Corey LaJoie will drive the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Ram for the rest of the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, Kaulig Racing announced Tuesday.
Daniel Dye began the campaign for the No. 10 team but was suspended on March 17 by both the team and NASCAR for insensitive comments made during a recent live stream about NTT IndyCar Series driver David Malukas.
NASCAR announced Tuesday that Dye had completed his sensitivity training and had been reinstated. While Dye is permitted to return to competition, LaJoie will take over driving duties for the No. 10 truck for the duration of the season.
In a statement, Dye said he is stepping away from Kaulig Racing as he seeks to make his return to the sport.
“I’m incredibly thankful for my time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and for the chance to compete with Kaulig Racing alongside some of the most passionate fans in motorsports. At this time, I am stepping away from that role.
“NASCAR has played a meaningful role in my development, and I don’t take that opportunity lightly.
“After a lot of honest self-reflection and guidance from mentors I trust, I’ve decided the smartest move for my career is to realign my focus on my long-term objective of becoming a successful driver at the highest level of stock car racing.
“Now that I’m reinstated, I’m optimistic about what the future holds and look forward to working hard at my next opportunity.
This sport and its fans mean everything to me, and I can’t wait to get back to it focused on the real goal more than ever.”
“Kaulig Racing has accepted Daniel Dye’s resignation,” Kaulig Racing said. “And we wish him great success in the pursuit of his personal and professional goals.”
LaJoie has made two Truck Series starts this season, including one at Darlington Raceway for Kaulig Racing, in which he finished 21st. In all, LaJoie has three top fives and eight top 10s in 16 series starts.
LaJoie, the son of two-time NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Randy LaJoie, competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2019 through 2024 and has a total of 276 starts, most recently attempting to qualify for the 2026 Daytona 500 with RFK Racing.
“The last couple months I’ve missed the grind of working towards a goal of success on track,” LaJoie said in a Kaulig press release. “There’s certainly a lot of work ahead of us getting our Ram trucks to a place where we compete for wins, but with the people in the Kaulig Racing building, I believe we will get there.
“I really appreciate the confidence Kaulig Racing and Ram have in me. I have been a part of building a couple teams from the ground up and getting success and I will bring that experience to help Kaulig get to their potential on a quicker path. I love what Kaulig and Ram are doing to promote the Truck series and the sport. It will be a fun challenge to be a part of.”
LaJoie will take over the No. 10 Ram at Rockingham Speedway in Friday’s Black’s Tire 200 (4:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). LaJoie was scheduled to compete for Kaulig in its No. 25 truck; Ty Dillon will pilot the No. 25 entry instead, making his second Truck Series start of 2026.
Dye competed full-time in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2023 and 2024 before advancing to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2025, where he collected eight top 10s. In his three races with Kaulig in the Truck Series this year, Dye finished a season-best 13th at EchoPark Speedway with a pair of 17th-place results at Daytona International Speedway and the St. Petersburg street course.
Competition officials also announced an indefinite suspension for Peter Ensor for violation of the NASCAR Substance Abuse Policy. Ensor was last listed on Cup Series team rosters as an engineer for Rick Ware Racing’s No. 51 team.
Goodyear officials revealed Tuesday that the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will run the same tire setups from last year’s triumphant return to action at the 0.94-mile Rockingham Speedway.
While Rockingham has a history of being abrasive on tires, a recent repave brought fast speed and high-paced action for both series. This weekend will provide a change of pace for Truck Series and O’Reilly Series drivers after navigating the daunting Darlington Raceway and the close quarters of Martinsville Speedway.
This tire setup was also used two weeks ago at Darlington and last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“Teams can lean on their data from last year’s race at Rockingham to fine-tune their strategies for this weekend,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “Like Darlington and Homestead, Rockingham is traditionally known for being abrasive and wearing tires rapidly, but with relatively new asphalt after a repave in 2022, Rockingham is unique among the three traditionally alike tracks. As the asphalt continues to age, Rockingham will continue to fall in line performance-wise to its traditional self.”
Both series will be allotted five sets of Goodyear tires for the weekend: three for the race, one qualifying set transferred to the race and one set for practice.
