The Cup Series and Craftsman Truck Series will be in action at North Wilkesboro Speedway this weekend, highlighted by the first points-paying Cup Series race at the historic track in the North Carolina foothills since 1996. Bookmark this page for everything you need throughout race weekend, including qualifying orders, practice speeds, race results and more.
Race day: Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on TNT Sports. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Ten sets for the weekend (eight new sets for the race, one set for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and one set for practice). Teams will also have 4 wet-weather sets available, if needed.
Race day: Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Five sets for the weekend (three new sets for the race, one set for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and one set for practice). Teams will also have 3 wet-weather sets available, if needed.
Polesitter Ryan Blaney will drop to the rear at the start of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The No. 12 Team Penske driver told TNT Sports that the team needed to fix a power steering issue, which falls under the unapproved adjustments guidelines.
A NASCAR spokesperson later confirmed that Blaney will drop to the rear before the Window World 450 — the first points-paying Cup race at North Wilkesboro since 1996.
Blaney enters the Window World 450 third in points, just 65 points back of Denny Hamlin for the No. 1 seed in The Chase. Ross Chastain will also start Sunday’s race from the rear after his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet failed pre-race inspection three times on Saturday, also resulting in the ejection of car chief David Fero and necessitating a pass-through penalty after the green flag.
NORTH WOODSTOCK, N.H. – Prior to Sunday afternoon, luck had never been on the side of Patrick Emerling at White Mountain Motorsports Park.
The current points leader’s best finish across those three events was 15th, which he accomplished twice during the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour’s visits to White Mountain in 2020. Emerling’s attempt to improve upon his White Mountain average last year ended 17 laps from the finish due to a mechanical failure.
Emerling finally shook off the White Mountain misfortune and kept his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour points lead intact with his second straight victory of the 2026 campaign. After securing the pole via the redraw, Emerling trusted the raw speed of his No.1 USNE Motorsports Modified to guide him to Victory Lane
“We’re super lucky for some reason drawing those 1’s,” said Emerling, who has redrawn the pole in each of the last two races. “Some other guys were really good right at the beginning, but I knew we were going to have the best long run car. We unloaded similar to what we did last year. We were really fast, but we had a parts failure that ended our day, so we were pretty hungry for this one.”
Even though Emerling ended Sunday on top, it initially appeared bad luck would once again spoil another White Mountain outing for him.
On Lap 46, the air cleaner fell off Emerling’s car after a stud broke on the carburetor. Rather than let the adversity deter them, Emerling and his team used the opportunity to put on a fresh set of tires while repairing the air cleaner.
The decision came at the expense of Emerling’s track position, but he held out hope another caution would bring most of his competitors into the pits for tires themselves. Emerling got his wish when Trevor Catalano suffered a mechanical failure with 83 laps remaining, cycling him to the front row for the restart after nearly everyone ahead of him pitted.
Once Emerling took the lead from rookie Paulie Hartwig III, he faced no significant opposition from either the field or White Mountain itself. By overcoming the early obstacle, Emerling earned his 11th career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory and further established himself as a title favorite.
Following Emerling across the finish line in second was Austin Beers, who controlled the Thunder in the Mountains 200 during the middle portion until the Catalano caution brought most of the field to pit road. White Mountain was a much-needed jolt for Beers, as he had not led a race since the season-opener at New Smyrna Speedway.
“I feel like with a late caution, we would have won,” Beers said. “We’re getting better and better every race. This is one that got away from us. We lost too much time with [Kopcik] when we had that little scuffle in [turns] three and four. It took 20 laps to get back going and get those guys back. What are you going to do?
“It was our best finish of the year, but we’re still disappointed for sure.”
With the top four in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour standings only separated by 10 points entering White Mountain, every position matters going forward. Emerling knew he needed to find his way back to the front following the broken air cleaner or risk finding himself in a deficit that was simultaneously big and small.
Patrick Emerling bolstered his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour points lead with his second consecutive victory of 2026. (Photo: Chris Dehney/NASCAR Regional)
From a statistical perspective, White Mountain could have very easily tripped up Emerling again. The last thing Emerling wanted was a misstep after a slow start by his standards, but he controlled his own destiny at White Mountain to overcome his past misfortune.
