Bubble battle: William Sawalich chases postseason breakthrough

Posted on July 1, 2026July 1, 2026 by Dustin Albino

An expected strong run at Sonoma Raceway could have reinforced William Sawalich’s Chase position. Instead, a 13th-place finish in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota pushed him below the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase cutline for the first time in nearly two months, raising the stakes for the final five races before the postseason.

Rookie sensation Brent Crews — Sawalich’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate — banked a race-high 50 points, while Sawalich lost 25 points on The Chase bubble. Over the last two races, he’s bled 36 points.

Being on the outside looking in isn’t a place Sawalich desires to be with only a handful of races remaining in the regular season, especially with two of those events being at drafting-style tracks. But he’s among a trio of JGR drivers ranked 11th through 13th in the standings.

RELATED: William Sawalich driver page

“We are very aware of that,” Steve de Souza, executive vice president of O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and development for JGR, told NASCAR.com at Sonoma. “We have a weekly points system that we put out. The drivers know, and that creates a lot of stress in their minds, but this is a pro sport. They need to know what they are up against.”

Sawalich feels the pressure to make the postseason after missing out as a rookie in 2025. He doesn’t want to overthink the final stretch of races, however, knowing how crucial each race is.

“It’s only on your mind if you lose out on a point,” Sawalich said of his position. “When you’re actually racing, you are racing the race and then try to figure out points after. You can’t let it get in your head during the race.

“The goal for the season is to make the playoffs in this new Chase format. We were ninth for a while, so we are fast enough to be in there, no problem. It comes down to putting together good, consistent finishes.”

Consistency has been the biggest hurdle for the No. 18 team over the past year and a half. While Sawalich has shown race-winning speed — charging from the middle of the pack to earn his first victory at Rockingham Speedway in April — those standout performances have been difficult to sustain. In 49 starts as a full-time competitor, he has recorded seven top-five finishes and 16 top 10s.

There have been signs of progress during Sawalich’s sophomore campaign. The No. 18 Toyota emerged as a consistent top-five contender in May, highlighted by a career-best streak of three consecutive top-five finishes spanning Dover Motor Speedway through Nashville Superspeedway.

“Since Rockingham, he won that race, that taught him what it takes to win a race, the level you have to compete at,” de Souza said. “I think he’s aware from a competitive standpoint what needs to happen. He is aware that he has to finish races. There is a lot there, and I think that’s an ongoing discussion throughout the week of where we are and what we need to continue to improve.”

Meg Oliphant | Getty Images

Admittedly, Sawalich’s rookie season was a difficult transition, moving two full rungs up the proverbial developmental ladder from being full-time in the ARCA Menards Series in 2024. It was a wake-up call for the Minnesota driver.

“The competition level is just different,” Sawalich said. “You have to fight hard for even a top 10. When the car is good, it’s an easier day. But when the car is a little off, and I have to adjust for it, that’s probably what I’ve had to learn.”

Learning techniques at mile-and-a-half tracks was the biggest adjustment. The success rate is naturally lower after his jump to the O’Reilly Series, given how challenging the field is. He is one of six series regulars to win through the opening 19 events in 2026.

“The wins are a lot more prestigious here,” Sawalich said. “Some of the best guys haven’t even won this year. It’s really tough. To get that win early on was good and relieved a lot of the pressure.”

After leaning on Aric Almirola for a chunk of 2025, Sawalich joined a program led by former drivers Trevor Bayne and Blake Koch this season. They have worked with Toyota drivers to help refine their skills.

Sawalich’s finishes have slightly improved. His average starting position is almost in line with 2025 (10.1 in 2025 vs. 10.3 in 2026), while his average finish has improved 1.7 spots (18.9 in 2025 vs. 17.2 in 2026).

MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule

“It probably looks like a heart-rate monitor,” Sawalich said of his season. “Our finishes are either really good or we get caught in something that we don’t want to be in and lose some points from it. Now, we are definitely in a big hole that we need to get out of.”

The 20-point deficit isn’t insurmountable. He’s still new to the game at 19 years old, meaning there is plenty of room to grow. The next chance at growth will be at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The July 4 event will be the first time the O’Reilly Series has raced at the 1.5-mile track since 2019.

“The biggest thing I would say now is remember his age,” de Souza said. “If he’s 25, 30 years old and doing this a long time, the lesson should already be learned. But he’s 19 and doing this for two years and has had success in the ARCA car, which is great to learn race craft, learn to compete and how to win races. But jumping up the next couple of levels, now you’re racing against much better race teams, better drivers, better pit crews and you have to be part of that process that excels.”

Posted on June 30, 2026June 30, 2026 by Nate Ryan

With a video wall that’s 32 feet wide and 9 feet tall, Scott Miller watches races every week with the informative breadth of an omniscient narrator.

The competition strategist for NASCAR oversees the Remote Race Control center in Concord, North Carolina, that has been fully operational since last year.

The video wall can display 24 quadrants of screens featuring video feeds (including broadcast, in-car and specialty cameras), telemetry and team radios. Virtually every area of the race track can be monitored.

“We have a lot of information at our disposal,” Miller said on the latest “Hauler Talk” podcast. “And one of the challenges has been to make that concise enough to where we can view it quickly when we need it. … We’ve really made a lot of headway there and are now pretty much integrated into every race weekend as a support arm for those in race control at the race track.”

