Posted on by Holly Cain

AVONDALE, Ariz. — JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier pushed forward when it mattered most, his No. 7 Chevrolet leading only the last 11 laps of Saturday night’s GOVX 200 at Phoenix Raceway to claim his third win at the 1-mile Arizona oval and take over the championship lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

Allgaier had to pass the night’s most dominant driver, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love, to earn the trophy. Love came into the race with the best average finish in the last four Phoenix races and again proved how good he is in the desert, leading a race-best 114 of the 200 laps.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Phoenix

There were no caution periods in the opening two stages of the race — the first stage won by Allgaier’s teammate Sammy Smith and the second stage won by Love.

Two late-race yellow flags, however, bunched the field on restarts and allowed Allgaier’s team to rally from a slow pit stop earlier in the night. The two former champions went door-to-door following the final restart with 15 laps to go, the 2024 series champ Allgaier ultimately besting the 2025 champ Love with a daring move on the outside and then holding him off by .449-seconds at the finish line to earn JR Motorsports’ 107th victory.

“So proud of this team,” said Allgaier, praising the team for overcoming a poor stop early. “It wasn’t for lack of adversity and it seems like those are the ones that are big for us. I cannot say enough about this team.

“It never gets old winning,” added Allgaier, who has now won at least one race for a record 10 consecutive seasons. “This team rallied and never gave up.”

As encouraging as the night was — a stage win and fourth consecutive top-10 finish on the season for Love, the 21-year-old was understandably frustrated to finish runner-up after such a dominant showing.

“The car tightening up there at the beginning of stage three put us behind, so just frustrated,” said Love, noting that he refused to just walk away happy with a runner-up showing after such a strong effort.

“Obviously not why I’m here [to finish second]. Just beyond frustrated with myself. I don’t know what else to say, just upset, upset with myself.”

WATCH: Jesse Love on disappointing runner-up

The top finishing 14 cars were Chevrolets. Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate, Carson Kvapil, who looked strong mid-race and led 22 laps, finished third, followed by Haas Factory Team drivers Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer.

Sammy Smith, Jeb Burton, Rajah Caruth, Corey Day and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top 10. It’s the third top 10 of the season for both Smith and Day.

The championship standings now mirror Saturday’s outcome with Allgaier holding a three-point advantage over Love as the series heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway for next week’s The LiUNA! (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allgaier is the defending winner of that race.

Note: Inspection was completed in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage with no issues, confirming Allgaier as the winner.

Posted on by Zack Albert

AVONDALE, Ariz. — NASCAR Cup Series teams may take some measure of comfort in the familiarity of this weekend’s Goodyear tire setup at Phoenix Raceway. It’s the same configuration that was used here four months ago, when the circuit crowned Kyle Larson as champion in the 2025 season finale.

While there’s comfort, there’s also the challenge posed by aggressive strategies in the ongoing quest for speed.

Crew chiefs anticipate pushing the boundaries of performance and durability in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, FOX One, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the Phoenix 1-mile track, the first bread-and-butter oval of the Cup Series season. After two drafting-style races and a road-course event, the schedule turns to a six-race stretch of more traditional ovals, starting with Sunday’s 312-lap go.

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | Weekend schedule, TV info

The familiarity is a welcome note for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team, which is already facing a substantial variable with Anthony Alfredo filling in for ailing driver Alex Bowman this weekend. That said, crew chief Blake Harris says teams will often stretch the limits of tire reliability in search of a competitive advantage.

“It gives us a little more faith, too, to have something consistent, a baseline to start off with, with Anthony just getting in the car for the first time,” Harris told NASCAR.com. “So I think a lot of good knowns, I like the tire a lot. I think anytime we have the opportunity for a good deg (degradation) on a short track, I think that gives us mixed-up strategies, gives us chances to instead of just running a full fuel stint out if we need to split it, how do we want to carve that up based on the tires that we have?

“So I know Goodyear has a challenge, always with the durability, but we’re also our own worst enemies, where we figure out how to make the cars go fast and get grip on them. We’re gonna flirt with disaster at times, and I think you saw a lot of teams do that, but we’re definitely … we have a full scope of a weekend, right? So we’re smarter than we were in the fall, and we’ll try to play our cards right to get the maximum amount of grip and pace with hopefully no failures.”

