Larson has led in those 15 starts, his fewest at any active oval where he has raced multiple times. For a driver who has led 11,001 Cup laps overall and routinely measures his best afternoons in chunks of triple-digit dominance, Loudon has produced a peculiar brand of Larson success: close to the front of the pack, but rarely leading the charge.

It also arrives at a telling moment for the No. 5 team.

Larson’s current 48-race winless streak is his longest since joining Hendrick in 2021. Before the drought began with his most recent victory at Kansas in May 2025, he had won exactly one of every six races during his Hendrick tenure.

The laps led indicate that the speed has hardly disappeared completely; it’s just that the conversion rate, for whatever reason, has.

A strong Loudon afternoon would not erase 48 races, of course, but it could, however, provide another useful data point — along with a lobsterman’s boatload of mojo — after Richmond finally interrupted a rough recent stretch.

The same applies elsewhere in the building, too.

Jonathan Bachman | Getty Images

Elliott’s fifth-place Richmond finish carried particular weight because of what preceded it. After opening 2026 with seven top 10s and two wins in the first 11 races, he went nine straight without another top 10 before Richmond.

New Hampshire has not traditionally been one of the “automatic” tracks for him — four top 10s in 12 starts are his fewest at any venue where he has raced more than 10 times — but he has shown winning-level pace there on occasion. Elliott finished second in 2022, led 41 laps from the pole in 2024 and rallied through the field last year at a track that’s notoriously hard to pass on.

Byron’s recent progress is a bit quieter but no less relevant.

His ninth at Richmond gave him back-to-back top 10s for the first time since March, after a stretch in which he recorded only four top 10s across 11 races and a notable public radio spat with his longtime crew chief. His overall New Hampshire record is thin — one top 10 in eight starts — but that lone result came last year, when he finished third, scored points in both stages and posted the 4.7 average running position.

Bowman remains the biggest question mark. Richmond gave him his first top 10 in more than a month, but New Hampshire has produced only one top 10 in 14 career starts and no laps led. While he’s out of the running for a Chase bid, the No. 48 team is looking to string together strong weeks to carry momentum into 2027, which will be Bowman’s final year in the Cup Series before handing the reins to Connor Zilisch for 2028.

No one is demanding a Hendrick victory Sunday, and it’s nowhere near a ‘must-win’ for the team. This is more about examining the shape of the performance after showing cohesive vitality at Richmond. A win would obviously end a remarkable and baffling New Hampshire drought, but another afternoon with three or four cars consistently inside the top 10, collecting stage points, creating passing speed and inserting themselves into the late-race conversation could be just as informative for what comes next.

Because Hendrick’s problem this summer has not simply been a lack of trophies, but an overall concerning scarcity of weekends when all four teams looked like meaningful factors at once.

Richmond finally supplied one. New Hampshire is uniquely set up for Hendrick drivers to prove it wasn’t a flat-track fluke.

Loudon has been good enough to Hendrick over the years to make contention realistic, yet difficult enough to keep Victory Lane locked away since 2012, conveniently positioned as the final non-drafting checkpoint before The Chase.

Short of an entirely dominant race weekend, we may not have firm, undeniable evidence that Hendrick is “back” by Sunday evening.

But if Richmond was the beginning of something rather than the exception, Loudon will highlight it.

Or perhaps the “Magic Mile” might expose the illusion altogether.

Posted on August 20, 2026August 20, 2026 by Neil Paine

What a difference seven weeks can make — just ask Joey Logano.

Back on June 28, Logano was coming off a 24th-place finish at Sonoma Raceway, his eighth finish that low (or worse) in 18 races. He had zero wins on the season, with just a pair of top-five finishes and five top 10s — just the second time he’d gone winless through the first 18 races of a season since 2013. And perhaps most concerning, the mediocre run in California’s Wine Country dropped Logano to 20th in the Cup Series point standings, his worst position of the season with just eight races remaining before The Chase.
In the first season of NASCAR’s renewed Chase postseason format, Logano appeared to be doing little to dispel the notion that the three-time champion under the old playoff system would be less suited to winning titles in this new era — or even survive the regular-season cutline at all.

But then, something began to shift in the No. 22 car’s performance. While his Driver Rating remained slightly below average (67.7) the following week at Chicagoland, Logano still managed to finish 12th, his best showing in a month, to improve to 18th in the points — still below the cutline but drawing closer.

Even at the time, we expressed concern Logano could end up being the odd man out of a crowded Chase picture, despite calling for improved form for the Penske cars going forward. But few outside the No. 22 team foresaw exactly how much Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe would improve from there: Starting at EchoPark Speedway (a recurring Logano favorite that has seen him win twice in the Next Gen era), Joey has strung together four top 10s in five races — including a pair of wins — and five straight Driver Ratings of 91.4 or higher, with an average of 113.8 over that span.