The Craftsman Truck Series race is set for Friday at 4:30 p.m. ET (FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), while the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series closes the weekend on Saturday (2:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Chase Elliott’s win at Martinsville Speedway and before next Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Kyle Larson enters as the defending winner.
Analysis: Martinsville went about as well as possible for Reddick while he fine-tunes his short-track regimen, hanging around the top 10 all afternoon and scoring points in both stages before fading slightly at the end. He’ll get another shot to work on his short-track muscle when racing resumes after the off weekend — Reddick has just one career top 10 at Bristol (2020), and just seven total laps led.
Analysis: Some races are just going to end the way Sunday’s ended, but even though Hamlin didn’t walk away with the trophy, he did score the most points. Plus, the clear takeaway from the afternoon was that there may not be a more dominant team in 2026 than the No. 11 Toyota — Reddick’s No. 45 included. Hamlin will very likely take No. 1 in these rankings in short order for the first fresh face up top since Daytona, especially as the man to beat at Bristol of late. | MORE: Hamlin’s dominant day fades to runner-up at Martinsville: ‘We just got beat’
Analysis: Another strong race car, but late contact with Denny Hamlin squandered any chance of making it to Victory Lane, though he still recovered to finish sixth. While Blaney has yet to win at Bristol, he’s gotten considerably better there over his career and his more recent finishes are much more notable than his 17.1 overall average finish at the Tennessee short track.
Analysis: The Chase is on in 2026, in more ways than one. Elliott appears dialed in so far this year and fully capable of maximizing this championship format, and it’s not out of the equation that he finds himself on top when the field of title contenders is reduced come Chase time. Like Blaney, it’s a surprise Elliott hasn’t won any of his 17 Bristol starts, as he has an even better 12.8 average finish — but two in a row coming off Martinsville is on the table.
Analysis: A slow pit stop nearly derailed Byron’s afternoon, but he recovered to finish in the top five by the end in a nice show of resilience for the No. 24 team. Like his Hendrick teammate above him (but certainly not the one below him), Byron hasn’t mastered Bristol yet, but does have a handful of really nice runs the past few years there. For now, though, he should concentrate on checking off this box first — nailing down his first lap led at the “Last Great Colosseum.”
Analysis: Larson had a somewhat eventful but at the same time altogether kind of nondescript day at Martinsville, notably trading paint with dirt rival Christopher Bell but ultimately hanging in that sixth-to-15th range and just landing ninth. He and Hamlin are the alpha dogs at Bristol for about the past decade, though, and as the winner of two of the past three there — including nearly 900 laps led in those — we could be about to end another Hendrick drought.
Analysis: Alright, it really might be happening, folks. Gibbs just continues to show hints of what he’s capable of, and it feels like he could blast through the ceiling at any moment. Everything appears to be lining up correctly for Bristol to perhaps be the precise spot of his first NASCAR Cup Series win — not only is Gibbs rolling, but Bristol also is arguably his best track, and he led 201 laps there last fall. | MORE: Gibbs continues hot start after Martinsville: ‘Just need a little bit more’
Analysis: Kind of the same deal for Bell as Larson in terms of their afternoons, but the JGR driver wound up a couple of spots higher in the running order, with the exact same number of points. Though there have been some bright spots, it still feels like the No. 20 team is looking for its first big 2026 moment, and it very well could come once we return after the break at Bristol, where Bell owns six straight top 10s and walks in as the most recent winner at the track.
Analysis: Keselowski had a nice, methodical move through the field from a subpar starting position, doing just what he needed to stay out of trouble and focus on maximizing his day. He just continues to grind toward a long-awaited return to Victory Lane, and the wait could be about to end at Bristol, where he was runner-up just a handful of months ago and owns three career wins.
Analysis: A frustrating afternoon for Wallace, for sure, triggering a major multi-car crash out of frustration and winding up 36th as a result. He’s now gone from second in the standings to out of the top 10 remarkably fast, and it could go from bad to worse. While Wallace does have one recent top five at Bristol in the 2024 night race, it stands as one of his worst tracks, with an average finish outside the top 20 and just one other top 10 all the way back in 2020.
Analysis: Buescher had a frustrating afternoon as well, as he wasn’t running particularly well but got caught up in Wallace’s mess to ensure a finish off the lead lap. We’re only a few years removed from a Bristol win for No. 17, though, so he may not have to wait long before recovering.
