The NASCAR Cup Series returns eastward to do battle at the iconic Darlington Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The race at the “Lady in Black” will be the first of two Cup contests at the 1.36-mile South Carolina track, with the second race coming in September to begin the 10-race Chase. Denny Hamlin, who recently prevailed at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, enters this weekend as the defending Darlington spring winner.
LAS VEGAS — Those watching Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway doubtless focused on the action at the front of the field.
Indeed, it was riveting to witness the slugfest between the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas and the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.
Those two flagship organizations settled the issue between them, with JGR’s Denny Hamlin winning the 61st race of his career, and Hendrick’s Chase Elliott and William Byron running second and third, respectively.
JGR’s Christopher Bell, the polesitter, and teammate Ty Gibbs were fourth and fifth.
The fight for the victory was intense and, at times, flashy — notably at the start of the second stage when Byron, Elliott and teammate Kyle Larson ganged up on Bell in a battle that ran through the tri-oval inches apart.
What was happening behind the frontrunners was nondescript and easy to overlook, given the stature of the drivers competing for the win.
Nevertheless, RFK Racing managed to make a statement of its own. Chris Buescher’s No. 17 Ford grew stronger as the race progressed, running in the top five in the final stage before finishing sixth — the only non-Gibbs or non-Hendrick entry in the top eight.
“It was just everybody on this team doing a fantastic job,” Buescher said after the race. “Good momentum. Good work all weekend long. Practice wasn’t really strong for us, but they did a great job to give me a fast hot rod for qualifying, which put us in a good spot for the race (10th).
“So just steadily worked forward. I was able to take this Smith’s/Farm Rich Ford Mustang and just keep plugging ahead, getting a couple of spots every restart, spots on pit road. It’s just everybody doing a good job. A little work to do yet, but solid first real mile-and-a-half (track). It gives us a good idea where we’re at.”
Buescher is ninth in the standings, 109 points behind series leader Tyler Reddick but only 48 points behind Bubba Wallace in second.
Team co-owner Brad Keselowski, who finished 10th on Sunday after qualifying 28th, is 12th in points, one spot ahead of RFK teammate Ryan Preece, who qualified eighth and finished 11th at Las Vegas.
The bottom line is this: in a revised championship format under which the top 16 drivers in the standings qualify for a 10-race Chase, all three RFK drivers currently occupy Chase-eligible positions.
RFK’s performance hasn’t been ostentatious or conspicuous. Collectively, the three drivers have led 22 laps in five races this season. That’s a far cry from Bell’s 225 or Hamlin’s 152.
On the other hand, Keselowski, Buescher and Preece haven’t been making terminal mistakes. Their pit crews are solid, and their cars are well-built.
What RFK lacks is elite speed, which Keselowski readily acknowledges. But that hasn’t quelled his ambitions.
“We want a breakout,” said Keselowski, who has been driving all season while recovering from a broken femur. “My goal for the year is for RFK to win five races. We need more speed to do that. I like the execution we have. I think all three teams have run really smart races. I’m really proud of them. I’m proud that our cars are not falling apart. Mechanically, they’re sound. We’ve got some great mechanics and great work going on. Our pit stops have been, across all three teams, really strong and very high-level. If we can just find some pace … We need to find and need a little bit of pace. (Team Penske’s) Ryan Blaney and the 12 car, I think, is the fastest Ford on pretty much a weekly basis, and they just have a lot of pace.
“We have everything but that. I like the moves the drivers are making. Even when I just remove myself, I like the moves that Chris and Ryan are making. I like the pit stops. I like how the cars stay together. I like the strategy. We just need pace. If we can develop a little bit of pace, we can be a very dangerous team—our company, our organization across all three teams.”
LAS VEGAS — Denny Hamlin had every reason to walk away from NASCAR Cup Series racing at the end of 2025: a crushing championship loss, personal tragedy, 20 years of dedication devoted to being an elite driver.
