1. After Three Straight Victories, Is It Time to Crown 23XI Racing as the King of the Toyotas?
The early stages of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, promoted by the sanctioning body as a return to form, have been anything but in the pecking order so far.
23XI Racing, in just its sixth year of existence, has won the first three Cup races of the year, all with Tyler Reddick.
That would be impressive enough. But then there’s also Bubba Wallace.
Wallace’s worst finish of the season came at the Circuit of the Americas, where he finished 11th. He has the third-best average finish on the year so far and sits a strong second in points.
A 23XI lockout of the top two positions in points was not on a lot of bingo cards to start the year. Especially when taking into account Joe Gibbs Racing.
The highest driver in points for JGR is also the driver who has had the biggest spotlight on the season so far. Ty Gibbs, whose sour relationship with the team’s former competition director Chris Gabehart has led to a domino effect of a multi-million dollar lawsuit, is 17th in points.
Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell find themselves 23rd and 24th in points, respectively. And Chase Briscoe is a lowly 27th after a transaxle broke at COTA; he was running in the top five at the time.
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Both teams have shown speed, especially Briscoe and Reddick. But it really highlights the difference between a team with a huge distraction on its plate and one without one after spending years with one.
2. What’s Next for Next Year at St. Pete?
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series took its first stab at a street course this weekend with its debut race in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg has been on and off the wider motorsport calendar since the 1980s, with the current iteration of the race and track as a major NTT IndyCar Series event beginning in 2003.
There have been a number of different racing series that have run as support events for IndyCar there over the years, but never a NASCAR stock car series until this season.
I would have put good money on this race being at least a bit of a trainwreck. Instead, it was a fine race without much incident, but plenty of action.
The location — not the actual track — reminded me a lot of Monaco. Yachts were everywhere in the harbor, and a lively fanbase ate up the trucks when most NASCAR weekend crowds tend not to even come out for them.
It begs the question of whether there should be more NASCAR on the St. Pete weekend. The answer is, well, not really. The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series wouldn’t really work from a television standpoint; The CW would be broadcasting the race so FOX can’t.
A Cup race at St. Petersburg is an interesting concept, but doing so would take away from IndyCar’s opening weekend. With the Super Bowl likely moving up to President’s Day weekend full time in the future, this would be the second weekend for NASCAR after the Daytona 500.
Put St. Pete on the 2027 Schedule Right Now
Would anybody really want to see Cup take that momentum and then run on a Saturday afternoon? Or would people rather see a great IndyCar season opener followed back-to-back by another excellent Cup race at EchoPark Speedway on Sunday?
3. The New Higher Power Engine Package Seemed to Work
COTA was the debut of the new 750-horsepower package that NASCAR will be employing at all road courses and most ovals this season.
The resulting race was pretty good. It wasn’t an obvious blockbuster, but it told a decent story of Reddick trying to win again, and that’s what a race needs to be good. Otherwise, it’s cars going around a track for three hours.
Could Shane van Gisbergen get around Reddick if he had another 100-150 horses under him? Maybe. But now that NASCAR uses the short course at COTA, the only turn that would really help with passing at this point would be up the hill into turn 1. The course itself is now much more technical without the longer straight to help balance it out.
The 750 package will be used next at Phoenix Raceway. If it can produce a good race at Phoenix, which has always struggled without the crutch of it being the championship race, it’ll be a clear home run of a package.
4. Brad Keselowski Isn’t One to Fold
You just can’t keep a determined Brad Keselowski down.
After breaking his leg in the offseason, it seemed like it might well have been the beginning of the end of his competitive career. The 2012 Cup Series champion is now the third-oldest driver in the field and has only won once in his previous 170 starts.
Although Keselowski still has not added to his win total, it would be easy not to have noticed these issues just by looking at the races.
Keselowski followed up his strong fifth place in the Daytona 500 with a 17th at Atlanta last week.
Brad Keselowski Has ‘No Intention of Getting Out’ at COTA
This week, in a race that Keselowski had already labeled a challenge with his leg, the owner/driver gutted it out and finished a respectable 20th. This was on top of it being a very physical day out on-track, with numerous drivers struggling with exhaustion and AJ Allmendinger stretchered out to the medical center after the race.
Keselowski, for his part, hobbled off pit road with the cane he uses in his leg recovery. He now sits 12th in points in a year in which he was lucky to have even started all three races so far.
5. Spire’s Successful Start
23XI has taken much of the headlines, but Spire Motorsports has established itself as a team to keep an eye on this season.
Embroiled and in contrast with JGR, Spire has been able to put its head down and quietly perform in the early season. All three of the team’s drivers are currently in the top 10 in points.
No other team can claim that so far. Spire has a lot of TWG money behind it, and the results of that cash infusion may finally be taking shape.
Daniel Suarez has taken to his new team like a dog to water, ranking highest of his teammates in seventh. Michael McDowell seems to have finally gotten a bit comfortable in year two of his tenure there after being out for lunch for much of last year. And Carson Hocevar has shown obvious speed.
Spire already has one Cup Series race win, a fluke rainout with Justin Haley seven years ago. Its next one might be coming very soon.