Not coincidentally, Logano has gone from sitting below the Chase cutline to rising all the way to ninth in the standings, 142 points clear of elimination. What once seemed like an uncertain championship future suddenly looks a lot rosier.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised that, when backed against the wall with his postseason prospects dwindling, Logano responded with a series of elite performances. After all, this is one of the best clutch drivers of his generation. As we detailed during last year’s playoffs, Logano always has a tendency to elevate his game when the stakes are highest, outperforming his regular-season metrics in all but a few of his postseason runs and maintaining a triple-digit average Driver Rating when actively in a championship pursuit.

But even by Joey’s standards, this recent stretch has turned the clock back to a level of dominance we hadn’t seen in a while. The last time we saw him produce a five-race streak this strong — with an average Driver Rating of at least 113.8 and an Adjusted Points+ index of 268 — was in November 2020, when he closed out the season with five straight top 10s (four of which were podium finishes). Before that, his last such stretch was late in the 2018 campaign, and before that, late in 2016. (Are we sensing a pattern of elite late-season performances here?)
If anything, a run like this in July and August is on the early side for Logano. But what does it mean for his chances of making a true bid at his fourth Cup Series title?

Well, as good as Joey has been recently, he probably has a bit more work to do over the next two races at New Hampshire and Daytona. Much has been made of the importance of finishing in the top six of the final regular-season standings if a driver wants a legitimate chance to win the championship. That’s the line at which a driver begins The Chase within 50 points of the No. 1 seed, and it also happens to be the lowest position from which a hypothetical eventual champ ended the regular season when we reconstructed the current Chase rules for the playoff era (2017-2025):
While there may be some wiggle room to work with around where the true barrier of realistic contending sits — my simulation-based forecast model gives about a 5% chance to drivers who enter The Chase outside the top six seeds — it is also true that no driver in the playoff era rose any higher than fourth in the final rankings from Logano’s current perch at No. 9 in the standings, and the vast majority of them ended up finishing sixth or lower.

But that’s if we think Logano is going to keep driving like the typical No. 9 seed in the regular-season standings. And lately, there has been nothing typical about the way the No. 22 has been performing. Just seven short weeks ago, the question was whether Joey would make The Chase at all. Now the question is whether the rest of the field should be as scared to have him there under the current format as they perennially were during the playoff era.

Posted on August 19, 2026August 20, 2026 by Staff Report

Editor’s Note: John Hunter Nemechek will run the No. 40 this weekend in New Hampshire in honor of Legacy Motor Club sponsor Dollar Tree’s 40th anniversary.

The NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series next trek to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for a New England doubleheader. For the Cup Series, the contest will be the penultimate event before the 2026 Chase field is cemented. The Truck Series, meanwhile, will set its postseason field after this weekend’s New Hampshire race. See qualifying orders for both series this weekend.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on TV

Cup Series
Single-car qualifying will occur at 11:35 a.m. ET on Saturday, with practice at 10:30 a.m. ET (truTV).

POSITION	NUMBER	DRIVER	METRIC
1	51	Cody Ware	34.9
2	10	Ty Dillon	32.6
3	38	Zane Smith	32.4
4	41	Cole Custer	30.2
5	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	29.8
6	16	AJ Allmendinger	29.7
7	77	Carson Hocevar	29.2
8	88	Connor Zilisch #	28.0
9	34	Todd Gilliland	27.9
10	71	Michael McDowell	25.9
11	33	Austin Hill	25.4
12	43	Erik Jones	24.9
13	35	Riley Herbst	24.6
14	6	Brad Keselowski	23.9
15	40	John Hunter Nemechek	23.8
16	4	Noah Gragson	22.2
17	3	Austin Dillon	20.8
18	23	Bubba Wallace	18.2
19	17	Chris Buescher	17.7
20	60	Ryan Preece	17.0
21	48	Alex Bowman	15.7
22	7	Daniel Suárez	15.1
23	21	Josh Berry	14.6
24	97	Shane van Gisbergen	14.6
25	1	Ross Chastain	13.8
26	54	Ty Gibbs	11.4
27	24	William Byron	9.9
28	12	Ryan Blaney	9.7
29	45	Tyler Reddick	8.9
30	20	Christopher Bell	7.0
31	2	Austin Cindric	6.6
32	5	Kyle Larson	6.6
33	9	Chase Elliott	5.3
34	22	Joey Logano	3.4
35	11	Denny Hamlin	3.1
36	19	Chase Briscoe	2.9

Craftsman Truck Series
Single-truck qualifying will occur at 5:05 p.m. ET on Friday, with practice at 4 p.m. ET.