As the former vice president of competition at NASCAR, Miller once was a regular in on-site race control.

Shifting to the remote role has required retraining his perspective from the visceral experience at the track to absorbing the action from a windowless room packed with technology.

“At Remote Race Control, you have the luxury of not having to be sort of in the moment,” Miller said. “As the race is unfolding, you can kind of go back and continue to look without feeling like the ones that are in the at-track race control have got that covered while you try to help them review an incident or a violation or whatever it may be that you’re digging into for them.

“So it’s really just a lot of support that everybody in race control has come to rely on. And it’s just much easier to do from the Remote Race Control with the resources that we have that they don’t have in the tower.”

Using technology to aid officiating has become ubiquitous in pro sports. While helping get NASCAR’s Remote Race Control up and running, Miller visited the NFL’s command center in New York, which reviews every scoring play, turnover and coach’s challenge during games.

Though there are similarities, Miller noted that NASCAR is unique because the action on the track doesn’t stop when making a call. A 36-race schedule of ovals, road and street courses also means a wide variety of playing surfaces, most of which dwarf a football field.

“The NFL plays on a 100-yard long by 50-yard wide field every single weekend, and I came to understand they have a specific sort of diagram of cameras that are at every single venue,” Miller said. “So they can have super consistent views on everything across all the games because the field is the same. Obviously, we race at different venues, and each and every one of them poses its unique challenge to get full camera coverage where you need it.”

Miller said the Remote Race Control is positioned as a support system that defers to the officials calling the race at the track.

“We would never get in a situation where it would be sort of disrupting the action or anything like that,” Miller said. “Honestly, what we strive to be is kind of invisible and not be the story but get the calls right that need to be made.”

Other topics covered by NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde and senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis during the 60th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:

— How Tyler Reddick was able to record the fastest lap at Sonoma Raceway despite repairs for a power steering problem.

— How $5 million in capital improvements were made at Chicagoland Speedway to prepare for the track’s first NASCAR race weekend in seven years.

— The speeds recorded during the April test at the 1.5-mile track in Joliet, Illinois.

Click on the embed below to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.

Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Today Co. and, for the past 10 years, at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He has also covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.

Posted on June 30, 2026June 30, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

Alex Bowman is in the final season of a three-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports as driver of the team’s No. 48 Chevrolet.

What comes next — whether that includes a return in 2027 or otherwise — has yet to be determined. But sorting next year’s plans hasn’t been Bowman’s No. 1 priority, he said in a Tuesday teleconference.

Entering Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, Bowman sits 29th in the points standings with two top fives and three top 10s, all after missing four races earlier this spring due to vertigo. His future plans have not been announced, but his focus remains on righting the No. 48 team’s performance in the second half of the NASCAR Cup Series season.

“I’m just trying to do my part to try to help (Hendrick Motorsports) be the best it can be right now and obviously trying to get things turned back around on the 48 side of things,” Bowman said Tuesday. “But yeah, definitely not — I don’t feel like I’m racing for my job or anything like that by any means. Really just kind of week-to-week focused on trying to get pointing back in the right direction.”

Bowman, who finished 10th last week at Sonoma Raceway for his best finish since a third-place result at Texas Motor Speedway in May, added he doesn’t have a specific timeline set to solidify plans for 2027 or beyond, but discussions behind the scenes have continued at Hendrick.

“It’s been interesting,” Bowman said. “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of different conversations and kind of trying to figure out what the best thing to do is, so I would say sooner rather than later, for sure. But really, I guess I haven’t really thought about (it). Like, it hasn’t been the first thing on my mind by any means, and really just been working hard at trying to get things pointed in the right direction. But definitely, (I) think sooner rather than later.”

After missing races in three of the past five seasons for medical reasons, Bowman says he feels OK after 11 races back from his most recent absence. But his results have also left him disappointed, scoring just two wins since the Next Gen debuted in 2022 and winless since the Fourth of July weekend at the Chicago Street Course in 2024.

No matter what comes next, Bowman is carefully considering his options both for himself and his current team.

“I think for me, I just want to make the right decision for myself, I guess,” Bowman said. “And yeah, certain things haven’t gone how we want them to go. And honestly, I’m at a point in my life where I’m super blessed to be in a position where I don’t have to do this forever. So I’ve just got to make the right decision, and I want Hendrick Motorsports to make the right decision and everybody to be on board with whatever we do. I think I have a lot of faith in Rick (Hendrick, team owner) and Jeff (Gordon, vice chairman) and everybody to guide all of us the right way, and whatever happens, happens.”

Matt Sullivan | Getty Images

Bowman returns to Chicagoland on Sunday (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as the track’s most recent winner. That, of course, was seven years ago, when the Cup Series last visited in 2019. That day, Bowman battled his future teammate Kyle Larson for victory, losing the lead and snagging it right back in the closing laps. That marked Bowman’s first of eight Cup wins so far.

“It feels like a really long time ago,” Bowman said. “I’m definitely looking forward to getting back there.”

Like most of the Cup field, Bowman has no experience driving around the track in a Next Gen car. But Larson was Chevrolet’s representative for a Goodyear tire test earlier this spring, turning laps around the oval’s aging and worn pavement and relaying his feedback to his teammate.