Analysis: Logano finally looked like himself once again this past Sunday, as things are potentially stabilizing for the No. 22 team after a few misfires to open the season. While we know he’s capable of winning at Bristol, those trips to Victory Lane are distant, decade-plus-old memories, and five of his last six finishes there have netted results of 22nd or worse. | MORE: Logano moves up Martinsville top-10 streak list
Analysis: The season of Shane rolls on, as SVG continues to prove to every inch of the garage that he belongs in the Cup Series and deserves Chase attention. He narrowly missed out on a top 10 at Martinsville, and Bristol should present an excellent opportunity to show off how far he’s come, after his initial runs there left him self-admittedly puzzled.
Analysis: Preece had a similar day to his boss, starting 17th and steadily improving throughout the day — but only for a scant few spots to land 12th. Bristol has always been a place he could be competitive, regardless of which car he was driving, and the continued short-track strength RFK shows hints he may break through here eventually.
Analysis: Briscoe had a tough day at Martinsville that, thankfully for him, resulted in a not-too-terrible 14th, but he started 27th and it’s fair to question the inauspicious start the No. 19 team has gotten off to following a Championship 4 run a season ago. He’s a sleeper at Bristol, though, so perhaps he can rally his first laps led there last fall — all 127 of them — into a rebound race and a team-sparking win after the Easter holiday break.
Analysis: Hocevar started sixth and showed early speed, sticking around the top five for a bit before eventually being spun by Bubba Wallace in the later stages of the race. He continued on but lost crucial track position, and he’s yet to string together consecutive top 10s this year. He has shown above-average skill at Bristol in his young career so far, however, and notched his third top-11 finish in just five races there last fall.
Analysis: Just like his teammate in the No. 22 car, Cindric is starting to pick up steam after a fast, but unfruitful start. We’ll see what happens at Bristol, where most of Cindric’s six starts could be considered, well, slow and unfruitful — he’s started outside the top 20 four times and finished 20th or worse four times as well.
Analysis: So-so day for Suárez, taking the free pass earlier in the race only to later get caught up in a multicar crash and, of course, finish a lap down. Despite his litany of rides in his career, none of them have yielded anything resembling success at Bristol, where No. 7 has a 20.2 average finish and just two top 10s in 15 career starts — and three straight results of 31st or worse.
Analysis: Chastain and Co. took a gamble on late strategy that did briefly have the No. 1 car in the lead for 14 laps during the pit cycle, but he quickly faded on older tires as the race went on green. Still, there are some long-term concerns after a tepid start for this No. 1 team, especially given Chastain has yet to lead a lap at Bristol and has an average finish that’s just a hair inside the top 20 (19.5), so the tide isn’t likely to turn yet.
Analysis: If McDowell can continue to just hang around the top 20 when he needs to — like he did at Martinsville — and then maximize his days elsewhere on the certain tracks he excels at, there certainly is a legitimate Chase path for the veteran. Bristol has somewhat turned into one of those spots for him. While he’s only got a pair of top 10s in 28 starts there, four of his last 11 starts have been finishes of 11th or better.
Following last weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series heads south to North Carolina for exciting action at the 0.94-mile Rockingham Speedway on Saturday (2:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With the Cup Series having an off weekend, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will get additional time in the spotlight as the featured event Saturday afternoon at “The Rock.” Sammy Smith is the defending race winner. The contest will also serve as the qualifier race for this season’s Dash 4 Cash stretch, slated to begin on April 11 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Garrett Mitchell, also known as Cleetus McFarland, is set to make his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut, driving the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. McFarland made his debut in the Craftsman Truck Series earlier this year in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway.
After a week off, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returns to action at Rockingham Speedway on Friday (4:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The 0.94-mile North Carolina track known as “The Rock” will host the fifth race of the 2026 Craftsman Truck Series season. In the four races, four different drivers have gone to Victory Lane — Chandler Smith at Daytona International Speedway, Kyle Busch at EchoPark Speedway, Layne Riggs at St. Petersburg and Corey Heim at Darlington Raceway. Rockingham will also be the second race of this year’s Triple Truck Challenge, with one more prize race set for April 10 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
After taking the first $50,000 prize in “The Trip” at Darlington, defending series champion Heim will get an opportunity to increase his total, driving the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota. Two-time NASCAR Local Racing Series champion Connor Hall is set for his first start in the Craftsman Truck Series this year in the No. 4 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet.