POSITION	NUMBER	DRIVER	METRIC
1	74	Dawson Cram	40.0
1	72	Michael Christopher Jr.	58.7
2	69	Derek White (i)	42.8
3	27	Dawson Sutton	40.4
4	93	D.L. Wilson	40.1
5	71	Connor Zilisch (i)	39.2
6	2	Luke Baldwin	34.7
7	56	Timmy Hill	33.9
8	76	Spencer Boyd	33.1
9	81	Kris Wright	30.4
10	52	Stewart Friesen	30.3
11	33	Frankie Muniz	30.0
12	25	Colin Braun	29.9
13	4	Connor Hall	29.2
14	14	Mini Tyrell	28.7
15	20	Mason Massey	28.6
16	22	Patrick Emerling	26.7
17	26	Toni Breidinger	26.0
18	16	Justin Haley	25.5
19	13	Cole Butcher	23.5
20	44	Andrés Pérez	22.1
21	10	Corey LaJoie	21.9
22	12	Brenden Queen	19.7
23	42	Parker Eatmon	18.1
24	99	Ben Rhodes	16.5
25	88	Ty Majeski	16.3
26	15	Tanner Gray	15.4
27	62	Christopher Bell (i)	15.2
28	18	Tyler Ankrum	12.5
29	45	Landen Lewis	12.2
30	19	Daniel Hemric	11.5
31	34	Layne Riggs	10.8
32	1	Gavan Boschele	9.9
33	98	Jake Garcia	9.6
34	17	Gio Ruggiero	8.4
35	77	Tristan McKee	8.3
36	9	Grant Enfinger	7.1
37	38	Chandler Smith	6.1
38	5	John Hunter Nemechek (i)	5.6
39	91	Christian Eckes	3.9
40	7	Connor Mosack	3.7
41	11	Kaden Honeycutt	1.3

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

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

Hendrick Motorsports has hired a young phenom with a rousing reputation and the potential to rise to superstardom in the NASCAR Cup Series.

That sentence is just as true in 2026 as it was in 1992. Different name; similar story.

In 2026, it’s Connor Zilisch signing a contract to drive Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 Chevrolet beginning in the 2028 season. In 1992, it was Jeff Gordon signing a contract to drive Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 24 Chevrolet — a signing that would change NASCAR as we knew it.

MORE: Zilisch signs with Hendrick for 2028 season

This isn’t all to say Zilisch is destined to be the next Gordon; the four championships and 93 wins earned by Gordon create an impossible standard for anyone to live up to, let alone a 20-year-old like Zilisch who is only 24 races into his inaugural Cup Series campaign.

But there was something unmistakably poignant about Tuesday’s press conference at the NASCAR Production Facility, where team owner Rick Hendrick sat alongside Gordon — now the team’s vice chairman and a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame — to introduce the highly touted Zilisch as the organization’s next driver, one they hope will be a superstar.

“It really all did come together the way it was meant to be,” Gordon said.

Alex Bowman, current driver of the team’s No. 48 car, signed a one-year contract extension to make the 2027 campaign his final season before retiring from full-time competition. Hendrick Motorsports wanted Bowman, a 10th-year full-timer for the company, to have the ability to walk away from the sport on his terms after years of myriad health issues that cost him time in the race car. Thankfully for Hendrick Motorsports, Bowman’s timing lined up just right with the ability to pursue Zilisch, who is currently contracted to drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing through 2027.

“When [Bowman] told us, ‘Hey, I want next year to be my final year,’ then that pretty much put the next thing in motion,” Gordon said. “And it was around that same time that we had heard that Connor was going to be out talking to teams about ‘28 and and beyond. And as Rick mentioned, when that happened, the first thing that we did was reach out to [Trackhouse owner] Justin Marks and talk to him about ‘28 to kind of get the blessing to be able to sit down with Connor and start talking about that. But yeah, the stars really pretty much aligned with Alex’s decision as well as with Connor’s decision to look beyond ‘27.”

Sean Gardner | Getty Images

Unlike Gordon, who never made a Cup start before signing with Hendrick Motorsports, Zilisch has already begun his Cup Series career. It hasn’t gone well and he’d be the first to tell you that, if the statistics didn’t do so by showing him 34th in points with two races remaining in the regular season.

But just like Gordon, Zilisch impressed Hendrick with success in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where Zilisch stormed to 10 wins in 2025 driving for the Hendrick-affiliated JR Motorsports.

“I can remember Rick saying to me, he was like, ‘Boy, that guy is so talented. I’d love to have him in a Hendrick car one day,’ ” Gordon recalled Tuesday. “And we knew that he had a contract at that time, so we weren’t really pursuing it until we found out, that ‘28 was an opportunity.”

With a smile to Gordon, Hendrick was quick to add: “It was just like Jeff Gordon when I saw you in Atlanta, and I said, ‘Man, it’s a shame he’s got a contract with Ford.’ And [Gordon’s] roommate said, ‘He doesn’t.’ He had a contract with me the next day.”

The opportunity to drive for NASCAR’s winningest organization is not lost on Zilisch, who was born the year Jimmie Johnson won the No. 48 team its first championship in 2006. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus — now Hendrick’s vice president of competition — ultimately collected seven championships together, forever establishing a legacy behind the No. 48.

With a legacy comes the pressure to live up to high expectations — a standard that comes with driving for Hendrick Motorsports regardless of the number on your door. But pressure is a privilege, one Zilisch welcomes with open arms.

“I would more so call it an honor than pressure,” Zilisch said. “You know, I know what I’m getting myself into. I know that success is the standard, and I hold myself to a high standard. So I’m really excited about it honestly more than I am nervous or pressured. And being able to work with these two guys (Hendrick and Gordon) every day is something that I’m really excited for. Driving the 48 and being a part of that legacy and creating my own story is something I’m really excited for as well.”