MORE: In-Season Challenge update after Round 1

“I just think it’s going to be tricky with the Next Gen car,” Bowman said. “That place is slick, so you’re going to be sliding around a lot, which the Next Gen car is just inherently hard to slide much without it getting away from you. And it’s very bumpy, and Next Gen is tough through the bumps, so it’ll be interesting to see how the track widens out, what grooves are and aren’t at play because of the bumps and see what works.

“It’s kind of fun to go to a place without a huge notebook. I’ll be in the sim tomorrow morning, so I don’t really have any idea yet on how it’s going to drive other than talking to Kyle from the test, but yeah, looking forward to the challenge.”

Speaking of challenge — Bowman earned the ultimate upset in the In-Season Challenge Sunday at Sonoma by ousting No. 1 seed Tyler Reddick, allowing the No. 32 seed Bowman to advance into Round 2. Reddick suffered mechanical issues that led to a last-place finish while Bowman earned a much-needed top 10. After making a run into the third round in 2025, Bowman will go head-to-head with No. 16 Austin Cindric at Chicagoland, and he’s definitely conscious of the $1 million prize that goes to the winner.

“Yeah, certainly pays pretty well to win, so we want to do the best we can and try to give ourselves the best shot at doing that,” Bowman said. “I think we probably got a little bit of a gift with the 45 (Reddick) having an issue, but we also went to Sonoma and put together a good, solid day. So yeah, think we’re plenty capable. Obviously, we went pretty far last year. Hopefully, we can do that again and try to make something happen, but at the same time, just really focused on trying to get back to normalcy on the 48 side of things.”

For Bowman, that “normalcy” he feels his team is missing entails both speed and results after a two-month stretch where “nothing went our way.” Sonoma was a step in the right direction, but the question remains whether the No. 48 team can find its footing once again as a regular contender on ovals.

“I think it’s just really easy to be a little bit off and it to look like you’re way off with how small the margins are in the Cup Series,” Bowman said. “And like I said before, once you get stuck in group one and qualify early, you end up qualifying bad, you have bad pit stalls, so then your race suffers, and you can’t get any track position, and then you’re stuck in group one the next week. And it just continues and continues. So trying to get out of that cycle and get back to group two and be back on the right side of things, qualifying later so you have a better pit-stall selection, and kind of inherently — like the group (two) cars are just always faster, right? You can watch the first session and take data from whoever is on your team in that session or whatever and go from there.

“As buried as we are in points, it’s really hard for us to get into group two, so I think that’s the biggest hurdle that we have, and yeah, good days fix that. So just need to continue to have good days.”

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Zach Sturniolo

Zane Smith subscribes to the belief that drivers need to prove their worth within their first 100 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Smith will hit that milestone himself in Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. And you’d better believe winning is on his mind.

“I hope to get my first Cup Series win,” Smith said in a Tuesday teleconference. “I don’t know if that counts before 100 starts, but it’d be awesome.”

MORE: Chicagoland schedule | Cup standings

Driving the No. 38 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, the 27-year-old Smith understands the odds, but confidence is high among his team, particularly after top-five runs at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway at the end of May.

“It would be awesome to pull that off, and mile-and-a-halves have been good for us since Charlotte,” Smith said. “So it’s exciting, and I think definitely possible.”

Across his prior 99 starts, Smith has raced for RFK Racing, Rick Ware Racing, Spire Motorsports via Trackhouse Racing and Front Row Motorsports, including a full rookie campaign with Spire in 2024 before transitioning to FRM for 2025 and 2026. After collecting a personal-best five top 10s last year, Smith has already set new high marks for himself this year, earning six top 10s in the first 18 races this season and equaling his 2024 best of two top fives after a fourth-place finish at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego.

Smith has just one runner-up finish to his credit, along with four other top fives. But the flashes he has shown, he believes, indicate he is nearing a breakthrough.

“Everything has to go right for a race win, but showing that you’re running up front and having good runs, I think, is what’s super important,” Smith said. “And fortunately, I’ve had glimpses of that throughout my early starts, but I would say since my, like, 80-ish start, it’s been more consistent of being able to run up front more consistently. And recently, since Charlotte, I’ve been able to lead laps and contend for a race win. And I have a few seconds and thirds, whatever, but just honestly leading these races at the wrong time. Just need to do it a little bit later. But I feel like that’s what’s mostly important.

“I feel like everyone understands in the industry how hard these races are to win — and then on top of that, we’re a smaller team, too, so we’re doing a lot with a little and trying to make big strides each year. So proud of that and just proud of how we’re running, but yeah, would love to put an exclamation mark on this on the 100th start.”

Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media

Perhaps Smith’s most significant takeaway through 99 prior Cup starts has been how to overcome adversity. Multiple strong performances have been crushed by late incidents, most recently including Michigan, where he crashed while running ninth at Lap 142, and again a week later at Pocono, where he spun and crashed out from a third-place battle at Lap 41. But a San Diego top five and a Sonoma top 20 have helped steady the stretch, providing momentum as Smith enters the second half of the regular season.

“In just one Cup race, you will experience so much. There are so many ups and downs throughout a Cup race and it’s like that every weekend,” Smith said. “I can probably count on one hand how many Cup races I’ve had where it’s like, ‘Man, that went really smooth and everything went right.’ I just feel like the main thing is you’ve got to take the little wins and pile them into bigger wins and eventually you’re gonna be racing for a race win.