“At the beginning of the season, we kind of had a little bit of a tough stretch where we weren’t running that bad but weren’t running how we wanted to,” Emerling said. “We just knew we needed to get into our groove and do our thing.
“This year is so competitive, you need to get into your groove and get confident to pull these things off.”
Hartwig followed up a strong top five outing at Claremont Motorsports Park with a career-best NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour finish in third. Tyler Rypkema placed fourth in Ole Blue, with Matt Hirschman rounding out the top five.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be back on the track next weekend for the Duel at the Dog 200 powered by USNE at Monadnock Speedway; the third and final leg of the Whelen Midsummer Championship. The green flag is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday evening and the race will air live on FloRacing.
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Nearly one week after a final-lap penalty that cost him dearly at EchoPark Speedway, Bubba Wallace arrived at North Wilkesboro Speedway with a measure of acceptance and a mind to move on. “Imean,youkindofhaveto,right?” Wallace said.
Wallace’s wild swerve with half a lap remaining in last week’s NASCAR Cup Series showdown carried his No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota below the 1.5-mile track’s out-of-bounds markings. He crossed the start/finish line in second place with Toyota teammate Ty Gibbs pushing him to the stripe, but NASCAR officials issued a penalty after the checkered flag that demoted him to 29th — the final driver on the lead lap.
Wallace and members of his 23XI team met in the competition officials’ hauler in Monday morning’s wee hours after the rain-delayed 400-miler. The penalty stood, but Wallace said on the eve of Sunday’s Window World 450 at North Wilkesboro (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) that he had a better grasp of what factored into the ruling.
“Imean,itiswhatitis,” Wallace said Saturday before Cup Series practice. “Wegotabetterunderstandingoftherule.Tome,Ialwaysthoughtitwaslikegainingposition,butno,it’sgainingtrackposition,whichItotallydid.So, itiswhatitis.IthoughttheywouldcareaboutthedatathatItriedtogive(the position)back,butthe damagewasalreadydone.So,unfortunate and hereweare.”
The decision was further explained in the latest edition of NASCAR’s “Hauler Talk” podcast, which noted Wallace’s No. 23 briefly nosed into the lead after his maneuver to the low lane. Trying to cede the position later, officials ruled, was immaterial.
The rule exists on superspeedway-style tracks (Daytona, Talladega, EchoPark) to keep the racing on the primary racing surface, aiming to avoid the perils of using the apron and barring drivers from creating dangerous merging situations to get back in line.
“I’veneverreallybeenkindofinthatscenario,” Wallace said. “I’vehadacouple of closecalls,butIwillsaylike,asImadethemoveand I’d seenwhereIwasgoingtoendup,Iknewitwasgoingtoputeverybodyinabadspot,andthatwasunfortunate.Idon’tknow.Imean,attheendoftheday,ifthe54(Gibbs)didn’tpushmeattheline,Iwouldhavefinishedthird,andI’mprettysuretheysaidthatwouldn’thavebeenapenalty.Soit’slike …Idon’tknow.IthinkNASCARdoesn’teverwanttobeputintoasituationwheretheyhavetomakethecall,andtheyalwaystellustonotputtheminthatsituation, andunfortunately,Iputthemthere.Soallinall, a rule’sarule.Crossovertheline, oh well.”
The 27-spot penalty in last week’s finishing order corresponded to a 27-point dent in the Cup Series standings with six races left in the regular season. Wallace sits 13th in the standings, 55 points on the plus side of the provisional 16-driver Chase field.
Wallace has been accustomed to weathering the pressures of the postseason bubble at points of his career, but he also expressed optimism in both his team’s performance and for the tracks remaining on the regular-season slate — including next week’s trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he’ll race as the defending Brickyard 400 winner.
It’s the first points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway since 1996, and Sunday’s Window World 450 under the lights (7 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is bound to deliver some old-school, short-track flair.
With that in mind, expect the big dogs to be feasting on points and the checkered flag Sunday, particularly Christopher Bell, as the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver won the All-Star Race last year at the 0.625-mile bullring in the North Carolina Foothills and is still seeking victory No. 1 in 2026. Kyle Larson, also seeking his maiden breakthrough of the year, will certainly be a factor Sunday night.