Baked within that answer is the real reason Zilisch was such an obvious hire for Hendrick Motorsports. At 20 years old, the North Carolina native carries a maturity and poise that manifests a reputation for being wise beyond his years. To find those traits within someone as naturally talented as Zilisch is a chance too rare for Hendrick executives to have passed up on.

“It’s not just his talent; that’s pretty obvious. But it’s really making sure that there’s somebody that you know has great communication skills, wants to be a great team player,” Gordon said. “I mean, the way that Hendrick Motorsports works, I feel like, is unlike any other organization out there. And I get the pleasure to sit in on those debriefs with the drivers and the crew chiefs, engineers. And the more transparent you are, the more confident you are, the more information that you can add to the conversation, it elevates the entire organization.”

Chris Graythen | Getty Images

Kyle Larson, the defending and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, has already worked closely with Zilisch this season through their Chevrolet connections. Larson has been in the fold at Hendrick Motorsports for nearly six full seasons. And he knows Zilisch is a perfect match for Hendrick — and that Hendrick is a perfect match for Zilisch.

“I’ve got to work around him a little bit this year just through the key partnership at GM with Trackhouse and RCR and ourselves,” Larson said Tuesday. “So (I) get to kind of hear how he communicates and breaks down his car and all that and all pretty normal stuff. And yeah, I mean yes, he hasn’t had a great season this year, but I don’t really think that means anything. I think everything he’s proven to this point shows how talented and naturally gifted he is, and then seeing him work at it, too, being in the Wise Optimization Program as well as the GM key partnership, you get to see his work ethic, and I think it’s high, and I think he’s gonna blend in really well at Hendrick Motorsports.

“I think he has the personality that this organization kind of fits, and I’m looking forward to him being a teammate of ours. And like I said, he’s young, but I feel like he’s very mature for his age and he will fit in great at our place.”

Indeed, Zilisch’s rookie year has been a struggle, but the past two weeks have shown glimmers of optimism: At Iowa Speedway on Aug. 9, Zilisch earned an 11th-place finish after qualifying eighth, his career-best finish on an oval, before qualifying 11th at Richmond Raceway for the Aug. 15 contest. Those gains may seem small, but progress is progress after a slow start to his Cup career.

“We all knew how talented he was on the road courses,” Gordon said. “To me, I think a lot of it was, well, what can he do on ovals? And he proved and is continuing to prove that he’s good behind the wheel at any track that you put him out there on.”

Posted on August 19, 2026August 21, 2026 by Zack Albert

The last flourish of Mark Martin’s NASCAR career seemed to defy logic at nearly every turn of the 2009 season. At age 50, when most Cup Series racers are on the decline, retired or strongly considering hanging it up, Martin savored one of his most productive years — all aided by a new team and crew chief, a car owner’s relentless persuasion, and a veteran’s keen ability to diversify his already considerable all-around race craft.

Defying logic? For Martin, who had seen a little bit of everything through the decades, it almost defied reality.

“Pinch me. I am sure I’m sleeping,” Martin said from Victory Lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that fateful year. “I am sure I’m dreaming.”

Martin’s five-win season with Hendrick Motorsports in 2009 marked a rejuvenating moment in his voluminous stock-car tenure, told in the first installment of the “Start/Finish” documentary series on the NASCAR Channel. The fifth of those victories — and the last of his 40-win Cup career — came at the 1.058-mile New Hampshire track, site of Sunday’s Dollar Tree 301 (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

CLASSICS: Full race replay: New Hampshire, 2009

Chalk Martin’s incredulity up to his history of performances in the Granite State and his difficulty getting a feel for the circuit’s sweeping, relatively flat corners. He’d twice been a pole winner there and thrice a runner-up, but 25 previous trips to the Loudon oval had failed to produce a victory. Furthermore, before landing with Hendrick, Martin had endured three-plus winless seasons in both full- and part-time efforts, including a heartbreaking Daytona 500 loss by a fender to Kevin Harvick in 2007.

The missing piece, Martin said, was what he called an “unfair advantage” — a pairing with crew chief Alan Gustafson, who was in his fifth season at the helm of the No. 5 Chevrolet group. The two clicked nearly from the start, and while Gustafson’s input didn’t reinvent Martin’s veteran skillset, he opened portals that were previously closed off.

Martin won at two tracks that year where he’d previously been shut out — Chicagoland Speedway and New Hampshire — and his triumph at Michigan International Speedway that June unlocked a newfound strength: saving fuel. Gustafson’s late-race coaching over the No. 5 radio emphasized a conservative approach, one that paid off when front-runners Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle ran out of gas in the final two laps. At each turn, Martin heaped abundant credit Gustafson’s way.