“The harder thing is when you’re part of a smaller team going against a powerhouse team like a Penske, a Hendrick, a Gibbs, they have more people and we’re trying to become that one day. By doing that, you’ve got to win races and run up front and prove your worth, and I feel like we’re accomplishing that. I hope to keep that going, but there are so many ups and downs and I’m certainly a way different race car driver now versus what I was in my rookie year and certainly what I was in the Truck Series.”

The next step is turning those strong runs into consistent top-10 finishes, a task Smith believes is reasonable as the schedule turns back to ovals for the rest of 2026.

“Our whole group is a really fun group to work with, which says a lot,” Smith said. “We just had a year last year of past communication and past times to know what to do for adjustments going from practice to qualifying, and qualifying to the race more importantly, and I feel like some of that is showing. But just trying to carry the momentum is the main thing.”

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Staff Report

Goodyear Racing will bring tested intermediate-track tire setups to Chicagoland Speedway this weekend as the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series return to the 1.5-mile oval in Joliet, Illinois.

The track has not hosted NASCAR national series competition since 2019, but teams in both series will have recent experience with the Goodyear Racing Eagle tires selected for the weekend. Chicagoland puts similar demands on tires to other intermediate ovals, and Goodyear has chosen setups that have already been used several times this season.

RELATED: Chicagoland weekend schedule

The Cup Series tire setup for Sunday’s eero 400 was most recently used at Nashville Superspeedway. The left-side tire also has been utilized at Michigan International Speedway and Pocono Raceway.

The O’Reilly Series will use a right-side tire that debuted at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, along with a left-side tire that has raced several times this year, most recently at Nashville. As is customary on tracks 1 mile or longer, teams in both series will run inner liners inside their tires.

This weekend’s tire selections follow an April test at Chicagoland that included Cup Series drivers Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin — representing all three manufacturers — along with O’Reilly Series drivers Justin Allgaier and Brandon Jones.

“Although teams have not raced at Chicagoland Speedway since 2019, they have lots of data on their Goodyear Racing Eagle tire setups for this weekend,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “The April test gave us valuable information and confirmed that our proven intermediate package is the right choice for this event. With the race falling on the Fourth of July weekend and plenty of excitement around NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland, our focus remains on providing teams with proven performance.”

Tire allotments for each team competing this weekend:

Cup Series: 12 total sets — 8 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the race and 3 for practice.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 7 total sets — 4 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the start of the race and 2 for practice.

Posted on June 30, 2026June 30, 2026 by Cara Cooper

Growing up going to the race track to watch his dad compete every week of the summer, Mike Lichtfeld admits he “wanted absolutely nothing to do with driving a race car.”

During the week, when it was time to be in the shop, he would rather be with his friends or preparing for his own sports: basketball, football and track.

“That was just always kind of my thing was being an athlete,” Lichtfeld said.

But once he graduated high school in 2005, the opportunities to continue playing sports ended, and Lichtfeld was looking for other ways to keep his competitive juices flowing.

So he decided to give racing a try.

Now, 20 years after his first full-time season racing at Dells Raceway Park in Juneau County, Wisconsin, Lichtfeld has put together one of the track’s most successful careers. He won his first championship in the Pure Stock division in 2007. Two years later, he was the Super Stock champion, and now he’s the four-time defending champion in the track’s Late Model division.

MyRacePass: All of Lichtfeld’s race results

Mike Lichtfeld, the 2025 Dells Raceway Park track champion, receives an award during the NASCAR Regional champions banquet at the Charlotte Convention Center on Nov. 21, 2025. (Photo: Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)

Lichtfeld won Dells’ late model title last year by 82 points. It was also the track’s first year sanctioned in the NASCAR Local Racing Series, and his combined points between Dells and Wisconsin’s LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway helped him win the Midwest Regional Rookie of the Year award.

“We had a really good year last year at Dells Raceway Park,” Lichtfeld said. “It was our first year being NASCAR sanctioned, and that just added a whole other level of excitement, because in addition to racing against the guys at your track, once the season rolled on, we were acquiring the weekly points. You’re paying attention to what was happening in your region and in the country, and it just was a really neat thing. We had a lot of fun with it.”

Lichtfeld’s racing beginnings were with his dad Tom in the shop and pits. Now the roles are reversed.

Lichtfeld and his brother Steve both race at Dells, and the brothers and their dad work alongside each other to prepare their cars. The three also work together for their real jobs, meaning they spend a lot of hours with each other throughout the week.

Lichtfeld said the time is worth it, because going to the track Saturday night is what he calls their weekly vacation.

“We own a plumbing and septic installation business up here in Wisconsin, and we all work there,” he said. “My brother does the indoor plumbing. I do the outdoor stuff with septic installation, selling the jobs, the excavating, and then my dad’s the owner and boss of the company. So we all work together 50, 60 hours a week, and then we’re all in the race shop together another 20 or 30 hours a week, plus Saturdays at the race track. So we all get a pretty good fill of each other, but that really, really makes a team bond and, we’re pretty tight knit in that sense.

“It’s our weekly vacation that we all get to spend Saturday at the race track together, because we don’t hunt, golf, fish, anything like that. It’s all about racing in the summer months.”