Despite the Cup Series not competing this weekend, Carson Hocevar will pilot the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet at “The Rock.”
The short-track bumps and bruises were plenty apparent this weekend at Martinsville Speedway, as was crisp speed and savvy strategy. When the Virginia dust settled, Chase Elliott not only clinched his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of 2026 (and for Hendrick Motorsports entirely), but also did so at the expense of Denny Hamlin, who dominated the day and led 292 laps only to finish runner-up.
Of course, Elliott and Hamlin weren’t the only drivers who had prosperous days; plenty did. On the flip side, several drivers will look to brush off the Virginia half-miler immediately. Here’s a glance at three drivers on the upswing and three more on the downturn following Martinsville and heading into the off-week before action begins once more on April 12 at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
What happened: The difference one race makes. A 33rd-place finish at Darlington Raceway had the three-time Cup Series champion on the opposite end of this installment last week, but this time, Logano put those woes to bed with a strong showing at “The Paperclip.” The No. 22 Ford got stronger as the weekend went on, finishing Stages 1 and 2 in seventh and third, respectively, with P3 the final result when the checkered flag waved. The finish acted as the 14th-consecutive top 10 for Logano at Martinsville, tied for the third-longest streak in the track’s storied history.
What’s next: Though he has two career Cup wins there, Bristol has been tough sledding for Logano since the Next Gen era began in 2022, with five finishes outside the top 20. There is a glimmer of hope, though: The most recent race there (September 2025) resulted in fifth place.
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media
2. William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Started: 2nd
Finished: 5th
What happened: Finishing worse than where you started shouldn’t be a knock on Byron. If anything, it should emphasize just how strong the cars ahead of him were because the No. 24 wheeled it. From top-10 practice times and a front-row starting position to top-five finishes in Stages 1 and 2, the No. 24 Chevrolet was in the mix from start to finish. Byron’s 47 Martinsville points accumulated ranked fourth overall, and his seven top fives at the track are his most at any facility.
What’s next: Though he has excelled at Martinsville, Bristol has been a different beast for Byron in his Cup career. The 28-year-old North Carolina native has two top fives and five top 10s with zero laps led and a 16.1 average finish at the track. Byron and the No. 24 camp will have work to do should the team wish to leave a winning mark at “The Last Great Colosseum” for the first time.
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media
3. Shane van Gisbergen, No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Started: 5th
Finished: 11th
What happened: Road-course ringers have had a knack for Martinsville success, and for one still learning the oval ropes, the 36-year-old Kiwi had a respectable showing. Though his practice time ranked 34th, that proved to be the outlier. Van Gisbergen started inside the top five to begin the 400-lapper and maintained track position, finishing Stages 1 and 2 in sixth and eighth, respectively. Though he finished outside the top 10, the growth on these tracks is very noticeable, and that should only make van Gisbergen that much more of a threat in due time.
What’s next: Speaking of growth, it will be put to the test at Bristol. Van Gisbergen’s first Cup exposure there came during his 2025 rookie campaign, with him finishing outside the top 25 on both occasions. During the spring race, van Gisbergen completed only 208 laps before a suspension issue resulted in a DNF. The sample size is small, surely, but more seasoning is needed.
David Jensen | Getty Images
THREE DOWN ⬇️
1. Bubba Wallace, No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota
Started: 15th
Finished: 36th
What happened: Wallace will want to wash this one. After top-20 track position through Stages 1 and 2, the No. 23 Toyota made contact with Carson Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on Lap 324. A stack-up ahead of Hocevar resulted in Wallace hitting the No. 77 again, with the damage from the contact — in addition to other cars in the vicinity — enough to send Wallace to the garage for the duration. Wallace tallied one point from the race.
What’s next: With only one top five and two top 10s in 13 Bristol Cup races, Wallace could be in for another grind of a day. That said, nearly any performance will be an improvement after Martinsville’s one-point affair. The fact Wallace has led at least one lap in three of the last four Bristol contests suggests that a rebound could come in a semi-decent fashion.
