Eyes On O’Reilly: As JGR’s Future Becomes Clear, William Sawalich & Taylor Gray’s Hang in the Balance

When the checkered flag flew at Sonoma Raceway’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race last weekend, the two-month countdown for Joe Gibbs Racing to figure out how to get all four of its drivers into The Chase began.

As the series heads to Chicagoland Speedway this week, Brandon Jones is fairly safe above the cut line … where all his teammates sit. Brent Crews, despite missing four races, has climbed to 11th and is above his teammate Taylor Gray by one point; Gray fell two spots in the standings at Sonoma with a 29th-place finish.

William Sawalich is the first driver out of The Chase, 20 points behind Gray after poor performances at Pocono Raceway and Naval Base Coronado before a solid 13th on Saturday.

Where do things look in two months? Who knows? What things could look like in two years for JGR and Toyota is just as much a mystery.

Denny Hamlin has all but finalized his plans to retire at the end of the 2027 season and in doing so has all but confirmed that Crews will take his place in the No. 11 in the NASCAR Cup Series.

With that, the 2027 lineup in the Cup Series for JGR would include a pair of 32-year-olds in Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell, a 24-year-old Ty Gibbs and teenager Crews. It’d be safe to say the lineup would be cemented for a couple of years.

So where do JGR’s O’Reilly’s drivers go?

Jones has settled nicely into comfortably being an O’Reilly lifer. He’s spent seven seasons of his career with JGR and has finished in the top 10 in points in all seven. Does he stand out as someone who could jump to Cup? No, but he’s also good enough at the second level — and has ample sponsorship from Menards — that he’ll likely have a top-tier seat in O’Reilly for as long as he wants. Even if that’s not with JGR.

But Gray and Sawalich? They are still 21 and 19, respectively, and have aspirations of Cup racing, though probably need a little more seasoning. Gray has two wins to his name and arguably should have more when considering some strong runs at short tracks and road courses. Then again, he’s had a few lengthy stretches of bad runs in his one-and-a-half seasons in O’Reilly. 

In that same span, Sawalich has been put through the wringer with an awful start to 2025 and a concussion that ended his year just as he started to put things together. He won at Rockingham Speedway and had three-straight top fives at Dover Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway but has been pedestrian otherwise in 2026.

It’ll be a minute before either get considerable momentum toward a Cup ride, and even if they do, it likely will not be with JGR or the other top-tier Cup Toyota team, 23XI Racing. There’s a chance Legacy Motor Club sees an opening with the operation expanding in the coming years, but they likely have to go the Jesse Love route of jumping manufacturers. 

Then again, does JGR have the patience to keep them in their rides long enough to get to Cup prospects? Look at the names on the depth chart in the Toyota Racing Development camp and JGR pipeline: Gio Ruggiero, Kaden Honeycutt, Max Reaves, Isabella Robusto, Jade Avedisian, the list goes on.

One of them is bound to get Crews’ seat, but what if JGR decided to make another call-up at the expense of one of its current O’Reilly drivers?

There are no confirmed plans yet for Sawalich with JGR beyond 2026, while Gray was announced as being extended for 2027 last week. Just like many as the run toward The Chase hits another gear, the stretch to it will also serve as a resume for future jobs in the series and beyond.

It’s very likely that the next two months for two young drivers could set off the butterfly effect for what we see in O’Reilly in two years.