They’ve even added more races to the schedule since Dells went NASCAR-sanctioned last year. As a way to gain more points in the regional and national standings, Lichtfeld began travelling to LaCrosse, and he picked up his first feature win at the track on May 30.

“We did it just to kind of break the cycle a little bit of racing at Dells every week and ended up having a decent run up there,” he said. “We just really enjoyed ourselves with the NASCAR sanction.

“It’s definitely an honor to go up to a different race track such as LaCrosse. It’s got so much history at it, and being able to get a victory there is really special.”

Lichtfeld is second in the Dells standings this season with two wins and five top fives in six races. He has one win and three top 10s in three races at LaCrosse. He’s seventh in the NASCAR Local Racing Series Midwest region standings and first in the Wisconsin state standings.

Even though he’s added another track to his schedule, Dells will always be home to Lichtfeld and his family, and he feels extra pride every time he’s able to get back to Victory Lane there.

“It means so much,” he said. “I watched my dad race there for so many years, and my dad was kind of the racer where he had good equipment but not the best, and he always made do with what he had. He always tells stories about back in the day racing where he would qualify into the feature but then take his good tires off and put his old ones on to race the feature just to save money so he had good tires to make the race again next week. So I take that to heart. Everything I do in the race, I try to honor him as much as possible.

“I have a great pride for the Dells Raceway Park and I’m just thankful that (general manager) Jerry Auby’s doing a great job keeping it open because, as we all know, it’s tough business being in the race track owning nowadays. So, it means a ton to be successful at the Dells.”

MyRacePass: Track 2026 NASCAR points

The biggest goal Lichtfeld wants to accomplish this season is making it back to the NASCAR banquet in Charlotte, N.C., this winter. He said following the points for multiple championships has changed the way he drives for the better.

“You’ve really got to look at the big picture of things and have in mind that you’ve really got to stack those top fives, top threes to gain the NASCAR points,” he said. “But that’s probably a good thing for me, because I spent my career not really worrying about the points as much and would kind of get myself in trouble sometimes, so maybe in a way it calmed me down a little bit.

“The banquet we were lucky enough to go to last year was top notch and such a cool experience that it’d be an honor to get to go back there again.”

The key to getting back there, Lichtfeld said, is continuing to put in the time in the race shop and staying prepared — while also remaining humble.

“We’ve got to keep working and can’t get lazy,” he said. “It’s hard to get to the top, but we don’t want to slip down the slope and lose ground to anybody. We just have a goal to do as best we can each and every night, not beat ourselves. The points will shake out where they shake out. Obviously the only thing that we can control is what we do on a weekly basis. We can’t control what happens in Minnesota or Oklahoma or anywhere else in the country, but if we put a good product on race track and I do a good job driving, hopefully things will shake out and we’ll look at that stuff come September when it gets closer to be in the end.”

Lichtfeld doesn’t have the same opportunities to play football and basketball that he did 20 years ago in high school, but he’s OK with that now. He’s found a new competition, and he’s so successful, he doesn’t see himself quitting any time soon.

“Once high school ended and I didn’t have those opportunities to be competitive, racing stepped in to fulfill my competitive needs,” he said. “And it’s been history ever since then. It’s definitely in my blood now.”

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Pat DeCola

NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Shane van Gisbergen’s win at Sonoma Raceway and before Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Analysis: Hamlin picked a pretty convenient week to have his first truly rough finish in a while (and worst since the Daytona 500 — in February). The No. 11 came home 26th at Sonoma after spinning from seventh on a Lap 64 restart, but Tyler Reddick’s day was even worse, handing Hamlin the regular-season points lead by a single marker (also for the first time since Reddick claimed it after winning the Daytona 500). That doesn’t make Sonoma a “good” result for him, but it does make it survivable with a silver lining — and surviving bad weeks at the exact moment your closest rival stumbles is, at the very least, fortuitous. Chicagoland is a much better place for Hamlin to steady the whole thing, too. He won there in 2015 and owns seven top 10s in 14 starts at the 1.5-mile track with a level of experience there that significantly outweighs the field, so the first trip back since 2019 should quickly remind everyone why he’s wearing the crown for now.

Analysis: Reddick’s Sonoma started badly and got worse from there. A power-steering issue sent the No. 45 in for repairs early, and while he eventually returned five laps down, the damage was already done, as it resulted in a 36th-place finish that cost him the points lead for the first time all season. The five wins, 12 top 10s and overall 2026 profile still keep him firmly in the top two, but the untouchable version of Reddick’s season is officially gone. Chicagoland doesn’t offer any Cup history to lean on, either, which makes this weekend a little more of a pure-form test than a track-stat bounce-back spot. He’s still one of the two standards of the season, but now he’s the hunter instead of the rabbit being chased.

Analysis: Blaney’s Sonoma race was quite useful for No. 12, as a top-six finish on a road course has historically been about his best-case scenario on these types of tracks. He finished sixth, grabbed a Stage 2 point, led a lap through the pit cycle and kept himself comfortably third in the standings while the top two continue to trade haymakers. The gap to Hamlin and Reddick remains substantial, but Blaney is building a very sturdy third lane behind them and could theoretically strike before the regular season is up. Chicagoland backs that up better than most upcoming tracks might, too. In four Cup starts there, Blaney owns a 9.8 average finish, one top five and two top 10s. If the No. 12 is going to turn “reliable” into “dangerous” again, this is a reasonable place to start.

