Who… should you be talking about after the checkered flag?
The last time Denny Hamlin drove into victory lane, he was winning his 60th career Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the fall of 2025, building momentum for a title run that ultimately fell just short.
After a trying winter that included a lingering shoulder injury, Hamlin found himself back in Sin City with another fast race car. Qualifying second to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell, Hamlin stumbled early, thanks to a pit road speeding penalty to wrap up stage one.
With plenty of time to rebound, Hamlin was back in the mix by the end of the next stage, picking up fifth-place stage points before showing the field in the second half that he had the car to beat. He had to fight for the win, first with Kyle Larson and Bell and late with a charging Chase Elliott, but Hamlin seemed to be able to find a little more speed at will when he needed it, holding off Elliott by a half second to take the checkers in the Pennzoil 400, leading 134 of 267 laps.
It’s Hamlin’s first win of 2026 as a driver (as an owner, he’s been to victory lane three times) and the 61st of his Cup Series career. He passes Kevin Harvick for 10th on the all-time Cup win list.
On the other hand…
It was a long day for Las Vegas hometown drivers. Riley Herbst had the best day of the lot, finishing 23rd, while Kyle Busch came home 28th and Noah Gragson 30th.
It’s Busch who should be the most concerned. He’s a former LVMS winner, but he didn’t look like one this week — and truth be told, hasn’t for a while. Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon finished a solid if unspectacular 12th, so RCR has some speed they can find sometimes, but Busch hasn’t enjoyed a lot of it. He did win the Daytona 500 pole but hasn’t made much noise on track.
It’s puzzling because while RCR isn’t on the level of teams like Hendrick Motorsports or JGR, the organization isn’t really a back marker either. And all things being equal, Dillon shouldn’t be outperforming Busch. In many aspects, he isn’t—Busch is ahead of Dillon in 2026 points, and other than Dillon’s lone win in 2025, Busch had a better overall season. He’s certainly a better driver, so it’s surprising that he hasn’t been able to help RCR’s results more.
Maybe it’s the Next Gen car in combination with Busch’s age — he wouldn’t be the first elite driver to see a dramatic drop in results late in his career with a new car. Jimmie Johnson experienced the same with the Gen 6 car late in his Hall of Fame career, and Busch is a similar caliber of driver. He’s in a contract year, so it’s possible a change of scenery will rejuvenate him.
What… is the big question everyone should be asking after the race?
Five races into the year, just two drivers have four top-10 finishes apiece—and they’re teammates. Tyler Reddick finished outside the top 10 for the first time this week after winning the first three races of the season, a Cup Series record.
Bubba Wallace hasn’t visited victory lane in 2026, but he has been as consistent as Reddick in top 10s. His 8.8 average finish is second in the Cup Series to Reddick’s 4.8.
So, is 2026 23XI Racing’s year?
Both Reddick and Wallace were fairly consistent in 2025. Each had 14 top 10s, and while Reddick had one more top five, Wallace had a win while Reddick went winless. One key to an organization’s success is having week-to-week consistency from multiple drivers, and the 23XI Racing drivers are looking to take that to another level this year. If Reddick and Wallace both continue their torrid pace, they set the team up as a double threat to pull off its first title.
Driving the team’s third car, Riley Herbst has yet to find either the consistency or the ability to contend for wins that his teammates share. But he hasn’t had a negative impact on the team’s performance, either. Herbst brings his own sponsorship, so the team isn’t having to spread resources thin, and he doesn’t tear up an inordinate number of race cars. He actually had fewer DNFs than Wallace last year and finished the same number of races as Hamlin did.
If Herbst can pick it up even a little, the entire organization would benefit, but as it is, he’s not dragging them down.
Wallace is racing with real confidence, and Reddick has put significant distractions from 2025 behind him. It’s too early to call anyone a title favorite, but if Hamlin doesn’t win a driver’s title this year, he could very well still find himself at the head table at the banquet.
Where… did he come from?
It’s hard to pass on intermediate tracks, and qualifying near the front is the best way to position for a good day. That goes double for a driver dealing with an injury.
But in typical fashion, Brad Keselowski went against the grain on Sunday. Starting 28th, Keselowski steadily worked his way forward. He led twice during green-flag pit cycles for a total of four laps. When all was said and done, Keselowski finished a very respectable 10th.