And still, it took just five races into 2026 for Hamlin to lead his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team back to Victory Lane for the 61st time, a milestone achieved Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway that places him alone in 10th on NASCAR’s all-time wins list. The only names ahead of him are Richard Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Jimmie Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt and Kyle Busch. He now joins Petty, Pearson, Earnhardt and Gordon as the only five drivers who have won across 20 Cup Series seasons.
“My name is not like others,” Hamlin said with a laugh.
Legacy is one thing. Another is resilience in the face of adversity — at both professional and personal levels. In the 30,000-foot view remains the heartbreak of November’s championship defeat in overtime after a dominant day at Phoenix Raceway didn’t reward him with the trophy he finally appeared destined to win. Just a month and a half later, Hamlin’s father, Dennis, died at age 75 after injuries sustained in a house fire that left Hamlin’s mother, Mary Lou, critically injured. Toss in a re-aggravated shoulder injury for Hamlin, incurred while scouring the rubble of the burnt property, and you have all the pieces to justify why the 45-year-old could have decided to step away from racing altogether.
That’s not who Denny Hamlin is. Instead, he is defined by a stubborn relentlessness that has driven him to unimaginable long-term success — first as a driver and now as a 23XI Racing co-owner.
“I think for me ultimately, I said it before, it’s a promise to (JGR owner) Joe Gibbs and that family that I’d fulfill my obligations to them,” Hamlin said. “And then the thrill of going out there and getting more wins. That to me is what drives me. It makes me work as hard as I do at this. Everyone goes through tragedies and stuff. But it doesn’t change who I am, and that’s a competitor that loves to go out there. This is my life’s work.”
Sunday’s performance at Las Vegas was the culmination of that competitive desire that propelled Hamlin to his 60th career win back in October 2025 — except this time with more authority. Leaning into a “belt-to-ass” domination on social media, Hamlin overcame a speeding penalty levied ahead of Stage 2 by carving through the field, seemingly passing cars with more ease and efficiency than anyone else and still managing to lead a race-high 134 laps en route to the win.
“When we got to fifth by the end of the second stage, I’m like, ‘OK, I’m back in it,'” Hamlin said. “I’m close enough to the front that surely those guys up front looking at the scoring pylon and have had to think, ‘Holy [expletive], he’s back already.'”
That’s a good way to summarize how folks feel about Hamlin’s return, both for Sunday’s race and for the entirety of the young 2026 campaign. Adversity — whether in the form of tragedy or competitive setbacks — never seems to keep Hamlin down for long. So despite a 31st-place finish in the Daytona 500, Hamlin has managed one win, two top fives and three top 10s in five races this year.
Oh, and as team owner of 23XI Racing, Tyler Reddick’s historic three-peat to open the campaign means Hamlin has contributed to wins in four of the first five races this season.
“Obviously, things have gone really well for me personally and the team,” Hamlin said. “To win early in the season is always a really good thing. To have my cars going out there and winning three straight to start the season, I mean, those are all big momentum builders. It certainly helps me.
“If anything, Tyler’s wins fueled me to shake the tree and, like, OK, let’s get ours now.”
Patrick Vallely | For NASCAR Digital Media
Hamlin signed a contract extension with JGR last summer that keeps him behind the wheel of the No. 11 Toyota through the 2027 campaign, which means we are witnessing the tail end of a career that will certainly propel the three-time Daytona 500 champion into the NASCAR Hall of Fame one day. At the end of that contract — which Hamlin has stated will be his last — Hamlin will be nearing age 47.
Even after just a three-month offseason, Hamlin wondered if he still had it. Few drivers have ever been this competitive for this long, let alone at this age. Few drivers are Denny Hamlin.
“It’s gratifying because I saw, like, the legendary Mount Rushmore guys, I’ve raced against them,” Hamlin said. “I think probably at least two on the Mount Rushmore, I got to race against and know how good they are. I also saw at the end of their career, when they got my age, that the performance changed, for whatever reason. I think Kevin Harvick is kind of the one that sticks out that he was still doing it at this level at this age. I don’t know when he stopped winning. Maybe 46-ish, 47-ish. I’m not really sure. That was, like, motivation to me that, OK, it’s possible. Not everyone ages the same. Not everyone’s eyesight is the same, reaction is the same at the same age. But that gave me hope that, like, I think that I can still do this.”