Analysis: Larson finally has something resembling week-to-week stability again, and that matters tremendously in this Chase system. He finished fourth at Sonoma after spending most of the day in the top five, briefly led late through the final pit cycle and now has five top-five finishes in his last six races. This no longer looks like a winless drought but a countdown until he unleashes the summer afterburners and jets off. Chicagoland is exactly the kind of place that could serve as the launching pad. Larson has never won a Cup race there, but he owns four top fives, five top 10s and a ridiculous 6.2 average finish in six starts. If there is a “how has he not won yet?” track, it’s probably this one. If it had remained on the schedule the past several years, this certainly would not still be a question.

Analysis: Gibbs turned in the strongest race of anyone not named SVG at Sonoma. The No. 54 started from the pole, swept both stages, led 31 laps and finished third, putting together the kind of complete road-course weekend that he needs to remain capable of contending while he continues rounding into form elsewhere. The 2026 emergence overall is real, though — we’re at the halfway mark, and he’s fourth in points, with three stage wins and 139 stage points. There is nothing prospect-y about that anymore. Chicagoland is a blank Cup sheet for Gibbs, but that might not matter much with the way Joe Gibbs Racing is operating, particularly on the intermediates. The next step is obvious and getting louder: No. 54 is good enough to win again, and soon.

Analysis: Elliott held sixth in these rankings, as Sonoma was not a convincing argument to move him back up. He finished 17th after spinning in Turn 6, scored no stage points and watched Gibbs, Larson and SVG all make louder statements on a track type where the No. 9 typically expects to matter more. The broader season is still strong enough, with two wins and eight top 10s while sitting sixth in points, but the edge has dulled a bit lately. Chicagoland is a much better setup for a correction, however. Elliott owns two top fives, two top 10s, 117 laps led and an 8.8 average finish in four Cup starts there. If he’s going to remind everyone he belongs closer to the front of this list, the track gives him a real opening.

Analysis: Buescher’s Sonoma was a rare recent week in which the No. 17 didn’t get much out of the day, on one of his better track types, to boot. He finished 19th, lost a bit of ground to the cutline and gave back two spots in these rankings after briefly cracking the top five. Still, this is not a collapse — he remains seventh in points and 129 above the cutline even without a win, which says plenty about how much weekly value he has banked. Chicagoland, historically, does not exactly scream automatic rebound, though he was in a much different place in his career while these stats were accumulated. Still, Buescher has four Cup starts there with no top 10s and a 23.8 average finish. The season-long floor is still trustworthy, but this weekend will test how portable that really is.

Analysis: Hocevar’s Sonoma was a bit quieter than San Diego, and that might have been the best thing for him. He started second, ran near the front early, finished 11th and avoided turning another high-upside day into a headline for the wrong reason. He remains eighth in these rankings, eighth in points and 120 points above the cutline, which is still a pretty wild sentence for this stage of the season for a driver who entered the year with zero Cup wins and no guarantee the first would come this season, which it did. Chicagoland will be new territory for him in Cup, but a worn 1.5-mile track should not scare the No. 77 team given the intermediate-track gains Spire has shown all year.

Analysis: Briscoe jumps two spots because Sonoma was not just a good race for No. 19; it was nearly season-changing. He finished second to what appeared to be an untouchable SVG by a mere 0.357 seconds, kept pressure on the best road-course driver in the field all the way to the end and briefly looked like he might have a shot before overcooking Turn 1 in the closing laps. That one stings for sure, but it also reinforces that Briscoe, a Championship 4 driver last fall, is more than just hanging around here. Chicagoland is interesting because he has no Cup history there, but he did win an ARCA Menards Series race at the track in 2016. Add that to five top fives and seven top 10s this season, and this feels less like a strong recent run and more like a 2026 identity finally forming.

Analysis: Bell needed a clean result in the worst way, and Sonoma finally gave him one. The No. 20 finished fifth, scoring points in both stages and recovering from a messy pit stop where he left with the left-front wheel not tight and had to back up. Given the recent run of engine trouble, wrist drama, fuel heartbreak and general nonsense, a top five counts as a deep, midway-point exhale. Chicagoland is a place without Cup history for Bell, as well, but the track still carries a nice little footnote: he won the ARCA race there in 2017, and there’s little reason why he won’t be fast. The speed has rarely been the issue. If the bad-luck tax is finally easing up, Bell could climb fast, especially as he continues to heal and with a “normal” track this weekend.

Analysis: SVG did exactly what he was supposed to do at Sonoma (and what he intended to do at San Diego … ), and that almost makes it harder to appreciate how absurd and impressive it actually was. He won from sixth with a car he was very much not happy with on Saturday, led 74 of 110 laps, posted 23 fastest laps by the late stages and spent basically the entire race in control before holding off Briscoe, who had a faster car, at the finish. That moved him back above the cutline by 36 points and gave him his second Cup win of the season. The reason he is still only 11th is simple: Chicagoland — along with the rest of the schedule — has no right-hand turns. There is no Cup history for him there, of course, and the next question is how much of this momentum survives away from the road courses. His ceiling on those tracks is literally non-existent. His full-season ceiling, however, is still being established.