Three teams faced tire trouble during Saturday morning’s practice sessions, with RFK Racing driver/co-owner Brad Keselowski taking the most sizable hit with the No. 6 Ford and forcing him to a backup car. Tire issues also hobbled teammate Chris Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Mustang, plus the No. 35 Toyota of 23XI Racing’s Riley Herbst.

The problems were a near repeat of the rubber repercussions from last November’s finale, when several teams were hampered by failures that crept up in practice. Buescher’s issue struck first Saturday after just 16 total laps.

“Yeah, there’s some concern, something we’ve got to figure out and dive into,” Buescher said. “Knowing the issues we had here the last race, I thought we took steps to correct, so we’ll dive into that a little bit further. I would say that where we fired off in balance and long-run speed – if you call 15 laps long run — was fairly happy with our car, just at the end of it needed it to last a little longer, right? So yeah, we’re going to certainly dive into it. We’ve got our post-practice meetings coming up here, so we’ll try and figure out if we can diagnose if it’s something specific to us or if it’s another Phoenix.”

MORE: What to Watch: Phoenix | At-track photos

Cup Series points leader Tyler Reddick also spun in practice without sustaining damage, but crew chief Billy Scott confirmed that the loop-around was unrelated to any tire trouble on the No. 45 23XI Toyota.

“So far, the fall-off looked pretty similar,” Scott told NASCAR.com after selecting the team’s pit stall for Sunday. “I haven’t had a close look at it yet, but it seemed reasonable to what we expected. The same thing on pressures and camber; we know where we’re at, and that held up still. We fortunately didn’t have issues before and didn’t today.”

Scott & Co. have another thing on their side — the intangible factor of momentum. Since Reddick rolled to a crown-jewel victory in the season-opening Daytona 500, there’s been no let-up with wins coming in successive weeks at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta and the Circuit of The Americas road course just last weekend in Texas.

Reddick has rocketed to the top of the Cup Series heap, and 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace has had his own performance uptick in the standings. The effect of the early spurt of success has been noticeable across the board, but there’s been no laurel-resting, either.

“It’s been incredible. It’s spread to the whole team,” Scott said. “I mean, Riley’s had some great races, Bubba’s had a couple stage wins and contending for wins, too, second in points, and then our historical start. It’s just a lot of energy, and we just keep challenging everybody to stay focused and keep remembering that we have to go out each week and do it again, and nobody has gotten complacent either. Nobody’s let it kind of get an ego and think that we’ve made the corner here. We have to continue to fight to do that every week, and doing that with a lot of celebrations and free lunches and stuff in between is a great problem to have.”

Posted on by Staff Report

The data has been analyzed ahead of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and if the metrics suggest one thing in particular, it is this: expect the usual suspects to race up front in the desert.

Saturday’s qualifying session proved just that, with Team Penske’s Joey Logano — a four-time Phoenix winner — capturing the Busch Light Pole Award. And while Racing Insights believes the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion will leverage that starting position into a top-five result, back-to-back Phoenix spring winner Christopher Bell is predicted to finish atop the field to claim the triumph once more. Here is how the rest of the field stacks up heading into the 1-mile Arizona contest on Sunday.

RELATED: Full starting lineup | Phoenix preview

DRIVERS TO WATCH

KYLE LARSON: The defending champion — who claimed the 2025 crown at this very track barely four months ago — has to be one of the leading contenders, and not just because of that particular tidbit. Larson was one of only five drivers to finish inside the top 10 in both 2025 Phoenix races and was the only driver to finish inside the top five in both contests. Larson’s 216 laps led at Phoenix in the Next Gen era ranks sixth among all pilots, and his 9.25 average finish during that span additionally ranks third overall.