“I have a lot of trust in Alan,” Martin told The Boston Globe that fall. “I let him do his thing, and he’s brought so much support, you know, in so many areas, and unloaded so much off my shoulders. He’s the smartest — the best combination of really smart engineering, understanding of that, and the guy that pulls the wrenches and gets his hands dirty, [the] practical racer. He’s the best combination of all that. I’ve worked with great engineers and really smart people and great guys that work on race cars and are practical and all that, but he’s the combination, the strongest combination of all of that.”

MORE: Mark Martin through the years | Watch: Start/Finish documentary

The respect from Gustafson was mutual, especially for someone he’d looked up to as he made his own climb through the NASCAR ranks. As he graduated to become a Cup Series crew chief in 2005, Gustafson was tasked with molding the early stages of Kyle Busch’s big-league career, discovering a talented, fierce rookie who tended toward a more aggressive bent. Martin, Gustafson says now, was the opposite with a measured style shaped by years of experience.

“The sheer pace that he could go at, I always said if you just put Mark, like if the goal was to run 500 laps as fast as you can and no one else is on the track, I don’t know that he loses a race, to be honest,” Gustafson said. “It was all the other intangible things. He’s well known, obviously, for how he would race people, right? He wouldn’t hold anybody up. If he was slower, then he’d pull over and let them go, and he just raced really clean. As far as the ability to drive the car fast, like second to none, just incredible. So yeah, immensely talented and to have the desire and the commitment and the competitiveness at 50 was great.”

The deal that brought him into the Hendrick fold almost didn’t happen. Martin had raced the previous two Cup Series seasons on a part-time basis by choice, competing in 24 of the 36 events each year. When Rick Hendrick came calling in the months leading up to Silly Season’s full swing, Martin told the team owner that he’d consider it, provided that his agreement was for the same two-thirds workload.

Hendrick wanted that last third, and his persistence prevailed. Martin’s eventual acceptance created a formidable four-driver roster of mega-powers, with Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. as teammates. All four would become NASCAR Hall of Famers. The opportunity was too good for Martin to pass up, giving him a competitive benchmark and his best chance to win in years.

“I never would have thought that we would ever have a lineup like this or any team would ever have a lineup like this,” Martin said at the announcement. “The stars aligned, the opportunities were there, and Mr. Hendrick’s reputation and respect, how he treats people and runs his businesses and organizations, made it all possible.”

Rusty Jarrett | Getty Images

Martin’s performance aligned with that of his peers at Hendrick, and he assembled a regular season of four wins and six pole positions, entering the 12-driver Chase as its top seed. The postseason kicked off that year at New Hampshire, leaving the Arkansas native less than jazzed about his chances.

Gustafson countered the pessimism with what turned out to be a winning setup and strategy, including an off-cycle pit gambit that put Martin in control. He led 68 of 300 laps, snookering Juan Pablo Montoya on a late restart and denying him one of his best shots at an oval-track victory.

“I’m speechless. I can’t talk right now, boys,” Martin said on the cool-down lap.”… Hardest one I remember getting in a long, long, long time.”

“How good is Mark Martin?” Gustafson told the ESPN broadcast. “It’s unbelievable.”

The triumph ended up as the last Cup Series win for Martin, who had emerged from a track of great personal torment with the points lead intact. But the campaign also wound up being his final true bid at a Cup Series championship, and that ending was not as cherished. Johnson was well into his unprecedented run of five consecutive Cup titles, and he registered four wins in the final nine races to seal his fourth crown. Martin’s challenge came unglued in that stretch, capped by a rollover crash on the next-to-last lap at Talladega that provided Johnson with enough of a late-season cushion.

RELATED: Weekend schedule: NHMS

Martin finished second in the points for a fifth and final time that year, and the recurring questions about his lack of a championship ring dogged him anew. Answering those questions in his retirement requires an analysis of his legacy and whether a title matters. The blue jacket that the NASCAR Hall of Fame gave him as part of the Class of 2017 still fits either way.

“He shouldn’t be defined by not winning a championship because I don’t think that was ultimately always in his control,” Gustafson says. “I can tell you from experience working with multiple champions that he is every bit as good as they are, and he is every bit as deserving of winning a championship, and unfortunately, it just never came to fruition for him. I don’t want to say I have regret over ’09, but you know, it’s definitely one of those years that I look back and you always ask yourself, could you have done a little more, could you have done something a little different, because I do think we could have. In my mind, yeah, I wish we would have won that championship and that would have been the answer to that question. So I think yes, flipping at Talladega, I don’t remember everything, but that was one of the big ones.

“I think the best thing: Ask anyone who raced against him, and they’ll be like, yeah, that dude was tough. So yeah, I don’t think he should be judged on the not winning a championship, and it just … sometimes unfortunately, life isn’t fair and it didn’t work out for him. That’s not an indication of his abilities or any shortcoming in his career. It’s just the way it worked out.”

Martin raced for four more seasons — two full-time and two partial — before sunsetting his NASCAR career after the 2013 campaign. No more wins came his way, but he looked back fondly at his last big year, and a brilliant day at New Hampshire’s “Magic Mile.”

“It was a magical year last year for me,” Martin said just before the 2010 campaign, “and I still feel the magic each time I strap into a race car.”

