This week on Bringing the Heat with Trey Lyle, Frontstretch’s Michael Massie chats with Cole Custer.
Following Connor Zilisch’s injury in victory lane, Custer recalls a near-tumble of his own at Kentucky Speedway. After that, Custer evaluates his season, from racing for the win in the Daytona 500, to searching for positive results from week to week.
After the interview. Caleb Barnes joins Lyle to talk about the hottest topics of the week. The two discuss the announcement that NASCAR’s secondary level will have a new title sponsor in 2026, dropping the Xfinity moniker to become the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Barnes and Lyle then review the 2026 schedule, reacting to the best and worst aspects. That includes disappointment in a Dover Motor Speedway All-Star Race and an O’Reilly schedule that mirrors the NASCAR Cup Series schedule too much.
While many of the exciting changes had already been announced or heavily rumored, the returns to Chicagoland Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway are among the best parts of the Cup schedule, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg might be the most exciting revelation of the schedule release.
The soundbite of the week comes from Tyler Reddick, who shares his frustrations after contact from Daniel Suarez into Ty Gibbs took the No. 45 out of contention at Richmond Raceway. Barnes and Lyle debate if this is the moment that might ultimately remove Reddick from playoff contention.
With the final thoughts this week, Barnes reacts to less than subpar ratings from the Saturday night race at Richmond, with hopes that the poor ratings would not translate to even fewer Saturday night races. Meanwhile, Lyle expresses his content attitude following a fantastic race at Richmond, his home track.
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
A Graduate of Virginia Tech in Sports Media and Analytics, Trey Lyle has been covering NASCAR since 2021 as the producer of the Fast Lane with Ed Lane on VTRN Sports 93.3 FM in Lynchburg, Va.
Trey joined FS in 2023 to cohost Happy Hour and help out on the podcast front as the producer for Brining the Heat with Bryan Nolen. Now, he oversees the entire podcast operation for Frontstretch.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!