by Patrick Zier | Sep 13, 2026 |
Right now, Toyota is the Jolly Green Giant of NASCAR, stomping its way to a championship – most likely – by crushing every Ford and Chevy in its path. Except for two. Chevy’s Kyle Larson is taking some big swings and for Ford, Ryan Blaney is having some success trying to trip them up. But that’s it. Take either one away and there’s not much left.
Toyota’s dominance is clearly shown by the Old Guy Sport competition index, which judges cars and teams by how they race instead of simply crossing the finish line, which is the primary criteria in the NASCAR points system. And when you use the OGS competition index, if it wasn’t for Larson and Blaney, Chevy and Ford might as well leave their cars in the garage.
It should also be noted that the OGS competition index does not count races run at the three superspeedways, Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, because where you finish and leading laps is determined primarily by avoiding the “big wreck” and being in the right lane at the right time on the last lap, and most of that is out of the driver’s control.
By almost any competitive measure, Toyota’s dominance is staggering, something not seen in NASCAR in a long, long time, if ever. Going into Sunday’s race in Madison, Ill., an intermediate track just outside of St. Louis, Toyota holds down the first five places in the OGS competition index.
The four JGR drivers, Denny Hamlin (574 points), Christopher Bell (445), Ty Gibbs (335) and Chase Briscoe (316) are one-two-four and five, with another Toyota driven by Tyler Reddick third. Larson, with 305 points, and Blaney, with 300, are sixth and seventh, respectively.
As a team, the four JGR cars have 1,670 points. That’s more than Hendrick’s four cars, led by Larson, and Penske’s four cars, led by Blaney, have put together. The Wood brothers car, which is built by Penske, is included in the Penske totals, which have Hendrick with 651 points and Penske with just 612.
Looking at some other indicators, Toyotas have won 13 of the 22 non-superspeedway races while Chevy has five and Ford four. And Gibbs drivers have registered 46 top five finishes compared to 20 for Hendrick, 10 by Larson, and 14 for Penske including six from Blaney. So Toyota has won more races than Chevy and Ford combined and Gibbs has scored more top fives than Hendrick and Penske combined.
The Toyotas look to be in total control. Of the 10 playoff races, six are on intermediate tracks, three on short tracks and one on a superspeedway. So if you’re going to win in the playoffs, you need to be strong on the intermediate tracks and going into Sunday’s race at St. Louis, Toyota has won nine of the 11 run on those tracks so far.
While all this looks like a Toyota tidal wave, Larson is quietly becoming a threat to let the air out of Toyota’s tires. Checking the OGS competition index, he has scored points for leading races under green 13 times, more than any other driver. Hamlin is next with 12. And in the last two races, one at New Hampshire, a short track, and last Sunday at Darlington, an intermediate oval, Larson has a pair of fifth place finishes.
Speaking before the playoffs started, Larson said “I don’t think they change the way I think about a race or the way I approach a race,” according to NASCAR’s website. “This series is just really tough and the teams are really good. There’s a team or two that are just way faster than everybody right now,” he added.
“All 16 teams in this championship are, I think, very, very good and can go on runs, but the Toyotas are incredibly fast. We’ve seen that all year,” Blaney, Ford’s strongest entry, said according to NASCAR.com. “I think the Fords, for myself and the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 2 (Austin Cindric) and the 60 (Ryan Preece) and the 17 (Chris Buescher), I feel we’ve had a real good month and closed the gap there.”
In reality though, Blaney is the only Ford capable of running down the Toyotas, if anyone in a Ford can, and Larson looms as their biggest threat. That said, the Toyotas look almost untouchable, with Blaney and even Larson no more than an annoyance as they race to the finish far ahead of anybody else.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at St. Louis: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at St. Louis: Hamlin. Top five at St. Louis last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Chase Briscoe, 3-Chase Elliott, 4-Ryan Blaney, 5-Joey Logano.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Darlington picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Bell. Last week’s winner at Darlington: Bell. OGS season record: 12-10.
OGS competition index top 10 after 22 races: 1-Hamlin 574 points, 2-Bell 445, 3-Reddick 383, 4-Ty Gibbs 335, 5-Briscoe 316, 6-Kyle Larson 305, 7-Blaney 300, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 9-Logano 208, 10-Elliott 192.
OGS competition top 10 1-on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to St. Louis): 1-Hamlin 428 points, 2-Reddick 271, 3-Bell 266, 4-Briscoe, Larson 151, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 99, 8-Corey Heim 78, 9-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-Gibbs 61, 10-Blaney 58.
by Patrick Zier | Sep 9, 2026 |
TAMPA – South Florida Coach Brian Hartline doesn’t want his team to be like Mike. He wants it to be like Army. And no, we’re not talking about going to the wishbone or some version of it. “We have a lot of respect for the way they operate,” Hartline said Tuesday before heading for West Point, N.Y. and Saturday’s game against the Black Knights.
“It kind of feeds into everything I believe in.”
Army doesn’t have a lot of size. It doesn’t have a lot of speed. It struggles against teams with superior talent, especially when it steps outside the Group of 6. And even in the Group of 6, specifically the American Conference, it often doesn’t measure up physically. What it does have is a lot of heart, a lot of pride and a no-quit attitude regardless of the circumstances.