Jason Smith | Getty Images

Posted on August 19, 2026August 19, 2026 by Tadd Haislop

Five races remain on the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule. That’s five chances for points leader Patrick Emerling to pad his advantage and earn his first title … or five chances for defending champion Austin Beers to erase said advantage and climb back to the top.

Or, in the focus of some, that’s five chances for NASCAR, Modified Tour teams and American Racer to continue to work together to address the season’s moving target that has been the tires on which NASCAR’s oldest division races.

As anticipated, NASCAR and American Racer are still modifying (pun intended) the tires, new for the Modified Tour in 2026, in an effort to achieve the best possible competition. Since the start of the season, NASCAR and American Racer have worked to address teams’ concerns regarding tire-size consistency. Following extensive development and testing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Stafford Speedway, the next steps are settled.

The name of the game moving forward: grip.

(Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)

“American Racer’s done a good job with the sizing; they’re a lot better as far as that goes,” said Stephen Kopcik, a two-time Modified Tour race winner this season who was the lone driver to participate in the Stafford tire test. “(The tires) just don’t have quite the grip from the start. So there’s not much fall-off because they’re not really that fast from the beginning. You can work your ass off to get to a car and be a little quicker than him, but then it’s line sensitive and tough to pass.”

Beers in a separate interview agreed: “It’s hard to go out of the specific line and find grip and make passes. I think our (racing) product is definitely getting a little better, but it’s still not good enough.”

That’s why and how NASCAR and American Racer have altered their focus. Modified Tour series director Gary Putnam put it plainly: Better grip leads to faster cars early in runs, more tire fall-off and, in theory, better racing.

“It’s in a better spot today,” Putnam said. “We’ve been working closely with American Racer to provide a better combination tire-wise.”

Added Beers, who tested tires at New Hampshire in late June: “Myself, (Jon) McKennedy and (Tyler) Rypkema were all in agreement that this was the best we felt with those tires. We actually were wearing the right fronts — which really hasn’t happened all year — which was good. We felt like we had good stability. I felt there was a lot more grip with the tires, and they lasted long. I had my drivability and maneuverability around the race track, but they still had a little bit of fall-off, so we’d be able to put on a good race.

“It was a very good test in my opinion.”

(Photo: Jaiden Tripi/NASCAR)

The process NASCAR and American Racer went through to pin an ideal tire combination was as follows:

NASCAR arrived at the New Hampshire test wondering whether its then-current tire would work for the Aug. 22 race at the same track. It did not. (“We saw some blistering,” Putnam said.) So they tested an option tire, a harder option, and agreed that compound would work well for the New Hampshire race. American Racer also modified the right-side tires so they’d accept more heat and account for the higher temperatures expected in August.

To address the post-New Hampshire tire package, though, NASCAR kept testing. They along with Kopcik’s team conducted the second tire test, this time at Stafford, in an effort to check what they’d discovered at New Hampshire. They started again with the control set. They then tested the New Hampshire option (harder lefts and rights) and received the same results. They then tried the control lefts with the New Hampshire rights.

That — the original, softer left sides (control set) combined with the harder New Hampshire rights — turned out to be an ideal combination for the final four races of the season: Stafford (Aug. 28), Oswego Speedway (Sept. 5), Riverhead Raceway (Sept. 19) and Thompson Speedway (Oct. 11).

“All that was really good,” Putnam said. “In fact, we saw a higher grip level then where our baseline tire is. So starting at Stafford, we will run the right side tire that we’re running at Loudon through the remainder of the year.”

Added Kopcik: “I’ll give it to them; American Racer’s been doing the best they can. They’ve been good at developing and wanting to make it better. I do think it’s going to be better. … The tire we tested on at Stafford a few weeks ago is a major step in the correct direction.”

(Photo: Chris Dehney/NASCAR)

To proactively address any concerns teams may have about tire sizing or possible blistering from heat, the Modified Tour plans to allow teams opportunities to scuff their qualifying sets for the remainder of the season.

Putnam said roughly half the teams took that opportunity before the Thompson race on Aug. 5, not including Beers, the eventual pole winner. He expects fewer teams to scuff moving forward, but the option remains.

American Racer plans to continue tire development and testing throughout the end of the year in preparation for the 2027 season. In the meantime, NASCAR will work closely with American Racer to optimize the current tire for the final five-race stretch run, which includes some of the season’s biggest events.

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Adam Fenwick

From his earliest days competing in United States Auto Club events to his time in the NASCAR Cup Series, one thing that has always stood out about Ryan Newman is that he’s a racer.

He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. He wants to know everything about the cars he drives. If there’s a way to find speed, one can bet the driver who earned the nickname “Rocketman” will try to find it.

Racers want to race. And more often than not, racers gravitate to other racers. That’s what makes the pairing of Newman and Glenn Styres so perfect.

The duo, which first worked together for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Martinsville Speedway earlier this season, will unite again Saturday for the Mohegan Sun 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET on FloRacing).