DANIEL SUÁREZ: A solid start to the 2026 season might very well continue in Phoenix, per the metrics, with the No. 7 Spire Motorsports driver projected to tally a top 10. Though Phoenix, statistically speaking, isn’t a particularly strong track for the Mexico native — with only four top-10 finishes in 18 Cup starts — there might be a different vibe this time around; Suárez logged the fastest speed during Saturday’s practice session and carried that over into qualifying. As such, he will start Sunday from fourth. Momentum is certainly on his side; Suárez’s 14.3 average finish so far ranks eighth among the full-time field.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: If there is a driver who might outperform his projected metrics at Phoenix, it could very well be Logano’s Team Penske teammate in Cindric. Though the model has him finishing 22nd, Cindric, like Suárez, brought a fast machine to the track on Saturday; Cindric tallied the fifth-fastest speed during practice and carried it over to qualifying, starting just outside the front row (third). Cindric’s 19 stage points collected thus far in 2026 are tied for sixth most, and for a driver currently 31st in the standings, every point matters. Could strategy be shaped around this approach, or will Saturday’s speed translate into Sunday and create something more?

FULL PROJECTED RESULTS FOR 2026 STRAIGHT TALK WIRELESS 500 (3:30 P.M. ET, FS1)

FINISHCAR NUMBERDRIVER
120Christopher Bell
25Kyle Larson
312Ryan Blaney
422Joey Logano
524William Byron
611Denny Hamlin
717Chris Buescher
81Ross Chastain
99Chase Elliott
107Daniel Suárez
116Brad Keselowski
1245Tyler Reddick
1371Michael McDowell
1460Ryan Preece
1523Bubba Wallace
1621Josh Berry
1754Ty Gibbs
188Kyle Busch
1977Carson Hocevar
2019Chase Briscoe
214Noah Gragson
222Austin Cindric
2347Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
2434Todd Gilliland
253Austin Dillon
2642John Hunter Nemechek
2797Shane van Gisbergen
2816AJ Allmendinger
2941Cole Custer
3038Zane Smith
3143Erik Jones
3210Ty Dillon
3335Riley Herbst
3488Connor Zilisch
3551Cody Ware
3648Anthony Alfredo
3733Austin Hill
Posted on by Zack Albert

Track: Phoenix Raceway
Location: Avondale, Arizona
Track length: 1 mile
When: 3:30 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: FS1, HBO Max, FOX One, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,233,037
Race distance: 312 laps | 312 miles
Stages: 60 | 185 | 312
Sunday’s starting lineup | Cup Series pit-stall assignments

Reddick seeks history with a desert 4-by-4

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Despite going 3-for-3 to start the NASCAR Cup Series season, Tyler Reddick dismisses the notion that he’s something of a superhero. The roll he’s on and his high stature in the early standings, however, suggest that the cape might fit.

All eyes in the desert will be focused on Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota at Phoenix Raceway as he strives to write more history with a fourth consecutive win to start the year. The Daytona 500 champion and 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace rank a well-cushioned 1-2 in the early standings, with hopes of stretching that margin in the Arizona mile’s 60th Cup Series race.

A fairly harmless spin by Reddick during Saturday’s practice at Phoenix Raceway stirred the notion that some potential vulnerability might exist in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500, but there’s evident momentum for the 30-year-old star from the dizzying streak he’s authored so far.

“It’s hard to put in words. It’s wild,” Reddick said before Saturday’s preliminary sessions. “I think I’ve said it multiple times, right, you have the hope. I’ve told you guys I’ve had hopes and dreams of just being a Cup driver one day, that hopefully that would happen, and here we are. That’s happened. And yeah, you never know who you’re gonna drive for, but I never would have, again, in my wildest dreams thought I’d be representing Jordan Brand and drive for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. So yeah, it’s really cool to see. A lot of messages I’m trying to get back to. Everyone inside Airspeed’s just super-pumped and their head’s where they need to be. Like we’re excited, we’ve won three races, but everyone’s really hungry. We’re not satisfied.”

Maintaining that intensity level is the smart play, especially with the rest of the Cup Series grid eager to pierce the win column in the just-started campaign. Reddick is 70 points clear of Wallace, but several others slot closer behind, and some usual front-runners aim to reverse sluggish starts. Phoenix will help to tell the tale of just how close the others are — or aren’t — to the early benchmark Reddick has set.

“Pretty far away right now,” joked Ryan Blaney, who became the most recent Phoenix winner by prevailing for Team Penske in last season’s finale. “… Yeah, I think we’re close, and I think they’ve been doing an amazing job. Like, you can’t really take anything away from that group. The competitor in me is like, ‘dang, they’re kicking our butt every week,’ but then also, the same competitor in me is, you have to respect what they’re doing and the run that they’ve been on, but I think we’re close. Look forward to this weekend, kind of getting out there and seeing what we’ve got at an oval, and we’ll see, but I think we’re closer than people think.”

