The 2026 Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway featured variant strategies, good runs for smaller teams, a first-time winner and, of course, The Big One.
Plenty of trendlines came out of a race that proved to be far more than Carson Hocevar’s first win. Here’s a closer look at the spring Talladega NASCAR Cup Series race by the numbers.
8: Laps Led by Chad Finchum
From the drop of the green flag to the conclusion of the first stage, the majority of the field attempted to save fuel to shorten their time in the pits. For a few teams, however, it was an opportunity to race to the front. Within four laps, Cody Ware and Chad Finchum, who started 36th and 38th, respectively, made it inside the top 10, while the rest of the field was saving fuel. By the end of lap 10, Finchum had rocketed to the front.
Finchum lost the lead on lap 18, but the driver of the No. 66 certainly left his mark on the day. These were the first laps led by Finchum in the Cup Series, and more laps than his team, Garage 66, had ever led.
98: Consecutive Green Flag Laps
Due to concerns over excessive fuel saving, NASCAR shortened the final two stages of the race to 45 laps each so drivers wouldn’t need to refuel under green. To keep the race at 500 miles (188 laps), the first stage was extended to 98 laps.
With a much longer opening stage than normal, teams employed a myriad of strategies. Most saved fuel from the start of the race. Others went hard early. Many teams were short on fuel and had to pit twice while the rest only pitted once. Chaos on pit road set drivers like Denny Hamlin and Austin Cindric behind for the rest of the day.
In the end, the field had separated into multiple distinct packs, and the 98-lap first stage went caution-free. It was the longest green flag run at the track since 2015.
26: Cars Involved in The Big One
At Talladega, a crash involving half the field is not out of the ordinary. With cars inches apart for 500 miles, a 15- to 20-car Big One is expected. Sunday’s Big One, however, was different. After a chain reaction of pushes caused Bubba Wallace to sail up the track, a 26-car pileup ensued. While not the biggest in the modern history of the Cup Series, it came close to the 28-car Big One in the 2024 October Talladega race.
Sunday’s lap 115 wreck caused only seven DNFs but put other cars severely off the pace, leading to only 21 cars on the lead lap by the end of the day. The rest of the cars involved, including eventual winner Carson Hocevar, continued with relatively minor damage.
198.413 MPH: Fastest Lap of the Season
Despite fuel-saving reducing speeds into the 180-mph range, once drivers started to push, cars could reach near 200 mph. Zane Smith, driver of the No. 38 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, set a lap time in the draft of 48.263 seconds, or 198.413 MPH.
This is the first time the Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus point has gone to Smith and FRM as a whole. Smith is the ninth different recipient of the fastest lap in the 10 Cup races so far in 2026.
1: Top 10 for Richard Childress Racing in 2026
With a 10th-place finish at Talladega, Kyle Busch and RCR finished in the top 10 for the first time this season. 10 races is the deepest Busch has ever gone in a season before gathering a top 10, and it’s the deepest he’s gone in a season without a top five as well.
As you can see by the chart above, 27th is the lowest in the standings Busch has ever been after the first 10 starts of a season, barring 2015 when he missed the first 11 events due to injury. As for RCR, 2026 is a horrendous start to the year for them, with its two drivers, Austin Dillon and Busch, sitting 24th and 27th in the standings, respectively.
12: Different Winners in Last 12 Talladega Races
Talladega is predictably unpredictable, and Sunday’s race (April 26) continued that trend. Hocevar was the 12th different driver to win in the last 12 races at the track, a streak dating back to 2020. To date, Ryan Blaney is the only repeat winner in the last 13 Talladega races. It’s been a track welcoming to newbies and veterans alike: the only active driver with at least one win at Talladega who has not won during the current streak is Joey Logano.
With superspeedway aces Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones and Michael McDowell yet to win at the track, it is likely the streak continues into 2027 and beyond.
What were the stats for RIchard, DW, or J-Jo in the years at the end of their careers?