Still recovering from a broken femur he sustained during a ski trip in the offseason, Keselowski wasn’t a threat to win on Sunday, but the veteran showed the field he knows a thing or two about points racing, gaining a race-high 18 positions from start to finish. In doing so, he also gained four spots in the driver point standings, going from 16th to 12th. All three RFK Racing cars are now inside the top 15 in points, and the more consistent Keselowski can be, the better they can position themselves as an organization to place cars in the Chase come September.
Sorely needing a solid finish, Chase Briscoe also found his way to one on Sunday, overcoming two pit penalties to finish eighth. Briscoe has had speed every week, but with three finishes of 36th or worse, he’s mired deep in points, sitting 26th after LVMS, with two DNFs due to mechanical failures.
On Sunday, despite penalties for speeding and pitting outside his box, Briscoe showed the speed he and the No. 19 team have had all along and parlayed it into a top 10, his second of the year.
When… are we going to talk about the points?
Despite having his worst finish of 2026 (all of 13th), Reddick extended his points lead by a point, leading his teammate Wallace by 61 points five weeks into the season. Wallace moved up one spot as Ryan Blaney slipped to third after finishing 16th. Hamlin gained eight positions to move into fourth, 78 behind Reddick, with Elliott slipping one spot back to fifth after his runner-up finish.
Bell held steady in sixth, 91 back. Larson moves up three spots to seventh with teammate William Byron up to eighth. Chris Buescher held served in ninth, while Ty Gibbs picked up five spots to tenth.
Thanks to the winner bonus, Hamlin had the biggest gain of the week, climbing from 12th to fourth. Ryan Preece snagged five spots from 18th to 13th.
Going in the opposite direction, Shane van Gisbergen tumbled from fifth to sixteenth after finishing 36th on Sunday. Michael McDowell gave up six positions, dropping from 8th to 14th.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
The Cup Series returns from its southwestern jaunt to pay a visit to the Lady in Black. Darlington Raceway saw its spring race move up from May to March (luckily the forecast is good) this year.
With the demise of the throwback theme, one question that should be in the back of everyone’s mind is if NASCAR is trying to undermine Darlington’s second race date (the fall race is the Southern 500, once NASCAR’s oldest race, and moving that race away from its Labor Day weekend date didn’t go over well with fans).
It’s not an unprecedented move; moving a race to a date when the weather is iffy enough to keep some fans from buying tickets ahead of time (especially if travel is involved, making a last-minute decision unlikely) can give the sanctioning body the excuse it needs to claim lack of interest. Couple that with ending a popular weekend draw, and it does beg the question of whether NASCAR wants to dance with the Lady twice a year anymore.
As for who to watch, Hamlin has been the gold standard at Darlington, with five career wins, most among active drivers. Briscoe has also been strong recently, with two wins in his last three starts (though both came in the Southern 500; Briscoe was 28th in the spring race last year).
A couple of underdogs to keep an eye on are Keselowski and Erik Jones. Both have a couple of Darlington wins, and while they have struggled recently, could next week help one or both of them turn it around?
How… did this race stack up?
While the Next Gen has improved the racing at intermediate tracks in general, LVMS has gotten the short end of the stick in terms of the quality of the racing.
There were some comers and goers at the front, but the most compelling action up front came when the leaders encountered the tail end of the lead lap close to the stage breaks, because the cars in the back turned up the wick to stay on the lead lap and held up the leaders, allowing them to race closer.
Things were much tighter deeper in the pack. As Harvick noted on the broadcast, deeper in the field, the cars aren’t handling as well (in part due to lack of clean air, but also because they don’t have the speed the leaders do to start with).
That should be what NASCAR hones in on. Air is air, and physics will always play a role, but the worse the cars handle, the less it will look like physics wins every week.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.
No playoffs, but the announcers are still talking about points.
I feel bad for Busch. Busch went to RCR and won 3 races right away, and then fell off a cliff. Perhaps he’s spending most of his energy getting his son’s career ready.
Busch has always been able to win driving anything. JJ was only able to win driving one type car. It seems his car setup is not to his liking at rcr.