Analysis: Suárez took a small rankings hit because Sonoma — a track he’s won at — never got going the way it needed to. An early tire concern sent him to pit road from deep in the field, and he never fully recovered on the way to a 31st-place finish that cost him ground to the cutline. The good news is the overall position remains sturdy enough, with No. 7 still ninth in points and 95 markers above the bubble. Chicagoland is at least not a total mystery, either. Suárez owns a 15.7 average finish in three Cup starts there, which is fine, if not especially spicy. The mission this week is simple: get back to collecting useful points before a quiet wobble turns into a louder one.

Analysis: Byron’s Sonoma was fine — normally a positive adjective as it pertains to Wine Country — but “fine” is not really where the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet expects to live. He finished 12th, led a lap through the pit cycle and gained enough to move up one spot in the standings, but the larger picture remains frustrating for a driver who should feel more dangerous than his week-to-week finishes in 2026 suggest. Chicagoland gives him one of the better cases for a rebound, though. Byron has only two Cup starts there, early on in his career, but he owns a top 10, a 14.0 average finish and a respectable 9.5 average start. The sample is old and small, but the broader point still holds: this is a 1.5-mile chance for a Hendrick driver who badly needs a more convincing summer and should be heating up soon, in theory.

Analysis: Wallace gives back four spots after Sonoma, which was not a shock so much as a reminder that road courses, while he’s improved on them lately, remain his pain point. After the San Diego runner-up raised the expectations, No. 23 qualified into the trouble portion of the pack, furthered the issue by going to the rear for unapproved adjustments, got bounced around during the race and ultimately finished 22nd, which honestly isn’t as poor of a result as it was looking like. He remains 55 points above the cutline, so there’s no need to panic, but the prove-it nature of his jump last week did not exactly get answered. Chicagoland doesn’t offer a huge safety net, either. Wallace has two Cup starts there, no top 10s and a 24.0 average finish. The momentum isn’t gone, but it has taken a pretty obvious dent.

Analysis: Preece keeps inching upward, and it no longer feels accidental or circumstantial. He followed the San Diego stage-win surge with an eighth-place finish at Sonoma, giving the No. 60 team another badly needed points day and a 13-point cushion above the cutline as Preece rounds into a respectable road racer. The early-season penalty still hangs over the math, but Preece has done a pretty good job of making sure it did not define the whole season. There isn’t much Chicagoland on the resume for obvious reasons — one Cup start, 28th-place finish — so this one leans more on current form than track history. That is not the worst thing, because his current form is the best argument he has right now.

Analysis: Cindric continues to live on the narrowest part of the bubble, which is a stressful but still reasonable place to be, given his three-time champion teammate is below it. He finished 13th at Sonoma, scored Stage 2 points and remains 12 points above the cutline with eight races left before The Chase. The No. 2 team still does not feel especially explosive — even teammate Ryan Blaney has had trouble converting obvious speed into wins this year — but it’s doing just enough to stay upright while others wobble. Chicagoland brings no Cup history for Cindric, making the Penske baseline more relevant than anything else. And in 2026 that’s lower than it historically is, so it could be an uphill battle this weekend.

Analysis: Jones drops three spots in the standings because Sonoma put a real dent in what had been one of the better bubble pushes of the past month. He went to the rear after unapproved adjustments, finished 23rd and slipped 12 points below the cutline after briefly looking like he had grabbed firm control of a Chase spot. The Legacy Motor Club surge still hasn’t disappeared, but the cushion sure has. Chicagoland offers a sneaky good lifeline, though. Jones has two top 10s in three Cup starts there, plus O’Reilly Auto Parts Series wins at the track in 2015 and 2016. If there is a place for No. 43 to stop the slide quickly, this is a pretty good candidate.

Analysis: Keselowski moves up two spots, but this still does not feel especially healthy. He finished 15th at Sonoma, a step forward on paper, yet still lost ground to the cutline and sits 25 points out with time starting to get uncomfortable. The encouraging part is that Chicagoland might be the best track on the board for him right now. Keselowski, on top of having an experience edge on the field like Hamlin, owns two Cup wins, five top fives, nine top 10s and an 8.8 average finish in 11 starts there. If the veteran’s program is going to reinsert itself into The Chase picture, it almost has to look alive this weekend. His track history is too good for anything less.

Analysis: Allmendinger’s Sonoma wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t the kind of road-course swing he needed on a track he needed to maximize. He finished 16th, lost five points to the cutline and remains 26 points outside the provisional Chase field as the schedule moves away from one of his best disciplines for the remainder of the season. That’s the problem. The road stretch kept him relevant, but it did not fully change the math, and Chicagoland does not help much historically, either. Allmendinger has 10 Cup starts there with no top 10s and a 21.3 average finish. The door is still cracked, but he may have missed his best chance to kick it open.

Analysis: Logano falls to the final spot, and even that feels a little generous given the standard attached to the No. 22. Sonoma ended with a 24th-place finish, another quiet points day and a 31-point deficit to the cutline, leaving the three-time champ in a slow-motion fight just to stay relevant amid one of the most challenging seasons of his career. Chicagoland is the hope, and at least it’s a credible one. Logano has three top fives, seven top 10s, a pole and an 11.5 average finish in 11 Cup starts there, plus two O’Reilly wins at the track. If Penske is going to drag this season back toward normalcy, Chicagoland is a logical place to start. If it doesn’t happen there, the questions get a whole lot louder.