If any group has the potential to break up the Reddick monopoly, it’s the Penske bunch, which has its own recent run of success at Phoenix. Three-time Cup champion Joey Logano made a preliminary throw of the gauntlet by winning the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s 312-lapper, and his Team Penske mates Austin Cindric and Blaney both qualified among the top five. Christopher Bell has his own Phoenix-specific streak going, with two straight wins in this race.

They’ll all face a race with variables — a returning Goodyear tire setup that produced trouble in Saturday’s practice and went heavy on wear when it debuted here last November, plus a slight uptick in horsepower from the 2026 rules configuration. They’ll also try to make some sense of the volatile nature of the standings, which have jumbled the natural order of things after a three-race opener of two drafting tracks and a road course.

The next seven events — including Sunday’s — will take place at tracks that appear later this year in the 10-race Chase postseason. Unlocking the answers for which teams are the contenders and which need improvement, Logano says, may happen sooner than that.

“Anytime you get back from Vegas, you’ll have a pretty good idea of strengths and weaknesses, of where teams are at,” said Logano, pointing to next weekend’s race at the 1.5-mile Nevada speedway. “So yeah, I don’t think we’ve got the full report card yet. Some pretty odd tracks to start — Daytona, sure; Atlanta, pretty unique; and then COTA for a road course. Like we haven’t been to Phoenix and Vegas yet. Then, when you get to Martinsville, that might be your last bit of the report card, where you get kind of everything. Darlington, it’ll be interesting with the downforce package there and horsepower, that’ll be different. So we’ll have a good report card of where we are, strengths and weaknesses, and the points will start to average out a little bit to where, like I said, the cream always rises to the top, right? Eventually, when you average it out over the first 10 to 15 races, I think things clear up quite a bit.”

MORE: Schedule, TV info: Phoenix

In the details …

By virtue of Tyler Reddick’s undefeated record to start 2026, 23XI Racing boasts the best average finish among all NASCAR Cup Series teams through three races. But the teams just behind 23XI feature some serious muscle from underdog teams, upending the majority of NASCAR’s typical powerhouse organizations. Courtesy of NASCAR Insights on X, a look at the five teams that have combined for the best average finishes so far, as well as their best representatives:
TeamsAverage finishDriver with team's best average finish
23XI Racing12.40Tyler Reddick -- 1.0
Kaulig Racing14.33AJ Allmendinger -- 13.3
RFK Racing15.56Brad Keselowski -- 14.0
Spire Motorsports15.89Daniel Suárez -- 14.3
Hendrick Motorsports19.00Chase Elliott -- 7.3

Speed reads

Race-day essentials:

• Phoenix hub: Key information, links, results | Read more
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs for the Arizona desert | View gallery
• Hauler Talk: Inside Snider’s approval to substitute for Bowman at COTA | Listen now
• ‘Full Speed’ on Prime: Relive the Daytona 500 with in-depth access | How to watch
• Power Rankings: Cup Series’ top 20 drivers after COTA | This week’s ranks
• NASCAR Classics: Inside the video vault from Phoenix | Watch now

Contributing: Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR.com

Posted on by Holly Cain

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Denny Hamlin managed a smile but conceded returning to Phoenix Raceway still stung a bit for the veteran, who dominated the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship in November — leading 208 of the 319 laps — only to miss out on the title after a strategy call didn’t pan out on an overtime restart.

The 45-year-old 60-race winner returns to Phoenix ranked 23rd in the standings and will start his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 11th on the grid for Sunday’s race.

RELATED: Cup Series lineup | At-track photos

“I’m still angry at the track a little bit,” said Hamlin, who had looked to have finally claimed the first championship of his highly decorated two-decade career. “But the track doesn’t have a soul, so it can’t feel the things I feel.

“You’ve still got to come in here and start the whole process over again and do all the right things and see where the result pans out this time. Haven’t had a whole lot of races since we were here for the championship, so just trying to get acclimated with where we are at this point and seeing if we can we replicate some of the magic we had.”