Jacob Kupferman | Getty Images
2. Zane Smith, No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford
Started: 14th
Finished: 34th
What happened: All looked swell for Smith and the No. 38 camp through the opening two stages at Martinsville, with finishes of 14th and 17th, respectively. Any chance of maintaining top-20 track position was undone, however, on Lap 324 after the No. 38 Ford was involved in a late multicar crash, resulting in damage that required a garage visit. While Smith returned to on-track action, the damage was done, finishing the race 29 laps behind the top finishers.
What’s next: In four career Cup races at “The Last Great Colosseum,” Smith has failed to finish on the lead lap in three instances, including both the 2024 and 2025 spring races, with results of 36th and 27th, respectively. Last fall’s contest, however, was a breakthrough of sorts, finishing third and leading five laps. It might not be much, but it’s definitely something to build upon for this year’s spring running.
Jacob Kupferman | Getty Images
3. AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
Started: 28th
Finished: 27th
What happened: While some road-course ringers have found success at Martinsville, Allmendinger hasn’t. That theme continued this weekend, with little speed to break free of middle-road track position. Since the Next Gen era began in 2022, Allmendinger has made seven Martinsville starts, all resulting in finishes between 23rd and 28th.
What’s next: Unfortunately for Allmendinger, Bristol hasn’t been much kinder. In 27 career Cup starts, the 44-year-old has three career top 10s with 78 laps led. He did start on the Bristol Cup pole last fall, only for a steering issue to result in a 36th-place DNF. That said, he started inside the top 10 (eighth) and finished ninth in last year’s spring race.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Ty Gibbs is off to a monster start in 2026.
Now in his fourth full-time NASCAR Cup Series season, Gibbs has rocketed to five straight finishes of sixth or better in his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. The most recent of those tallies came with a fourth-place run in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway.
The 23-year-old has had decent season starts in the past, including a four-race stretch in 2024 that totaled three top fives and four top 10s. But never has Gibbs begun a season this strong: The No. 54 car has finished fourth three times (COTA, Phoenix, Martinsville), fifth (Las Vegas) and sixth (Darlington) all in the past five weeks. This stretch ties Gibbs’ longest top-10 streak of his career.
Gibbs is still looking for that first Cup Series win, but the 2022 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion feels like he’s closer than ever.
“Obviously, we’re pretty close, but just need a little bit more,” Gibbs said. “I think if you keep playing up there, you’re gonna win eventually. So just keep to it and keep running good and go knock off that win and hopefully get a couple wins this year.”
Finishes will always be the most important metric, but a close second may be his average running position. At 12.98, Gibbs holds the eighth-best running position in the Cup Series after Sunday’s race in Martinsville. The season started with finishes of 23rd in the Daytona 500 and 37th (DNF, crash) at EchoPark Speedway. In each of the five races since, his average running position has ranked inside the top five, including a second-best 3.38 on Sunday. And with an eighth-best 45 stage points through six races, Gibbs sits sixth in points, 131 markers behind series leader Tyler Reddick.
“It’s a lot of consistency,” No. 54 crew chief Tyler Allen told NASCAR.com Sunday. “It’s been really fun to be running up inside the top five like that. And I think Ty has shown a lot of maturity, a lot of growth, taking care of tires and just being there at the end. So really excited for this team. I think we’re up to sixth in points, so we’ve had a really good run after a pretty rocky start to the year at the speedways. So everything’s going great, and we’re excited to carry the momentum into the off weekend and get back at it at Bristol, which is one of his better tracks.”
Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media
The offseason drew plenty of change for this group. Last year was Allen’s first atop the pit box, but there was a disjointed dynamic to the No. 54 team as then-competition director Chris Gabehart was assigned to call strategy for the team on race day in a de facto crew-chief role. With Allen holding the reins in full this season, results so far are showing significant improvement. It’s a small sample size, but Gibbs is on track for a 11.9 average finish in 2026 — an uptick that would obliterate his previous best of 17.4 set in 2024.
