In a NASCAR offseason where two NASCAR Cup Series owners were at the center of a lawsuit against the sport, another broke his leg in a skiing accident, and one team went full reality TV to decide one of its drivers, one team executive’s random post on X cut through all of them.
It came from Alpha Prime Racing owner and president Tommy Joe Martins.
“Weirdest [NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series] offseason ever, and it’s not even close,” Martins posted on Jan. 30.
Martins is right, and his team was one of the few that didn’t have a ton of drama locking down their driver lineup.
Even up until this week, the landscape of the O’Reilly garage still feels like it’s in a total flux. Several of the series’ top drivers had to scramble to get full-time efforts together. Some teams weren’t even sure they’re going to run at all until recently.
All of that will be put to bed with the season starting at Daytona International Speedway. In case you’ve missed this wild, turbulent offseason for the newly renamed series, here’s some drivers and storylines worth following in 2026.
Carson Kvapil and JR Motorsports
For a minute, it looked like Carson Kvapil would be going from a playoff driver to out of a full-time ride. It wasn’t performance that initially knocked Kvapil out of his seat last season, but a matter of sponsorship. Eventually, right before Kvapil was set to race for the series title at Phoenix Raceway, JR Motorsports found a way for him to run a full 2026 schedule with time split in the No. 1 Chevy with Connor Zilisch.
Plenty of drivers, as this list will show, will drive a variety of cars this season. But none feel like a contender to dethrone champion Jesse Love in the same way Kvapil does. The No. 1 team is adding Rodney Childers as crew chief after 23 years and a title in the Cup Series, making it feel like a super team in the O’Reilly ranks.
While the JR Motorsports lineup is unconventional in how it splits full-time and part-time drivers, it’s a great strategy for a team trying to maximize their chances to win on a weekly basis. The question for Kvapil is what do his weekends outside his normal ride look like and how will they affect his title hopes? The answer still isn’t clear with the season set to begin.
Rajah Caruth
There’s another JR Motorsports driver in the same boat as Kvapil, but luckily for series rookie Rajah Caruth, his 2026 plans are all laid out.
Caruth will take over the No. 88 Chevy that Zillisch (and Kyle Larson) raced to 11 victories in 2025. The No. 88 will also become the all-star car for Hendrick Motorsports’ Cup Series drivers for 10 races. On those weekends and select others, Caruth will drive the No. 32 Chevy for Jordan Anderson Racing.
While the title expectations aren’t nearly as strong for Caruth as they are for Kvapil, 2026 will be a great evaluation season for both Caruth and JAR. For the 23-year-old with two wins in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, can he meet the very different expectations of two teams with different levels of resources?
For JAR, a team that was both in contention for wins and struggling to make races at different points of 2026, can a highly touted rookie — along with occasional starts by Ross Chastain — help establish them as a team to be reckoned with in O’Reilly alongside Jeb Burton and Blaine Perkins?
Patrick Staropoli
The two most shocking moves of the offseason for the series came in December, both involving Big Machine Racing. On Dec. 8, the team announced that Nick Sanchez would not be returning for 2026 despite a win at EchoPark Speedway and a playoff berth in his rookie season.
If Sanchez’s departure didn’t leave people scratching their heads, his announced replacement on Dec. 23 might have. Patrick Staropoli, who admittedly has one of the most unique resumes in NASCAR history.
Staropoli, 36, is a retina surgeon with degrees from Harvard University and the University of Miami. He had a decent amount of buzz back in the mid-2010s with a win in the ARCA Menards West Series, but he took a seven-year hiatus from the sport to focus on medical school.
He returned to the sport with eight national series starts in 2025. While he didn’t light the world on fire in any of those runs, his best finish of 15th in the fall Truck race at Martinsville Speedway came in a lower funded Cook Racing Technologies entry. BMR has been a playoff team in years past with Parker Kligerman and Sanchez. Staropoli being tabbed to make it three in a row feels like a huge risk given how unproven he is.
Nick Sanchez and AM Racing
Sanchez’s hopes of a full-time ride in 2026 looked all but dead. As did the team he ended up signing with.
AM Racing announced on Nov. 24 that they had been acquired by Sigma Performance Services. After an offseason of relative silence from both parties, the deal was off on Jan. 30 and AM Racing was back. Sanchez was tabbed for the No. 25 Ford on Monday (Feb. 9), along with Daniel Dye as the driver of a part-time No. 52 entry.
The team is in a weird spot, coming off their best season with a playoff berth last season while so much is still unknown about the operation. There’s still no word on who Sanchez’s crew chief will be. Maybe things will turn out alright for both Sanchez and the team, but there’s not a ton of promising signs heading into 2026 that everything is going according to plan.
Corey Day and Hendrick Motorsports
Hey, that team that seems to rule everything in the Cup Series and who’s drivers crush the O’Reilly field almost anytime they run in the series? They’re running full-time now, and doing so with a prospect handpicked by two-time Cup champion Larson.
Corey Day showed significant progress over his national series starts in 2025, finishing second in a Truck Series race at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park and fourth in the fall O’Reilly race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
While it’s been seven years since Hendrick helped field a full-time O’Reilly car — 20 if you don’t count its partnership with JRM — it’s still dominated the series anytime it’s dipped its toes in it. Over 41 starts since the start of 2022, the No. 17 Chevy that Day will race this season has four wins and 19 top-five finishes.
Day, 20, may still be pretty fresh to asphalt racing, but his team has a track record of success at lower divisions with young drivers like the late Ricky Hendrick, Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott.
Worth A Mention
Brent Crews can’t even legally race in O’Reilly yet, but the expectations for the Joe Gibbs Racing prospect are pretty high. With a handful of ARCA Menards Series wins and impressive performances in his Truck Series rides, Crews has the added pressure of running 29 races in the No. 19 Toyota that won last year’s owners’ championship. Crews winning a race or two wouldn’t be shocking, but neither would him repeating the rookie woes we saw from William Sawalich last season.
Austin Green comes from a similar background as Crews and has an impressive track record in his few NASCAR starts. He finished second at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL last season, one of eight top-10 finishes in just 21 starts.
Green’s first full-time ride will be with Peterson Racing, who themselves are entering its first season independent of a previous partnership with JAR.
While there are lofty expectations for Crews and Green, Lavar Scott feels like a sink-or-swim prospect for Alpha Prime. He finished runner-up in the ARCA standings each of the last two seasons, but without a race win to his name. Will he be able to compete with Crews and Green for best rookie, or will he go through growing pains?
Harrison Burton outperformed expectations with AM Racing last season. Now with Sam Hunt Racing, a team that’s felt on the brink of producing wins for a while, maybe he can be the standout of the midpack once again in 2026. His teammate, Dean Thompson, also outperformed expectations in his rookie season with eight top-10s and a 16th-place finish in the standings.
Viking Motorsports is expanding to two teams with two brand new drivers, Anthony Alfredo and Parker Retzlaff. Both have been put through the ringer the last few seasons with Viking being both drivers’ third team in three years. The team managed finishes in the top 20 just 12 times in 30 races with Matt DiBenedetto behind the wheel. Anything similar — or better — from either Alfredo or Retzlaff would be huge for a young program.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.