Called upon at 3:30 a.m. EST, Regan Smith agreed to drive the No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS and sub for Kyle Larson, who was sat out of the race due to fainting during an autograph session on Saturday.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered Martinsville Speedway with high hopes after scoring his first Grandfather Clock last fall. However, he wouldn't have anything close to the day that he wanted, finishing 36th.
From the first short track of the season with the grandfather clock as the trophy, here is what was surprising and not surprising from Martinsville Speedway’s STP 500.
Will Power dominated the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, but Juan Pablo Montoya would get the advantage following the final set of pit stops. He then held off his Team Penske teammate throughout the final laps, scoring the victory.
Team Penske has dominated so far this weekend in St. Petersburg, and that continued during qualifying as the organization would sweep the top four spots.
The box score shows that Cole Custer finished 16th, but that doesn't represent the speed that the 17-year-old showed at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday.
It will be the 133rd time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series visits the .526 mile paper clip in southern Virginia, and the winner of the STP 500 will go home with one of the most unique and coveted pieces of hardware in the sport - a grandfather clock from the Ridgeway Clock Company.
On Friday, Team Penske swept the top three spots with Will Power, Juan Pablo Montoya and Helio Castroneves. On Saturday, they swept the top three spots once again, just with a new face mixed in the middle.
When Dale Earnhardt Jr. made his first trip to Martinsville Speedway, it didn't go well as he hit everything, even the pacecar. In his eyes, "it looked like that it was going to be quite a challenge to sort it out and understand what I needed to do." However, a test in the early 2000s paid dividends as Earnhardt was able to hit on something during that time and has since done well at Martinsville, scoring the victory last year.
Following only a pair of top-fives to start the season, Denny Hamlin feels that Joe Gibbs Racing's program could be improved to match the likes of Stewart-Haas Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Penske Racing. He also feels last week "showed signs of progress" as he ran inside the top-10 all day, before a pit road penalty for an "uncontrolled tire" took him out of contention, resulting in a 28th place finish.
The 2023 Craftsman Truck Series champion from Seymour, Wisconsin, posted a pole-winning lap at 176.883 mph in 50.881 seconds to claim the first Truck pole position of 2026 at the World Center of Racing.
Gus Dean (No. 25 CAB Installers / IMPACT Toyota) earned the pole for Saturday’s ARCA Menards Series General Tire 200 at Daytona International Speedway.
NHRA officials and FOX Sports released the television schedule for the upcoming 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season, a year that also celebrates NHRA’s 75th anniversary.
Ellis will pilot the No. 02 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro across the full 33-race schedule, culminating with the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Championship Race at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway in November.
Ryan Blaney came away with a second-place finish in the first of two Duel races at Daytona to secure a fifth-place starting position in Sunday's 68th running of the Daytona 500.