North Wilkesboro will be a home-run opportunity for the sport’s best, but drivers who sit just below the cutline could strike gold and finally get some momentum as the regular season winds down. Read on to see other drivers worth watching, as well as Racing Insights’ full race projections for Sunday’s short-track marathon.
DRIVERS TO WATCH
JOEY LOGANO: Quite unprecedented to see a three-time champion outside the postseason picture late in the regular season. But North Wilkesboro may be exactly what Logano needs to turn his 2026 campaign around. He was the All-Star winner at the track in 2024 and has finished inside the top 10 in the last six short-track events. Logano enters Sunday’s race eight points behind Erik Jones for the final spot in The Chase.
RYAN PREECE: Just below Logano in the Cup standings is the driver of the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford. The journeyman has had a forgettable summer so far after being inside the top 16 in points early on in the season. However, North Wilkesboro will play into Preece’s favor as a short-track ace. He won the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in February and owns three top 10s in the last six short-track races.
TY GIBBS: What a season it has been for the fourth-year driver. The No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver sits fourth in points and isn’t fully out of the picture yet for the No. 1 seed. While he sits 126 points back of teammate Denny Hamlin, Gibbs is just quietly being consistent after scoring his first career victory at Bristol Motor Speedway in the spring. Gibbs owns top 10s in four of the last five events and finished fourth at Martinsville Speedway earlier this year on top of his Bristol win.
Track: North Wilkesboro Speedway Location: North Wilkesboro, North Carolina Track length: 0.625 miles When: 7 p.m. ET Where to tune in: TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,233,037 Race distance: 450 laps | 281.25 miles Segments: 80 | 265 | 450 Sunday’s starting lineup| Pit-stall assignments
Turning back the clock for a historic track’s next milestone
NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — It was 30 years ago that North Wilkesboro Speedway last hosted a points-paying event for NASCAR’s top division. How times have changed in the 10,885 days since.
Sunday night’s Window World 450 marks another step in the remarkable revival of the historic foothills oval, which hosts a by-God points race at a cornerstone track in stock-car racing’s foundation. It’s a crucial one, the semifinals of a lucrative In-Season Challenge tournament, plus another progress checkpoint before the Cup Series winds down the regular season to decide who races for a championship and who doesn’t. It’s also a reminder of the sport’s evolution and how the old-school formula that’s been here since NASCAR’s earliest days still works.
When the series, then known as the Winston Cup Series, last raced a full-fledged event here in 1996, there were no tournaments (in-season or otherwise), overtimes, playoffs, eliminations or Chase postseasons. The two drivers named Chase in Sunday’s field — Briscoe and Elliott — had blown out one birthday candle between them at that point, and two more current-day drivers — Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones — would be just months old then. All four would become Cup Series winners, nearly a generation-plus after North Wilkesboro’s supposedly final checkered flag flew.
Jeff Gordon was the no-surprise victor that seasonable September afternoon, leading 207 of 400 laps to score the last of his 10 wins in a meteoric breakout season. Thirty years later, he’s still with Hendrick Motorsports but as a senior executive in the team’s front office. Three generations of Cup Series cars have also passed in the three-decade interim since Gordon’s dominant Wilkes County drive, with the more advanced Next Gen racer replacing the Gen-4 model that made mid-’90s crew chiefs the sultans of skew.
Drivers have always had to watch their bumpers here, dating back to the days when Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Bobby Allison weaponized their cars like lancers trying to knock their opponents off their mounts. This weekend, NASCAR rules have mandated a less-rigid front bumper configuration, decreasing some of the energy-sapping foam and bracing to keep drivers from absorbing some of the hard knocks that come with short-track contact. The car may pay the penalty, instead.
“There’s nothing behind that bumper. I mean, all the foam is gone,” said pole-starter Ryan Blaney. “It’s just bodywork, so they’re gonna be pretty flimsy, for sure. I was fortunate in the previous generation car that that was what it was. You had to be really, really careful with the nose and the right side and stuff like that, so I feel like I have some experience [with how] you have to really be mindful of that stuff. Some guys, I think, who have only driven this car, they didn’t get to experience that in the other car, but that stuff is gonna be flimsy, so you’re really gonna have to be careful on stack-ups, laying the bumper to somebody.”