Unsurprisingly, that was on his mind after the checkered flag. After a congratulatory message from crew chief Chris Gayle on the cool-down lap, Hamlin simply replied: “Old dogs can hunt.”
“I’m no fool. I know my reaction’s deteriorating. There’s all kind of things that are deteriorating. Father Time is undefeated,” Hamlin said. “Three months is a long time where it’s like, ‘OK, am I still at the level that I was last year, especially to end last year?’ Today confirmed that nothing has changed, which is really good. It’s a good sign that we’re still able to do it at a really, really high level. So it’s just gratifying to me that I still, at this age, can get it done.”
Gibbs credits that ability in part to Hamlin’s work ethic. The shy kid who entered the JGR shop in the early 2000s has been winning at the Cup level since his rookie year in 2006, but he has also put in the work to maintain elite status behind the wheel.
“He’s been through a lot. Denny seems to have the ability to continue to work through things,” Gibbs said. “He has a way of just really still being very competitive. He stays in a sim, hard work, really, after it. I appreciate him so much. We’re riding Denny for about 20 years. It’s been an awful good trip for us.”
The level of effort Hamlin pours into his work waned entering this season. He admitted again Sunday that he only “locked in” for the season a couple of weeks ago as he shook off months of life-altering heartache.
“I mean, I can tell you, there are Mondays and Tuesdays where I’m, like, I’m over it,” Hamlin said. I just don’t … I don’t know whether I just want to keep doing this grind over and over. It happens after you have the failures at like Phoenix, where it’s like I spend all that time working, all that time studying, I ace the test and failed. That’s where it was, like, discouraging. Do I really want to do this again?
“So days like today … Last night I was grinding still. I was working hours and hours and hours after this practice was over to try to figure out how we could make our car better, communicating with the team on that. It feels good when you get the cookie at the end.”
What made it sweeter was having his family in attendance, with his infant son Jameson present along with Hamlin’s fiancee Jordan, their daughters Taylor and Molly, and, perhaps most importantly, his mom, Mary Lou.
“This is a family sport,” Hamlin said. “My family obviously had so much sacrifice to help me get here. Now that I’ve grown and have generations of Hamlins following me … it’s great Mom gets to see this. I know Dad’s still saying, ‘That’s my boy.’ Hell of a day.”
SOUTH BOSTON, Va. — It was six-and-a-half years ago, September 7, 2019, that Lee Pulliam last drove into Victory Lane as a driver. The victory came at South Boston Speedway on a night on which he staged a dominant performance in winning the pole and sweeping a twin-race event.
The Alton, Virginia resident has not raced at South Boston Speedway since the end of the 2019 season and would relish the experience of returning to Victory Lane at the legendary speedway.
He will get that opportunity when he returns to the legendary oval for the 100-lap Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division race that will be part of the Saturday, March 21 season-opening URW Community Federal Credit Union Race Day event.
“I couldn’t be any more excited,” Pulliam said of making his first start at South Boston Speedway as a driver since since the aforementioned September 7, 2019 event where he scored his most recent victory.
“It’s the place that started it all for me. As a kid I fell in love with short track racing at South Boston Speedway. Where the grandstand they named after me today is where I used to sit and watch races.
“All of it is surreal,” he continued. “I had so much success there over the years. It’s always great to race in front of your hometown crowd, the people from Roxboro and South Boston, and have a lot of local support.”
Lee Pulliam will race at South Boston Speedway for the first time since 2019 in the 100-lap race for the Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division that will be part of the Saturday, March 21 season-opening URW Race Day King of the Modifieds event at South Boston Speedway. (Photo Courtesy: Blake Harris)
Pulliam, a four-time NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O’Reilly Auto Parts National champion, a six-time winner of the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200, and a two-time winner of the Virginia Late Model Triple Crown, has 52 career NASCAR Late Model Stock Car Division wins at South Boston Speedway, which puts him third on the track’s all-time career wins list.