“We’re able to have hard discussions when we have to at the race track and really work through what the race car is doing,” Allen said. “His awareness of inputs and how that affects tires and tire wear and tire temperature is night-and-day better from what we had a year ago. So it’s a lot of areas I think that have improved, and the team getting an offseason to sort of make this our team and all of our tools and equipment and processes, I think it’s all adding up.”
Gibbs is doing what he can to contribute to the program, keeping himself fit for competition by cycling, as he regularly shows on his social-media platforms. That and his team’s internal changes are bearing fruit that may soon produce a trophy.
“Obviously, just changing some things up and adding some key players to the team has been really important,” Gibbs said. “And also just working hard on my end, doing a really good job with my nutritional side, my sleep and just everything, getting ready to be good at driving race cars.”
As Allen alluded, Bristol Motor Speedway is one of Gibbs’ best tracks on the circuit. His 440 laps led there are his most of any track by a long shot — his next best is 80 laps led at Charlotte Motor Speedway — and his four Bristol top 10s are his most anywhere. The upcoming Easter off weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series provides both a stoppage in momentum and a chance to evaluate any potential obstacles that lie ahead in Gibbs’ pursuit of his first Cup win.
“I think coming back from the offseason and having made a bunch of improvements, and then living the first few races, there’s always a couple more things you just want to work on, and the off week gives you the time to do that,” Allen said. “And then having the confidence that we’ve been running so well, everyone’s on board and everyone’s working hard, and I think that lends itself to more consistency.”
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action at Bristol in the Food City 500 on Sunday, April 12 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.)
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Being a powerhouse NASCAR team has its advantages, but as Hendrick Motorsports has discovered in its 42 years of business, that perch comes with lofty and sometimes unrealistic expectations. Several other teams had gone through the first six races winless without so much as a ripple, but when Rick Hendrick’s four-car group has any sluggishness to its start, it’s more of a wave, complete with alarm bells sounding.
What’s wrong? Have they lost a step? Has the rest of the field caught up? The buzz had grown incrementally louder as the handful of losses began to mount.
As unusual as the mini-slump might have been, the place where the organization’s modest recent skid ended was no surprise. Martinsville Speedway has been there when Hendrick has needed it most, and the team’s senior-most driver and his trusted crew chief delivered in the clutch.
Chase Elliott provided an encouraging boost in Sunday’s Cook Out 400, denying a dominant Denny Hamlin and riding a gutsy Alan Gustafson strategy call to victory at one of NASCAR’s original tracks. The first win of the season for Elliott and Hendrick was also the first for Chevrolet after a six-race blanking, but far from the team’s first at the 0.526-mile track. As the Sunday sun began to set, a Martinsville deckhand wheeled yet another grandfather clock trophy up to the frontstretch stage, marking the organization’s record 31st Cup Series triumph here.
Tyler Reddick has rightfully claimed his share of the headlines this year with four early wins, which stoked a stretch of five victories for Toyota just six races into the 2026 campaign. But Hendrick’s reliability at tried-and-true Martinsville provided Elliott & Co. with something to savor for an extra week, with the Cup Series idle during the Easter holiday.
“It’s the little things, man. You kind of definitely learn to enjoy that stuff,” Elliott said after his 22nd career Cup win, his second at Martinsville. “Yeah, just nice to kind of get to end this first stretch of the season going into the off week with the win is really cool. I mean, I know we still have a lot of room for improvement, don’t get me wrong, but great way to kind of cap off this first stretch. A lot of good momentum for the whole organization, honestly, I think.”
Crucially, the No. 9 team snatched the day’s momentum away from Hamlin, who led 292 of the 400 laps and seemingly had his second win of the season in hand. With Elliott running ninth just behind the fray of front-runners, Gustafson called Elliott to the pits on Lap 261, opting to roughly split the final and longest stage of the race into thirds with a two-stop strategy while other teams planned to make just one stop if the race went green.
The short-pit gamble eventually gave Elliott the lead with fresher tires as the pit cycle played out, and when a caution period for debris slowed the action on Lap 312, Elliott stopped again with the rest of the field — this time in second place behind Hamlin – to offset his tire deficit.