Posted on June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Staff Report

After winding through Wine Country at Sonoma Raceway, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series heads to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019 on Saturday (5:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The race will be the 20th points-paying event of the 2026 O’Reilly season.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

This will be the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series’ first time back in Joliet, Illinois since 2019 and will be a bit of a homecoming for points leader Justin Allgaier who is 207 markers ahead of Jesse Love in the standings.

Cup Series mainstays Connor Zilisch (No. 1 JR Motorsports), Chase Elliott (No. 88 JR Motorsports) and Cole Custer (No. 0 SS-Greenlight Racing) help make up the 38 cars entered in this weekend’s event. Custer is also the most recent winner at Chicagoland.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on The CW

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Posted on June 29, 2026July 2, 2026 by Staff Report

After wrapping up its California road-course run through Naval Base Coronado and Sonoma Raceway, the NASCAR Cup Series will head to the Midwest and Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The visit to the 1.5-mile venue will be the first since 2019 and will act as the second leg of the 2026 In-Season Challenge.

ENTRY LISTS: Cup Series | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series

Fresh off his first-round upset of No. 1 seed Tyler Reddick, 2019 Chicagoland winner Alex Bowman will take on Austin Cindric in Round 2. That won’t be the only marquee matchup, though, as Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson and William Byron face off and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe go at it.

A week-plus removed from scoring his first career Cup Series win at Naval Base Coronado, Corey Heim returns to drive the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota. JJ Yeley also returns to the fold this weekend to make up the 38 cars entered into this weekend’s race.

MORE: Weekend schedule | How to watch NASCAR on TNT Sports

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Posted on June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Zack Albert

The first of five weeks of head-to-head battles has trimmed the In-Season Challenge field in half after an eventful Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, and zero perfect brackets remain in the pool of fan predictions. The 16 drivers with hopes of claiming the $1 million prize head this weekend to a Sunday showdown at Chicagoland Speedway (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), which returns to the NASCAR Cup Series circuit for the first time in seven years.

Here’s where things stand after Challenge Round 1 at Sonoma:

Sonoma race winner: Shane van Gisbergen secured a weekend sweep of the Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series events on the 1.99-mile road course, fending off a stout challenge from Chase Briscoe to prevail in Sunday’s main event. SVG led 74 of the 110 laps in Trackhouse Racing’s No. 97 Chevrolet, landing his second win of the Cup Series season and his second straight at Sonoma. He advanced to the In-Season Challenge’s second round over No. 19 seed Ryan Preece, who placed a respectable eighth.

Who advances to Round 2

Advancing with the 14th-seeded van Gisbergen to the next round are: (2) Denny Hamlin, (3) Ryan Blaney, (4) Chase Elliott, (5) Ty Gibbs, (6) Kyle Larson, (7) Chris Buescher, (9) Carson Hocevar, (10) Christopher Bell, (11) William Byron, (12) Chase Briscoe, (15) Erik Jones, (16) Austin Cindric, (20) Michael McDowell, (25) Todd Gilliland, and (32) Alex Bowman.

The top upset from first-round action was Bowman, who rolled into the Round of 16 with a 10th-place effort after top-seeded Tyler Reddick stumbled with mechanical trouble and finished last. The outcome marked the second consecutive year that the lowest seed has advanced, and he’ll face off with Austin Cindric in the second round. Bowman is also the most recent race winner at Chicagoland, where he netted his first Cup Series victory in 2019.

Matchup of the week

(No. 6) Kyle Larson vs. (No. 11) William Byron: This intrasquad matchup of Hendrick Motorsports teammates has some serious star power. A pair of the best on intermediate tracks, Larson and Byron will square off in Round 2 at Chicagoland — both coming off relatively decisive first-round wins at Sonoma Raceway. Larson stomped Riley Herbst in Round 1, finishing fourth while the 23XI Racing driver placed 30th. Meanwhile, Byron finished 12th at the road course compared to 21st for opponent Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Larson has a momentum advantage, riding a streak of five top fives in the last six races. But as the 2026 campaign inches toward The Chase, this head-to-head battle could serve as an important turning point for the Hendrick organization with both drivers looking for their first wins of the season.

Who’s up

Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Almost the only thing Gibbs didn’t do Sunday at Sonoma was win, assembling a sizable 54-point day — second only to SVG’s 63 — with a sweep of the stages from the pole position and a third-place result. That equaled a convincing first-round victory over No. 28 seed Austin Dillon, who finished 27th. Gibbs’ path to a second straight In-Season Challenge title will have to go through teammate Chase Briscoe, who makes for an enticing Round 2 matchup after a stellar runner-up finish Sunday.

Who’s down

Todd Gilliland, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. Gilliland survived a bumpy Sonoma ride, including a pair of run-ins with 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst in Stage 2. He finished where he started in 29th place, but it was just enough to advance over 31st-finishing Daniel Suárez, a former Sonoma winner whose race went awry after a first-stage flat. Gilliland is among a handful of drivers heading into unknown territory for their first Cup Series start at Chicagoland, and he’ll face off with No. 9 seed Carson Hocevar in a second-round test.

Contributing: Nate Solomon