He had not driven a racecar for five years when he climbed behind the wheel for the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway last September and finished second, just inches short of edging Landon Pembelton for the win.
“We pretty much had that race won and a late caution got us,” Pulliam explained.
Pulliam drove a car out of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s stable to a second-place finish in last fall’s Thanksgiving Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park, leading all but 18 laps of the race. He also won the pole and finished second in the CARS Tour Late Model race at Southern National Motorsports Park on February 28.
What it would mean to win the season-opening 100-lap race at South Boston Speedway, Pulliam said, “would be hard to describe. It will be one heck of a celebration if we get it done. It’s been almost seven years since I’ve gone to Victory Lane. I went five years without driving anything.”
Pulliam is preparing for a lifelong dream opportunity to drive the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Martinsville Speedway on March 28. Competing in the March 21 event at South Boston Speedway is part of his preparation for the Martinsville race.
“I scheduled all of these races before my Martinsville debut just to try to get as sharp as I could before going to do something I always dreamed of in the O’Reilly Series,” Pulliam explained. “I’m going to take the South Boston race on the 21st and use it to get a rep in and be able to race in front of our hometown crowd. I want to put on a good show for everybody at South Boston, and hopefully all of our South Boston fans will come to Martinsville and support us the next weekend.”
When asked what led him to get back behind the wheel again, Pulliam said, “I never wanted to quit to start with. I was trying to take care of my family and finances. The passion of racing has never gone anywhere for me. I don’t think there is a person on pit road that loves it any more than I do. I love being behind the wheel. It’s just such an expensive sport.
Lee Pulliam, seen here earlier this year, is no stranger to South Boston Speedway. (Photo Courtesy: Blake Harris)
“Almost winning Martinsville last year and then getting a call from Dale Jr. about driving his O’Reilly’s car put all of this into motion,” continued Pulliam. “If I am going to do something I’ve always dreamed of I want to give 110 percent. The only way to give 110 percent at Martinsville Speedway is to be as sharp as I can. I feel like running these local races will help tune me back in. I went five years without running a race so it’s pretty incredible I’ve had a shot to win every race I’ve run since I came back. That’s not an easy task, especially in the races we’ve been running.”
Along with the 100-lap race for the Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division race the season-opening March 21 URW Community Federal Credit Union Race Day event will feature the Third Annual Pace-O-Matic King of the Modifieds powered by Dominion Energy race, a 125-lap race for tour-type Modifieds paying $20,000 to win. A 35-lap race for the competitors of the Southern Ground Pounders Vintage Racing Club will round out the season-opening event.
Advance tickets are priced at $20 each. Tickets at the gate on race day will be $25 each. Seniors age 65 and older, military, healthcare workers and students (with ID) can purchase tickets at the advance ticket price at the gate only on the day of the event.
The race day event schedule has grandstand gates opening at 9 a.m., practice starting at 9 a.m., Hitachi Energy Late Model Stock Car Division qualifying beginning at 11 a.m., a trackside driver autograph session starting at 11:45 a.m. and the first race of the day getting the green flag at 2 p.m.
The latest news and updates about the URW Race Day King of the Modifieds event and South Boston Speedway may be found online on South Boston Speedway’s website, www.southbostonspeedway.com, the track’s social media channels. or by calling the speedway office at 434-572-4947 or toll free at 1-877-440-1540 during regular business hours.
It’s time for a road trip! With the conclusion of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, we’re kicking off a driving trek that will see NASCAR make its way eastward, and you are welcome to join in on the drive to the next destination: Darlington Raceway.
Following Sunday’s race in Sin City, you can ride along in an official NASCAR hauler as it makes its trip from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Darlington, South Carolina, a trip spanning more than 2,200 miles.
Watch the live dash-cam feed of the open highway, big miles and a behind-the-scenes journey that keeps the NASCAR season rolling.
Visit our YouTube page for more, or simply watch the embedded video below.
LAS VEGAS – Former teammates Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez expressed their current displeasure with one another after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Chastain, driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, side-swiped Suárez on the cool-down lap following a 17th-place finish for Chastain and an 18th-place showing for Suárez. Suárez doored him back before the pair made it back to pit road.