“It’s a risky call because you know you’re going two laps down, and if the caution comes out and you’re the first guy to do it, you can ruin your whole day,” Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon told NASCAR.com. “But at the same time, when it works out, if you look at the math, it looks like a better strategy in general to do two stops. It’s just when you do it here, you lose two laps under that pit road. So, they did a similar thing to this in ’24 and it worked out in their favor on that day, too. So I think if you ask Alan, he’s gonna say it’s probably not as risky maybe as it looks, but obviously paid off big-time today, and I couldn’t be happier for it to pay off for them and make that call.
“You’ve got to take risk in life. You’ve got to take risk in racing. They did it today, and then Chase got it done when he got up front.”
Ethan Smith | NASCAR Digital Media
Indeed, Gustafson was asked, and his impressions mirrored Gordon’s. Mathematically, he said, the overall edge on tires favored making two stops, but the counterpoint was that such a strategy left the team vulnerable to the possibility of an ill-timed yellow flag.
“At the same time, you can’t sit on your hands and run 10th,” Gustafson said. “You’ve got to do something, right? I think that was the best shot.”
Elliott did the rest, and his post-race praise of Gustafson’s leadership spoke volumes. The pair form the longest-running driver/crew chief pairing in the Cup Series garage, and Gustafson has drawn the larger share of social-media flak when dry spells have arisen. Elliott said he thought little of it when the team’s strategy veered from the norm — “I’ve told him this throughout the course of the season, ‘Hey, look, whatever you want to do, rip it.'” His unwavering support of Gustafson’s efforts was rewarded.
“It’s a great call. Glad he picked up on that, saw that. I don’t think anybody else did,” Elliott said. “Goes to show that he’s pretty good at what he does, which I try to tell y’all that all the time. But he does a pretty good job. I’m happy to work with him. Appreciate his effort, hanging in there, to our whole team for doing that, too. I appreciate that out of all of ’em.”
Gordon has noticed that commitment, too, from two perspectives. As a driver, he teamed with Gustafson for 11 Cup Series wins during Gordon’s last five full-time seasons (2011-15). As a team executive, he’s witnessed Gustafson’s confidence atop the pit box, a trait that’s helped override some of the noise from his detractors.
“You’ve always seen this, right? Whether it was Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Chase Elliott, whoever is the popular driver in the series, there’s a lot of critics that want to sit on the sidelines and evaluate it,” Gordon said. “You cannot let that tear you apart. You got to keep strong on the inside and believe in yourself and believe in your team, all the things you’re doing. That’s what Alan and Chase fall back on.”
On the eve of Sunday’s race, Elliott had described the team’s season to date as “super up and down,” though he entered Martinsville a respectable fifth in the Cup Series standings — tops among the Hendrick brigade. That mark, however, came against the backdrop of Reddick’s early runaway, both in points and wins.
Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews admitted part of the struggle so far was in adapting to a new Chevrolet body, with tweaks to the durable Camaro’s aerodynamics that made their debut this season. Andrews said the adjustment period continues with “still a lot of work left to do,” but that Sunday’s showing delivered on some of the team’s promise.
“We’ve been locking arms,” Andrews said from Victory Lane. “Could not be more proud of the determination, the fight and the grit in Hendrick Motorsports. It’s what we do. This is where we belong, and this won’t be the last one this year.”
It also may not be the last for Elliott, who has scratched the win column in eight of the last nine years, but prevailed Sunday at the earliest point of the season in his Cup Series career. Those alarm bells now sound like the chimes of yet another grandfather clock.
“I mean, we feel like we’ve been close here for a long time, and I feel like if you keep kicking on the door long enough, it’s going to come down,” No. 9 jackman T.J. Semke told NASCAR.com, right after dousing himself with a water bottle to clear the champagne from his eyes. “Obviously, Alan made an awesome call. I felt like we executed on pit road, Chase laid it all out there, put it together, and when you do have days like that where everything’s clicking, sometimes you end up in Victory Lane.”
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Denny Hamlin dominated the day at Martinsville Speedway. But the winningest active driver at “The Paperclip” didn’t leave with his seventh grandfather clock.
Hamlin led a race-high 292 laps in Sunday’s Cook Out 400, but two late cautions took the lead away from the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, and Hamlin was never able to re-pass Chase Elliott, who drove away to his first win of 2026 while Hamlin finished second.