MORE: NASCAR at Phoenix hub

In 41 career Cup Series races at Phoenix, Hamlin has prospered, winning twice, tallying 17 top fives and compiling 24 top-10 results. His 1,147 laps led all-time at the track rank third among all drivers, and he was one of only five drivers to finish inside the top 10 in both Phoenix races in 2025.

Posted on by Zack Albert

AVONDALE, Ariz. – AJ Allmendinger was fresh and fit in the Phoenix Raceway media center Saturday morning, a stark contrast from the picture he illustrated just six days earlier. When the TV camera’s glare last captured him, the Kaulig Racing veteran was flat on his back on Circuit of The Americas’ pit road post-race last Sunday, drained and dehydrated from a cool-suit failure.

The 44-year-old driver was evaluated and released from the infield care center, but said he bounced back in relatively short order.

“All good to go,” Allmendinger said. “Just took a little bit of fluids and some ice, and I was fine back on the plane.”

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | Weekend schedule, TV info

Drivers will aim to keep their cool in the desert heat in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Phoenix Raceway. The forecast for the fourth race of the NASCAR Cup Series season is for sunshine and temperatures tipping into the upper 80s — the warmest day of a packed racing weekend at the 1-mile oval.

Cooling systems and driver comfort came into focus after last Sunday’s event at the Austin, Texas, road course, where a handful of drivers experienced issues. Prime among them was Allmendinger, who gutted out a ninth-place finish that’s helped lift him to eighth in the early Cup Series standings.

Cool shirts aren’t new technology, and one of the earliest examples in stock-car racing was pioneered by the innovative Paul Goldsmith in the 1960s. Some of the same principles from previous versions still apply, with cold water coursing through the suit’s tubing.

“Back in the day, the cool-shirt thing has been around for a really long time,” said Chase Elliott, third in the Cup Series standings entering Phoenix. “For those that probably don’t know that, because it’s kind of a semi-new thing in this garage, but it’s always been available, probably throughout my whole racing career, but they always had a bad rap of failing, and that was why a lot of guys didn’t run them for years and years and years. And I think the technology has gotten a lot better, and that’s why a lot of us have chose to try them at different tracks.”

It’s when the system goes awry that the warmth of the cockpit gives its full force, and the circulating water heats up to scalding levels.

“I think there’s two parts to it,” Allmendinger said. “Like, the physical part of it is, you’re obviously hot and dehydrated and everything kind of starts cramping, and you don’t have a lot of strength, is the first half of it. But it’s almost worse on the mental side of it, because you just know you’re trapped, right? I mean, I guess at the end of the day, you can get out if you want, but I’m gonna do everything I can to maximize the best that I can for my race team, especially when the day is going fairly well. So I think that’s almost harder sometimes, is the mental side of it. It’s like the anxiety builds up where you’re in this tiny little room, and it’s hot and you’re strapped down and you can’t move and there’s nowhere to go.”

It may not seem like it in toasty Phoenix, but we’re still in the last throes of winter with the warmer spring and summer months ahead on the NASCAR schedule. Spiking temperatures await, and the pressure on cooling systems to perform will be greater.

MORE: At-track photos: Phoenix | Fantasy Fastlane

The recent rash of cool-suit trouble has been enough to prompt William Byron, for one, to explore alternatives.

“Definitely when it works, it’s great,” said Byron, who noted that he’s regularly used the cool-shirt system since his Cup career began in 2018. “But I feel like there’s definitely a handful, if not more times, that it doesn’t work. That shirt is very insulated. I was at a Martinsville test one time and was wearing it and didn’t turn it on for most of the day, and just started to feel sick because just the way it insulates your body and kind of has the opposite effect when it’s not on. So yeah, I think I’m open to other options. We used to just have blowers in the car that would just blow air on your back. So definitely, we’ve talked about looking at other options and seeing what’s out there. It’s effective, but at the same time, if it doesn’t work or it doesn’t work as well, like I said, it’s pretty insulated. It’s like wearing a coat.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Team Penske’s Joey Logano claimed his first pole position of the 2026 season Saturday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway, setting a fast lap of 135.537 mph around the 1-mile oval that will host Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, FOX One, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The fast lap gives the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang his 38th career pole position. The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champ will share the front row with two-time and reigning series champion Kyle Larson, who was a slight 0.017 seconds slower in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

It was a strong Penske showing for the team, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary racing season. Austin Cindric (third) and last November’s Phoenix race winner Ryan Blaney (fifth), Logano’s teammates, also earned top-five starting positions.