“We got together a little bit in Corner 2, and he was mad about it,” Suárez told reporters post-race.
Upon exiting his vehicle, Suárez walked over to Chastain to discuss the on-track dispute. That conversation lasted about 30 seconds before a shove from Chastain escalated the situation.
The two were separated, but verbal exchanges continued as Chastain urged Suárez to “get out” and away from the car.
“I was having a conversation, and he was all spun out,” Suárez said. “He’s just upset or something. I mean, for some reason, our relationship has been always very weird — almost like a little bit of two-faced on his part for some reason. And today I saw actually what I thought he had in his mind for a while. But, I mean, I don’t have any hard feelings to anyone. I’m just doing my thing, having a great time. But it just sounds like he thinks that way.
“But listen, at the end of the day, it’s not my first rodeo. I have had to go through a lot to be able to get to this point. And that’s just who I am, and that’s the journey I have had to take to be able to come from a different country. So it’s just part of it.”
Chastain declined to comment after Sunday’s race.
Suárez drove for Trackhouse from 2021 through 2025 and was teammates with Chastain from 2022 until departing for Spire Motorsports this season.
LAS VEGAS — The vibrant marker on Las Vegas Blvd. that visitors flock to when they descend upon the hotbed Nevada destination was exactly the welcome Hendrick Motorsports needed this weekend as Chase Elliott and William Byron showed out with top-five finishes in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube.
A hot topic coming into the first intermediate track of the year was how the new Chevrolet body for 2026 would race on the 1.5-mile “Sin City” oval after the Hendrick stable had to grind through last weekend’s trip to Phoenix Raceway.
With speed aplenty between the Nos. 5, 9 and 24, Las Vegas offered a fabulous answer to how Hendrick would adapt to the unknown.
“I thought we were pretty good today,” Byron said. “I think the second stage, from what I remember, kind of took off a little tight and then just kind of kept working on it. The long-run speed was really good, and really, every run no matter what our balance was, our long-run speed was pretty good. There’s something there that’s kind of carried over for us from last year, so really happy with that.”
Both Byron and Elliott plateaued outside the top five in the opening stage. It may have triggered some concerns about how hard they were going to need to dig for speed and track position similar to Phoenix, but Sunday was a 180-degree turn in the race dynamic. Just one caution for cause was thrown at Las Vegas, versus the 10 from a week earlier.
With long runs and the ability to settle in amid the transitioning track conditions, Byron said he found a happy medium that propelled him to a season-best third-place run.
“Kind of all weekend, we were just a little bit perplexed on what the car needed and it seemed like when the track rubbered in, it was like ‘OK, this is a lot more familiar for us,’,” Byron said. “Kind of got in that more familiar space that we normally are here, and it’s kind of the same old players at the front, too. So, was happy with that, and feel like our team is just continuing to grow and build.”
Elliott chipped away all Sunday to methodically find his way toward the front. The 2020 Cup champion even diced it up for the lead in Stage 2 with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell and teammate Kyle Larson part of a wild three-wide sequence.
Despite not leading a lap Sunday, Elliott ultimately put himself in position to have a shot at victory, but instead, Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag with the No. 9 Chevrolet coming short by half a second.
“Obviously, bummed — couldn’t go up there and get by in there in those closing laps,” Elliott said. “I thought we were really good there towards the end of the run, and the line had gotten really tidy around the bottom. I figured I was gonna have to move up at some point and was just kind of trying to time that up. Unfortunately, just never got all the way there those last couple laps.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
Elliott’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, had glowing reviews for the Chevy body after Las Vegas, guiding the No. 9 team to its third top 10 in the first five races of the season, despite a lowly 23rd-place effort last weekend.
“Referencing body specifically, I’m excited about the car,” Gustafson told NASCAR.com. “I thought it obviously performed really good here. Really good hopes to start the season. We’d like to have been one position further, but you can just do the best you can, right? And the 11 was a little bit better today.”