ENTRY LIST: See who’s racing at New Hampshire

“Glenn’s been gracious enough to let me take his seat and go racing,” said Newman, who will drive Styres’ No. 0 Modified in Saturday’s 100-lap event. “He loves racing so much that he overcommits himself to doing all the things that he wants to do. … The guy has like 30-plus race cars. Kyle Larson couldn’t drive all those and lay out a schedule that makes sense.

“Glenn has a lot of ambition, and that ambition has given me an opportunity because he’s got other things to do in the form of running his race track and running his other race cars that he wants to do.”

Newman first met Styres, who owns Canada’s Ohsweken Speedway and has raced just about every type of car one can imagine, while visiting North Carolina’s zMAX Dragway for an NHRA drag racing event.

Not surprisingly, the two became fast friends.

Ryan Newman drove Glenn Styres’ No. 0 for the first time earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway, where he finished 10th. (Photo: Adam Fenwick/NASCAR)

Newman learned Styres had a nearly race-ready Modified in storage. Styres himself has never entered a Modified Tour event, but Newman saw an opportunity to blow the dust off the FURY chassis and do a bit of racing.

“Glenn had a car at the FURY shop. I’ve become friends with Ryan Stone, the crew chief of the No. 51 (for Justin Bonsignore). What I didn’t realize is Glenn actually had another car that was in storage,” Newman explained. “Through my conversations with Ryan Stone and Glenn, we decided to pull the car out of storage and just go racing.”

Newman and Styres made their debut together at Martinsville in late March. Newman qualified 14th and earned a 10th-place finish in Styres’ No. 0.

It was a solid first outing, but Newman believes there is plenty of room for improvement.

“We finished in the top 10 at Martinsville, which was good for our maiden voyage, but we’re looking for a lot more than that when we go to Loudon,” Newman said.

Because Styres has so many other irons in the fire, it’s basically been up to Newman and a handful of others to get the car ready to race. Once they get to New Hampshire later this week, they’ll gain a few more helping hands to make things just a little bit easier.

“I basically wrench on the car myself,” Newman said. “My girlfriend, my daughters and a few other people like Ryan Stone (help). Glenn has one of his guys he’s sending down with a truck and trailer to help a little bit, which isn’t common but is appreciated. It’s a small group of us.

“When we get up to Loudon, Max Zachem and his guys that he usually has working on race cars will be there to help out with pitting. Max will be in the crew chief role. We kind of just piece it together.”

Ryan Newman has competed in more than 20 Modified Tour races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, winning twice. (Photo: Adam Glanzman/NASCAR)

The Modified Tour event at New Hampshire is traditionally one of the most anticipated races of the year. The Tour’s rules package combined with the track’s size and shape allow for a unique mix of pack racing and drafting, which has led to exciting action and thrilling finishes.

Newman is no stranger to New Hampshire. He won three times in NASCAR Cup Series competition at the track, including his first victory in 2002. He’s also won twice with the Modified Tour at the 1.058-mile oval. Saturday’s Mohegan Sun 100 will be Newman’s 22nd Modified Tour event at New Hampshire, but his first since 2021.

The Indiana native believes his success at New Hampshire is connected to his experience racing at another flat asphalt track, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.

“For the longest time I said it was my least favorite race track and it was my most successful on paper. I think it’s just because it’s a lot like the corners of IRP,” Newman said. “I think it just kind of suits my driving style, and you’ve got tire management, brake management and all those types of things.

“Then when you get to the Modifieds, you throw in drafting. That’s another part of it that a lot of Modified drivers aren’t used to that I have a lot of experience with. It’s just a fun combination.”

Newman doesn’t know how many more opportunities he’ll have to race with the Modified Tour, but he knows he’s found a like-minded friend in Styres. Together, they’re just a pair of racers at heart looking to chase checkered flags and have fun doing it.

“As they say, a good day is when you’re competitive and you do all the things that are in your control and you can roll it back on the trailer,” Newman said. “It’s not like this team is a championship contending team, because we don’t chase points. We’re just there for a good time and to try and win the race.”

Posted on August 18, 2026August 21, 2026 by Staff Report

Goodyear is set to bring its familiar short-track tire setup for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Cup Series teams will use the same left- and right-side tire compounds used last weekend in the night race at Richmond Raceway.

The short-track tire setup debuted in the 2025 Martinsville fall race. The setup is designed to increase grip and lap-time fall-off over the course of a green-flag run. Goodyear will make just one adjustment to its normal allotment, bringing an additional set of tires for practice with the Cup Series now running just a single 50-minute session for the remainder of the season at non-superspeedway tracks.

RELATED: New Hampshire weekend schedule

“Despite being just over one-mile long, New Hampshire fits into the short-track category, meaning the same Goodyear Racing Eagles used last weekend at Richmond are again the right choice this weekend,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “The new practice format starting in New Hampshire means we will now bring more tires to the track to account for the increased allocation of two sets for practice most weekends.”