Hamlin radioed at Lap 356 of 400 that “I’ve got something going on with the rear of my car under braking.”
“It just felt different in the rear that run, so we’ll check it out,” Hamlin said. “But no excuses, we just got beat.”
Post-race debrief for the No. 11 team confirmed Hamlin’s suspicions.
“It looks like we had an issue with the left-rear wheel being a tiny bit loose — loose enough he probably could tell,” Gayle said. “There’s some fraying on the pins and some wear there, so it was definitely loose.”
Until that point, Hamlin was seemingly untouchable. William Byron worked past Hamlin for the race lead in lapped traffic at Lap 39, but six laps later, Hamlin drove right back by the No. 24 car. But track position, Hamlin said, ultimately proved too much to overcome, particularly battling instability in the rear of his car.
“It’s just the ability to have the cleaner air for the longer period of time made me heat my stuff up, which is what I did to 35 other guys for the bulk of the race,” Hamlin said. “So it just, once you run that dirty air for extended period of time, the car typically goes away.”
While dirty air was a factor, so too was added Goodyear rubber that was run into the asphalt throughout 400 grueling laps of competition around the 0.526-mile short track.
“We were a little tighter late as rubber got laid down,” Gayle said. “It was a little worse for us, harder for us to kind of get back through there as well. To be fair, Stage 1, you might hit it right off the truck. And then you start the race after everybody’s had three, four or five pit stops, everybody tightens up a little bit more, right? And so I think there’s a little bit of both of that going on.”
While disappointed to walk away without its second win of 2026, the No. 11 team was able to take solace in the new Chase format. Wins are no longer guaranteed tickets to a postseason run. Instead, the 16 highest point totals propel teams into the 10-race championship hunt.
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media
But when a team has a car as dominant as Hamlin’s was Sunday, leaving Martinsville with anything but a grandfather clock is sure to sting.
“It’s just a gut punch to lead that many laps and not win the race,” Gayle said. “But that’s not really fair, right? If you do that consistently enough, you’ll win your share of them, and that’s about all you can control. I mean, it looked like we were having some issues on restarts, too, that Denny talked about a little bit. I think that was a choice with an engine setting that we ran that may have caused some problems and made it harder, so we could have helped ourselves there, too.”
The day wasn’t completely without controversy for Hamlin. In a battle for third with Ryan Blaney, Hamlin washed up off Turn 4 and ultimately ran Blaney into the outside wall.
“I got ran in the fence,” Blaney told NASCAR.com. “That was my perspective.”
Blaney, who ran inside the top five much on Sunday’s race, radioed the “toe’s knocked out of it” after the impact.
“I lost control off Turn 4, spun the rears and just got higher than I wanted to,” Hamlin explained.
Hamlin told MRN Radio he needed to go talk with Blaney about the incident to apologize. Blaney ultimately finished sixth but felt he could have fought for the victory if not for that run-in.
“It’s definitely unfortunate what happened,” Blaney said. “I don’t really think I deserved what happened. It was the first time we were around each other all day, so I’m pretty curious of why I got stuffed in there like that. But yeah, I mean, disappointing to not run better than what we did. But on the other side, proud of the day that we had and thought we could contend for the win, and that kind of took us out. But overall, proud of the effort and pace and just didn’t really work out.”
Told that Blaney thought the incident was unnecessary, Hamlin said: “I wouldn’t disagree.”
The series is off for Easter weekend but will return at Bristol Motor Speedway with the Food City 500 on Sunday, April 12 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
On a Lap 324 restart during Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, Bubba Wallace and Carson Hocevar collided in Turns 3 and 4, sparking a multicar incident.
Entering Turn 3, the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota rammed the backside of Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. While the initial contact didn’t send Hocevar around, a stack-up ahead of Hocevar resulted in Wallace hitting the No. 77 again and eventually sending Hocevar around. Hocevar’s spin resulted in a multicar crash involving a handful of drivers.
Twelve cars were listed in the incident, including Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Connor Zilisch and both Legacy Motor Club Toyotas of John Hunter Nemechek and Erik Jones.
Hocevar continued in the race on the lead lap, while Wallace’s day ended early.
Hocevar placed 17th when the checkered flag waved, while Wallace was credited with a season-worst 36th-place result.