Gustafson noted that the No. 9 had the balance right for most of Sunday’s 400-miler and that they could really find their footing in a free-flowing competition rather than the stop-and-start of Phoenix that resembled driving through “The Strip” just 15 miles from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“Phoenix for us, we missed the mark so bad,” Gustafson said. “It was like an all-hands-on-deck day. It wasn’t what I would call normal. Today, this was really the first normal race of the season, right? You’re at an intermediate track, and it’s about executing. So it was fun to do it. I told the guys before the race, I just wanted to get a nice, mistake-free effort in the books and see where we stack up, so I think that we did that.”
While Elliott leaves Las Vegas with “mixed feelings,” the start of 2026 is what the No. 9 team needs as they sit fifth in points and hold a steady 9.4 average finish as the circuit shifts to Darlington Raceway next Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“It was a good start for this new package for us,” Elliott said. “We ran a lot better today than we’ve been running in quite some time. So I just hope we can build on that, you know, and give ourselves some more opportunities down the road. It was also one day. It’s a long, long season ahead.”
LAS VEGAS — A refocused and rejuvenated Denny Hamlin drove the dominant car to victory in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The NASCAR Cup Series victory was Hamlin’s first of the season, his third overall and second straight at the 1.5-mile track and the 61st of his career, good for 10th on the all-time list.
The win came five races after Hamlin suffered a crushing 11th-hour defeat in the race for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Championship last November at Phoenix Raceway. Three laps from his first title and foiled by an ill-timed caution, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver took months to reconcile the disappointment.
“I knew it took a few weeks to feel like driving,” Hamlin said. “Over the last couple weeks, I definitely regained my love of it, got refocused. These are great opportunities for us.”
His 61st victory broke a tie on the career list with Kevin Harvick.
“My name stands out amongst … there’s the legends of the sport,” said the 45-year-old Hamlin. “I feel very fortunate to be on the list. Those guys were far more talented than I have ever thought about being.
“I just work really hard. I still, to this day, work really hard at my craft to try to continue to get better. Days like today certainly make me feel happy about where I’m at in the sport still and what I can still do.”
Brushing off a pit-road speeding penalty at the first stage break, Hamlin rallied to lead a race-high 134 laps and held off the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Chase Elliott and William Byron, who ran second and third, respectively.
Polesitter Christopher Bell — who won Stage 1 — was fourth, followed by Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson, who led 62 laps and finished second in Stages 1 and 2.
Chase Briscoe ran eighth, also overcoming a speeding penalty, as did Gibbs, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate. Bubba Wallace came home ninth and Brad Keselowski 10th.
Tyler Reddick, winner of the first three races this season, faded to 13th in the final run but maintained his series lead by 61 points over Wallace, his 23XI Racing teammate, and 67 over third-place Ryan Blaney.
With Hamlin relegated to the rear after his speeding penalty, the start of the second stage was a thrill show, with the cars of Larson, Bell, Byron and Elliott packed together like the United States Air Force Thunderbirds flying in formation.
The four drivers, soon joined by Reddick, jockeyed for position for three laps before Byron pushed Larson into the lead on Lap 93, with Bell soon following into second.
Larson led 28 laps before steering his car to pit road on Lap 121. When the pit cycle ended, Larson led Bell by nearly three seconds but began to fade toward the end of the stage. Both Bell and Byron tracked Larson down, with Byron seizing a chance to take the lead three-wide in the tri-oval on Lap 159.
Byron pulled away to win Stage 2, with Larson and Bell finishing second and third under the green/checkered flag on Lap 165.
Meanwhile, Hamlin spent the entirety of Stage 2 recovering from the pit-road speeding penalty he incurred under caution during the Stage 1 break on Lap 84. Restarting 21st on Lap 89, Hamlin methodically worked his way forward and was fifth when the second stage ended.
Hamlin moved to second behind Byron after the final-stage restart on Lap 174, grabbed the lead to the inside of the Hendrick driver on Lap 185 and began to pull away.
But Hamlin’s lead was short-lived. On Lap 211, Byron pulled ahead in Turn 3 moments before Connor Zilisch spun off Turn 4 to cause the first and only caution of the race for an on-track incident.