RELATED: Qualifying results | At-track photos 

“All three Penske cars are fast,” said Logano, who reminded that it was a Penske Phoenix pole sweep with IndyCar teammate David Malukas claiming pole position for Saturday’s IndyCar race. In fact, all three Penske IndyCar drivers — also Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden — will be on the team’s NASCAR drivers’ pit boxes Sunday.

“Our three cars and the three IndyCars all looked solid in practice yesterday. Now it’s just time to execute the race, which is the hard part.

And execute Logano will certainly have to achieve, not taking his pole position for granted.

“You never know anymore (if you will win pole position),” Logano said. “When you have a longer practice like we used to have and put a fresh set of tires on and make a mock run and see the pace. But these days you don’t know. You just go out there and go as fast as you can, and you don’t know if you’ll be 30th or first. It’s hard to say before the run starts.

“I felt like if I didn’t screw up the speed was in the car and I just had to make sure I got all of it out. The speed is there for the Penske cars right now.”

Championship points leader Tyler Reddick spun his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota in practice but didn’t hit anything — recovering to post a solid eighth-place position in the qualifying session minutes later. Brad Keselowski had a more extreme experience, hitting the wall with his No. 6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford — unable to qualify and forced to start from the rear of the 37-car field.

Defending race winner Christopher Bell qualified 12th in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Anthony Alfredo, who is driving the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet this week for Alex Bowman, qualified 31st. However, he did post the best 10-lap speed average among the four Hendrick drivers in practice.

MORE: Practice results

Of note, Spire Motorsports teammates Daniel Suarez (No. 7 Chevrolet) and Carson Hocevar (No. 77 Chevrolet) were fastest in practice. They will roll off fourth and seventh, respectively, on Sunday.

Posted on by Holly Cain

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Both the NTT IndyCar Series drivers and NASCAR drivers were excited for the Phoenix doubleheader racing weekend, and for many of NASCAR’s best, it’s a rare opportunity to watch the open-wheelers in person. The NTT IndyCar Series races Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX just before the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney, whose 60th Anniversary Team Penske organization fields three cars in both series, was particularly excited to watch an IndyCar Series race in person – something he said he’s only done one other time when the two series raced together on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. His teammate, fellow NASCAR champion Joey Logano, said he’s never seen the open-wheelers on an oval.

RELATED: At-track photos: Phoenix | Weekend schedule

“I loved it when we did the doubleheader at Indy a few years ago,” Blaney said, adding he’d love to see the two premier series share a race weekend more often.

“I would love it. I think it’s great for the racing fan. I’ve never really understood when people say I only watch NASCAR or I only watch IndyCar, if you’re a fan of racing, you’re a fan of racing. And this brings everyone together. I think the crowd for both days will be fantastic because it is a doubleheader weekend, and I’d love to see more.”

Agrees his teammate Logano, “I think it’s great for both sports. Great for IndyCar, great for NASCAR and great for the fans to see two different disciplines. I think it’s just going to grow both of them.”

Posted on by Staff Report

See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers will pit this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

NASCAR Cup Series

A graphic detailing the pit-road layout for the Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway.

NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 500 on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Phoenix weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on FS1

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
View of NOAPS pit stalls at Phoenix.

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series GOVX 200 on Saturday at Phoenix Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: How to watch O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races on The CW

Posted on by Zack Albert

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Anthony Alfredo says he realizes the magnitude of the opportunity ahead of him this weekend – an appointment for a spot start in the NASCAR Cup Series with one of its strongest teams. It’s the circumstances that led to this moment that make it bittersweet.

Alfredo will make his first Cup Series start of the season Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, substituting for an ailing Alex Bowman in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 Chevrolet. Bowman exited last weekend’s event at Circuit of The Americas, giving way to relief driver Myatt Snider after falling ill midrace, and his team announced Thursday that he would miss Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, FOX One, HBO Max) after a vertigo diagnosis.

RELATED: Weekend TV info, schedule | Bowman out for Phoenix

Insert Alfredo, who has carved out a journeyman’s career as an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regular with 43 Cup Series starts on his resume with lesser-funded teams. He’s also established a level of trust with the Rick Hendrick-owned organization, which has relied on him for extensive work with the racing simulator – especially at Phoenix, where he’s regularly helped the team prepare for Championship Weekend in years past.