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams will use the same left- and right-side tires from the series’ last three short-track races at Richmond, North Wilkesboro and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The Truck Series will race at New Hampshire on Saturday (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Tire allotment for each team competing this weekend:

Cup Series: 10 total sets — 7 new for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the race, and 2 for practice. Teams will also have 4 wet-weather sets available, if needed.
Craftsman Truck Series: 5 total sets — 3 new for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the race, and 1 for practice. Teams will also have 3 wet-weather sets available, if needed.

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Holly Cain

On what feels a fitting date to celebrate Kyle Busch’s impact on NASCAR, today — 8/18, a nod to Busch’s famed car numbers — the sport’s entire industry will recognize “Kyle Busch Day” with competitors, crew members, team owners and corporate execs sharing favorite memories of the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion on multiple media platforms.

Busch, 41, passed away unexpectedly May 21 of complications from severe bacterial pneumonia and sepsis, however the impact of his life and career will never cease, thanks to an amazing legacy he established both on and off the race track.

Using hashtags such as #ForeverRowdy and #KyleBuschDay on social media, those who knew the late superstar best and those who may have only admired his flair and style from a distance will participate in the daylong tribute to one of the most talented drivers in the sport’s history, and certainly one of its most charitable hearts.

“I think it’s an awesome remembrance and way to show he’s still on the top of all of our minds,” said Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell, who credits Busch with helping establish his own NASCAR career. “I think the industry has done really, really, good of not letting it just go. He had such a big impact on the whole industry. So, I’m glad they’re implementing it and I know it will go on for years to come and will be something we always cherish.”

Busch is the all-time winningest driver across NASCAR’s three national series with an astounding – and never to be matched – combined 234 victories.

The 2015 and 2019 NASCAR Cup Series champion has 63 wins in NASCAR’s premier series, ranking him ninth on the all-time list – driving for legendary teams and Hall of Fame owners such as Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress.

The 8/18 is a nod to the No. 8 Chevrolet that Busch was driving for Childress when he passed away this spring and the No. 18 Toyota, which he won his season titles with driving for Gibbs.

“I think that’s really cool the 8/18,” said Busch’s RCR teammate Austin Dillon. “I got to hang out with Brexton, and Sam and Lennix this week at RCR family day so anything we can do as a sport to honor Kyle, we should.”

The 2009 champion in what is now called the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Busch is the all-time winningest driver with 102 victories – more than twice that of any other driver in series history.

Busch’s 69 trophies from competition in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is most all-time as well. He hoisted the last of those only six days before he passed after leading a typically dominating 147 of the 200 laps – from pole position – in the Truck race at Dover Motor Speedway.

Sean Gardner | Getty Images

Not only was his skill appreciated, but behind the brash, bold and competitive personality Busch was a devoted husband to Samantha and proud father to Brexton and Lennix – whether it be meticulously guiding 11-year-old Brexton’s young racing career or twirling around his beloved 4-year-old Lennix dressed in a princess gown. His love for his young family was always first in his heart.

He and Samantha founded the Bundle of Joy Fund to help provide IVF access, the dedication touching countless souls after candidly sharing the couple’s own challenges with infertility treatment. The tireless work they put into creating and funding this charity is indicative of the ways the Busch’s hoped to positively impact other families.

It’s indicative of the passion Busch possessed and shared. And for a racer who loved to test the tolerance and gumption of his competitors, they all respected his talent on track and that compassion off it.

“I think it’s important,” Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron said of Tuesday’s industry-wide tribute. “The way that life happens, people don’t take a lot of time to reflect. Thinking about some of the things we remember about him and seeing Ty’s [Gibbs] Bristol [paint] scheme to honor him, shows there’s still ways that we are remembering him and he’s still staying in everyone’s minds.

“I think that’s really important we keep that going.”

For a lot of drivers, Busch was their first crucial nod of approval. And it could be life-changing. Bell and Spire Motorsports driver Daniel Suárez are among the long list of competitors who credit Busch with giving them their first big break.

“I think it’s very nice that NASCAR continues to think about Kyle, about Samantha and his family,” said Suárez. “In other scenarios, it would be very easy to just do a tribute and move on, but NASCAR doesn’t. They continue to honor him and I’m very proud of NASCAR for doing that. I’m very proud also of Samantha for allowing us to do this. I have a lot of memories with him, a lot of times with him, and I’m looking forward to sharing something good about him, something that makes me smile on that day.”

As with Suárez, Bell grins widely thinking about his mentor and friend. Busch challenged them in ways that changed their lives and fulfilled their dreams.

“Certainly, what I will always remember are all the collective moments,” Bell said, adding with a playful smile. “He had two completely different demeanors, this big brash person, but the most kind-hearted guy as well.

“He obviously had the biggest impact on me, more than any driver in the sport with the Kyle Busch Motorsports program and the Truck Series. And then when I graduated to JGR, he was the teammate that kinda looked after me. He had a really big impact on my life.”

A public Celebration of Life for Busch will be held Oct. 9 at Charlotte Motor Speedway after the day’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. It’s a way for the public to join the Busch family in honoring his unique and plentiful contributions not only as a champion race car driver, but also as someone whose generous spirit extends well beyond.