Under the yellow, Bell regained two positions and the lead with a quick stop, with Hamlin exiting pit road in second and Byron and Elliott following in third and fourth. A slow pit stop relegated Larson to eighth for the Lap 218 restart.
One lap later, Hamlin passed his JGR teammate for the lead and held it the rest of the way, holding off a fast-closing Elliott by 0.502 seconds at the finish.
“It (the No. 9 Chevrolet) was definitely better there towards the end than we had started the run,” said Elliott, who hasn’t led a lap at Las Vegas since NASCAR introduced the Gen 7 race car in 2022. “I thought there might be an opportunity. I knew that he was starting to get tight there at the end of runs. Yeah, man, as bummed as I am to come up that close to a win, I have to kind of bring myself back to a reality check, how much better we ran today than we’ve been running. I’m balancing that, right?
“Obviously, these things are hard to win. We had a great opportunity to do it. But really proud of the effort throughout the week, preparation, yesterday. Just kind of fighting through a not-so-good day. Getting up there in the mix with the guys that win a lot of these races anymore. Really proud of that.”
Justin Allgaier, substituting for Alex Bowman — who is suffering from vertigo — finished 25th.
With long green-flag runs being the order of the day, only of the 20 of the 36 starters finished on the lead lap.
There were 21 lead changes among nine drivers and three cautions for 20 laps.
The Cup Series returns eastward for a date at the iconic Darlington Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Hamlin as the Las Vegas winner. The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.
This weekend, as a nod to the Class of 2026 Hall of Fame inductee, the No. 45 team is featuring the same Jordan Brand elephant-print paint scheme it donned when Busch wheeled it to Victory Lane at Kansas Speedway in May 2022 in the 34th and final victory of his illustrious NASCAR Cup Series career.
Tyler Reddick is driving that car now — one which opened the 2026 season with a never-before-seen three-peat across the Daytona 500, EchoPark Speedway and Circuit of The Americas. But much of today’s No. 45 team remains intact from its 2022 inception, when Busch joined the 23XI Racing program in its infancy as its second full-time driver in the organization’s second season.
“I mean, he kind of set the table for me, really,” Reddick said Saturday at the track. “He was a part of that process of putting together the 45 team. Obviously, there’s been a couple changes over the years, but he played a huge role in where this team started out, and I jumped into it in a really good place. And he’s just continued to stay involved to offer up anything and everything. Over the years, as I’ve learned more, our relationship has certainly changed a little bit. But it is always still great to be able to talk to Kurt because the amount of insight and knowledge he has from the years, just the massive amount of experience he has, it’s always good to lean on.”
Today’s team still includes crew chief Billy Scott, who first worked as Busch’s crew chief at Stewart-Haas Racing in 2018 and rekindled their relationship at 23XI in 2022. Though Busch has been out of the driver’s seat since the summer of 2022, the impact he’s made on the blossoming company lingers through Scott’s team today.
“It’s just everything that we desire as a team — just the winning, the competitiveness — that was Kurt through and through,” Scott told NASCAR.com. “That’s Tyler. That’s the way Bubba is now. It’s just, that’s the way our nature is. And you know, even last week (at Phoenix), you’ve got to lose eventually. We were happy for those guys (on the No. 12 team). They earned it, for sure. We got beat. But it’s still disappointing. And it still leaves you hungry coming back, ready to get back to Victory Lane.”
When team co-owner and Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin sought a new driver to join 23XI as Bubba Wallace’s teammate, Busch’s name came highly recommended. The production in the short 20 races they had together arguably surpassed expectations, collecting one win, five top fives and eight top 10s while leading 182 laps that season, nearly matching his entire output from the previous season. The people who helped make his No. 45 Toyota competitive were there largely because of its driver.
Patrick Vallely | For NASCAR Digital Media
“I think (he) was very instrumental in getting quality people to come to work here,” Scott said. “They had a really good basis. But when you’re trying to add on that much at that time period, it was very important to have a Hall-of-Fame driver in the lineup to be able to get people to come over and start a team from scratch because the company was very small at the time. But then his impact as part of the team is being — I think — Denny found this out when he was researching who to get — that he is one of the best teammates you could ever ask.