Getting a call-up this weekend represents a significant step upward from Alfredo’s most recent Cup efforts, but the 26-year-old says his concern for Bowman’s well-being tempers his anticipation for a big-league break.

“It’s just weird, right? I don’t want to see anyone in the position Alex is in, so it’s hard for me to be excited,” Alfredo said. “That makes it certainly disappointing, because a lot of people are asking me how excited I am, and I’m not excited that I have to fill in for someone who’s not able to be in their own car this weekend. But it is, of course, a huge opportunity for me to go out there and do a good job and maybe turn some heads, but I don’t even feel like I have to prove anything to anybody. Honestly, I don’t think they would have picked me if they didn’t think I could do it right, so it’s not about that. I think it’s more going out there and just do what’s asked of me and doing a good job behind the wheel filling in.

“But yeah, it’s certainly exciting, a big moment for me. I think my career has been challenging as far as the on-track side of things. Working with them as a sim driver has been a privilege, and I take a lot of pride in what I do for them. It’s a lot of effort, and I sit in a dark room with no windows all day during the week, but I choose to do it because I enjoy it, and I like seeing them get better.”

Alfredo was in the Cup Series garage early Friday, wearing one of Bowman’s Ally firesuits – “That was kind of a lucky fit, I guess,” he said. The ergonomics were also a close match to Bowman’s setup, and Alfredo worked with the crew to swap over his interior equipment and fine-tune his seat positioning.

No. 48 crew chief Blake Harris said that the team already has plenty of familiarity with Alfredo, who was also on standby last year at Mexico City after Bowman experienced back pain from a heavy crash at Michigan International Speedway one week earlier. That comfort level, though, spans all four Hendrick teams.

“Approach-wise, Anthony already does a ton of sim work for our company, does that every week and has probably got, I would imagine, more sim laps than probably anybody here,” Harris told NASCAR.com. “So that’s a huge plus. He’s done lots of prep work for Phoenix in general, especially going years back for the Phoenix championship race, so feel really good about that and its correlation, and he’s as prepared as he could be for this place, I think, as anybody could. So, yeah, we’re just going to focus on going and executing a full, clean weekend all around as a team, and it gives us an opportunity to just try to go get some base hits here and march our way back forward in the points.”

Even just three races in and with the standings in flux, the points deficit that Harris references is tough to dismiss. Bowman and the No. 48 team rank 36th in the Cup Series drivers’ and owners’ standings – last among chartered teams – after crashes in the first two races (Daytona, EchoPark) and then last week’s abbreviated run at COTA. It’s that sluggish start that has the No. 48 Chevy parked in a garage stall far from the front-runners in the Cup Series paddock.

MORE: Cup Series standings 

That in mind, Alfredo’s goals are aligned with the team’s: clean execution and an emphasis on the fundamentals. The personal aspirations that come with it are secondary.

“You know, it’s not an audition. It’s more about filling in and doing a good job for this team,” Alfredo says. “So I’m focused on just executing well for them, and if something comes of it down the road, then that would be awesome. But most importantly, I have a job to do, and I’m focused on that.”

Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Friday that Bowman’s health issue had emerged “out of nowhere,” saying that his vertigo diagnosis was unrelated to concussion symptoms that forced him to miss time in seasons past. Andrews noted that the driver’s seat for the No. 48 Chevy would be awaiting his return when his condition improves, pledging the organization’s support.

That backing was also evident from the crew level last weekend at the Austin, Texas road course, where Bowman was told over the team radio to do what he thought was in his best interests, preserving his wellness above all.

“I think it’s pretty clear from the top down. The most important thing for our drivers is their health,” Harris said. “I could tell, just by the radio stuff that I got back from him and kind of watching all his inputs, that he was kind of degrading and not in a good spot. I know how his head works too, right? He’s worried about points and what that’s going to mean for everything, and as soon as I knew there was no more to be had from what we were doing, I wanted to make it clear to him that he knew he could get out of the car whenever he needed to, and we would work around that however we needed to – and we stand by that for this weekend, right? If he’s not comfortable and ready to get back in the car yet, we want him healthy whenever that is.”