The on-track jockeying that’s sure to come Sunday night will have some big-picture corollaries in the points standings with just six races remaining in the Cup Series regular season. The heavyweight clash for The Chase’s top seed has already been a slugfest, and Denny Hamlin’s snug 24-point edge over early leader Tyler Reddick has the potential to be a back-and-forth affair — with recent riser Ryan Blaney possibly making it a three-driver fight.
The half-dozen races before the 16-driver Chase field is set should also be hotly contested near the postseason’s elimination line. Jones has a less-than-commanding grip on the provisional final spot, by just eight points over three-time Cup champion Joey Logano, with five more drivers within just a 50-point span behind that transfer position.
In the later years of its first era, North Wilkesboro traditionally held a late September date near the season finale. That placement on the racing calendar often made the 0.625-mile bullring a pivotal venue, where championship races could often hinge on the outcome.
The results didn’t matter in terms of Cup Series points the last three years, when North Wilkesboro hosted the annual NASCAR All-Star Race as part of the facility’s resurrection. But the atmosphere was the most electric of all the All-Star venues since the race went into a rotation mode post-COVID, feeding the prevailing thought that the historic track was deserving of a points event. A grandstand sellout, announced by the track Saturday afternoon, bears that out.
Two of the few things missing from fully reviving the North Wilkesboro tradition are a 1 p.m. start time and the lovingly prepared fried chicken that made up the track’s proper Sunday lunch. In later years, the locally favored Holly Farms poultry brand had been absorbed by corporate overlord Tyson, but it never stopped the customary meal from finding race-day plates, frizzled to a succulent golden brown.
The Sunday table is once again set for a pure throwback to the sport’s roots. Enjoy the feast.
“A full field for a full-length Cup race at North Wilkesboro? Come on!” Christopher Bell, last year’s All-Star winner here, told PRN Radio. “It’s gonna be a wild race, I think it’s going to be a great race. I’ve been excited about this one for a long time.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
In the details …
Despite a fractured wrist, Christopher Bell has regained his peak form with three consecutive top-five results, including back-to-back runner-up results at Chicagoland Speedway and EchoPark Speedway.
The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver now owns five second-place finishes this season, joining a list of elite drivers who have been a bridesmaid many times in a single season. Can Bell finally break through for his first 2026 triumph at a track where he’s the most recent winner?
DRIVER
SEASON
SECOND-PLACE FINISHES
Harry Gant
1981
7
Terry Labonte
1982
6
Kyle Larson
2018
6
Glen Wood
1959
5
Richard Petty
1982
5
Kasey Kahne
2004
5
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2013
5
Chase Elliott
2017
5
Christopher Bell
2026
5
Contributing: Cameron Richardson
Speed reads
Race-day essentials:
• North Wilkesboro hub: Key information, pit stalls, additional results | Read more • Sunday Setup: See what crew chiefs have in mind for Sunday night | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Bracket, format, schedule and more for Round 4 | Read more
• Analysis: How Blaney forced his way into Hamlin-Reddick title fight | Read more • Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh looks for Sunday’s 450-lapper under the lights | View gallery • Hauler Talk: NASCAR on reasoning behind penalizing Wallace for line violation | Listen now • NASCAR Classics: Reminisce with full-race replays from North Wilkesboro | Watch now
• Power Rankings: Hocevar backs up talk, shines, surges in EchoPark spotlight | This week’s ranks
Inclement weather at North Wilkesboro Speedway forced the cancelation of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying Saturday, with a delayed 50-minute practice session taking place instead. The starting lineup for the first points-paying Cup Series race at the track since 1996 was set according to the NASCAR Rule Book. The Window World 450 is scheduled for a 7 p.m. ET start Sunday night (TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Ryan Blaney is set to lead the field to green in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford at the 0.625-mile North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, facility. Ty Gibbs will start alongside Blaney on the front row.
Ross Chastain is listed 13th in the starting lineup but must drop to the rear before the start and serve a pass-through penalty after taking the green flag following three failed pre-race inspection attempts.