“Everybody that’s ever worked with him has found value in him being there because he does care about everybody. He is one of the most genuinely good people that you’ll ever meet, and just building the team camaraderie of totally embracing their culture that they wanted to have, where everybody works together, everybody helps each other out, he is kind of the definition of that. So, yeah, I think his impact will forever be felt, and everybody still leans on him. And he’s still around, right? He still has advice now and then, and he’s still one of our biggest cheerleaders. So being able to just pay tribute to him with his car is special in itself.”
Busch’s reach expanded outside the No. 45 team, even within Airspeed, 23XI Racing’s shop.
The 2004 Cup Series champion became the first teammate Wallace ever had at the Cup level. That bond proved fruitful almost immediately — and lasts today.
“Kurt has always believed in me,” Wallace told NASCAR.com. “He’s always a phone call or a text away anytime I need him, and that made for a remarkable first teammate. It’s nice to see where he is now and to still have him a part of the team. He’s a true Hall of Famer.”
Of the 182 laps Busch led with 23XI, 116 came at Kansas, where he delivered Jordan Brand its first Cup Series victory. Scott, of course, was the crew chief that day, too. To see that car back on track — and qualifying seventh for Sunday’s race (4 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — is a feeling Scott will cherish all over again. The first thing he thinks of? The celebration.
“Seeing the satisfaction on his face and knowing that he gave Michael his first win with the Jordan Brand car, and the first one for the 45, just, you don’t know when that’s coming. None of us do,” Scott said. “And to start the new team with, again, how small the company was as a whole, you knew they had a win with Bubba the year before so, knew it was possible. We were optimistic. But to see it probably come to fruition and have that victory and watch him celebrate for that, that made it all worthwhile.”
Now, he’s busy influencing how 23XI’s racers may strive to remain involved once they’re out of the cars themselves.
“Now that he is not the driver, he still wants to see the team do very, very well,” Reddick said. “That’s just the kind of guy that he is. Who knows, maybe years down the road, when I’m in a similar spot, I could see myself being in the same position, where the team that you’ve worked together with and put together, you still care once you’ve transitioned to a different role, you still care for how they perform and do.”
LAS VEGAS — A third-place performance for Sheldon Creed in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway didn’t come without a gamble.
It was a gamble that resulted in the misfortune of his competitors as the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet made contact with Taylor Gray on Lap 148. The incident put the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota into the wall, ending Gray’s day.
Creed came over the radio shortly after. His words: “Man, that was my fault, but you can only block a guy so many times.” He took further accountability for the incident after the race — noting that Gray was looking to make a pass on then-leader Corey Day into Turn 3.
“Normally, I’ll kind of eat a couple blocks, but I just watched the replay, and I was just unaware that he was that close to the 17,” Creed said. “I thought he was kind of coming down to block me, and really, he was trying to poke inside the 17. So that’s totally my fault. When he came down, my plan was to just try to roll in there with him and pack some air on him because I let him get away with the first couple (of blocks). Still had a lot of laps left there. Yeah, I just ran into the back of him. That was totally on me. That was bad.”
Gray described the incident as ‘self-explanatory’ and admitted to playing defense on the No. 00 before the contact.
“I blocked him down the backstretch. It definitely didn’t warrant me getting wrecked, but it is what it is,” Gray said. “He knew what he was doing, right? He’s ran these cars long enough, and he’s been in the series long enough. He had the mentality to go into (Turn) 3 and wreck me. Obviously, he was pretty good at doing that.”
It’s not the first time Gray has been on the short end of contact. Last year, he was caught up in a humdinger ending to the Martinsville spring race, where Sammy Smith rammed the back of the No. 54 to spin Gray in the final set of corners to cause a heated exchange between the two by the infield care center.
But even amid a blistering spring prelude in the Nevada desert, tempers were cool, and no consultation occurred between Gray and Creed.