“It’s not about your talent level,” Hartline said. “It’s about your skill and discipline level, your ability to develop skill based on the technique, based on the fundamentals you need to do your job and then your ability to develop the discipline to do it consistently, prepare for it the right way, execute the right way on game day. That’s what it’s about.”
Ever since he arrived on the South Florida scene, Hartline has preached those things to his team. He believes that when you get your mind focused on playing well and then go out and play well, when you stay within yourself and do what you’re supposed to do, the wins will come.
“There’s talent, there’s skill and there’s discipline,” Hartline continued. “Talent is kind of what God’s blessed you with and your job is to maximize that. Your skill and discipline development is purely on you. They kind of embody that,” Hartline said of Army.
“They maximize their skill and talent,” Hartline said. “They maximize from a discipline standpoint. They know what they’re supposed to do on each job and they know their job description. So, you know, I have a lot of respect for the way they operate.”
The big thing Army has going for it, especially in the wild, wild West that college football has become, is stability. Jeff Monken, its coach, is in his 13th year. Only four coaches in the college game have longer tenure. Because it is a service academy, Army doesn’t have to deal with the transfer portal, NIL or collectives.
Players come to Army because that’s where they want to be. Monken has a chance to develop them, integrate them into his system. And it shows. Army is always troublesome, sometimes good and occasionally very good, like when it won the American in 2024. The Black Knights haven’t had a losing season since 2015. Primarily, that’s because they run a jazzed-up version of the wishbone, an offense which is almost extinct.
Army’s opener against Bryant is a case in point. Army won, 59-3. Okay, you say, who cares? For heaven’s sake, it’s Bryant. But the story here is not that Army beat Bryant, it’s how they did it. Army gained 569 yards rushing with 16 different players carrying the ball. Everybody that suited up for the game played.
More importantly, Army was virtually mistake free. It ran 70 offensive plays, including 57 runs, and NEVER HAD A TURNOVER OR A SINGLE NEGATIVE PLAY. Let me repeat that, not one turnover or a single negative play. It had only one offensive penalty, for holding, and only one on defense, giving it two for the entire game. And that’s not unusual. In 2025, Army was the least penalized team in college football. It also led the country in time of possession.
“Why is it hard to play them? Probably because it’s aways difficult to go against somebody that’s pretty consistent,” Hartline commented. “They show up the right way. They do things the right way. They hold themselves accountable.
“Those are the kind of people you – frankly – probably don’t want to compete against and so I have a lot of respect for, you know, how they operate, what they do and the way they go about their business. So a great opportunity for us,” Hartline added.
“For them it’s not about what other people do, it’s about what they do. I have a lot of respect for that,” Hartline repeated. “And, you know, they’re expert at it. So they’re going to do a good job maximizing every drive, maximizing their skill set and what they’re best at.”
What Army wants to do is grind you up and spit you out. It’s what Army does. At Michie Stadium, there is a bronze plaque that every player touches before every home game. On it is inscribed a quote attributed to General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff during World War II, although there is some question as to whether he actually said it. Doesn’t matter, because it embodies the essence of Army football.
“I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want an Army football player,” the plaque reads. And so Saturday, if USF is to win, it will, to borrow a slogan from the Army, have to be all it can be, because Army does what Army does, and nobody does it better.
by Patrick Zier | Sep 2, 2026 |
It’s kind of funny, really. In 2022, Atlanta Motor Speedway repaved its track so it would be more like Daytona, becoming a mini-superspeedway, if you will. It couldn’t be a true superspeedway because at a mile-and-a-half, it’s not as big as Daytona and Talladega.
Mostly, it added banking to produce the long lines of cars that went round and round until somebody got out of shape and caused a big wreck, just like Daytona and Talladega. Actual racing? Again, just like Daytona and Talladega, there wasn’t much of that.
Until the summer race this July. In a totally unexpected development, drivers and race teams found the track had changed its character. I was nothing like what had been going on the past few years, including the spring race this February.
The track surface was worn, and the cars lost grip. Some teams’ set-ups were better able to take advantage of the change in downforce than others, but the long lines didn’t form because at a certain point, everybody was unstable. They couldn’t reach the high speeds produced by drafting one another usually seen on superspeedways where slower cars were pulled along at the same speed as the faster ones. Now, there were small groups of cars, and if a faster car got a good run it could pull out of line and pass a slower car in front of it and then get back in line. There was real racing for a change.
NASCAR saw that and, to its credit, put together a committee to see if it couldn’t come up with some changes that would create better racing at Daytona. In effect, whereas Atlanta had wanted to become Daytona, now Daytona wanted to become Atlanta.
The curing of the track had produced improved competition at Atlanta naturally, but Daytona was a different animal. So NASCAR came up with some rule changes. It lowered the rear spoiler from seven to four inches and cut horsepower from roughly 550 to 450.
The high spoiler trapped air flowing over and around the car, pushing it into the track and creating downforce. By lowering the spoiler, the cars wouldn’t stick as well and by lowering horsepower, it was harder to close on the car in front and take advantage of the draft, keeping the cars farther apart. The changes were supposed to keep the pack pace steady while adding 3 m.p.h. to cars pulling out to make a single car run.
It was a good idea except for one thing: it didn’t work. Like so many things that look good on paper in NASCAR, when theories were put into practice the results were not what was expected. The long lines quickly formed up again and anybody that pulled out to pass without another line of cars forming behind him was quickly shuffled to the back of the pack.
The one positive, at least early in the race, was that because they weren’t running nose-to-tail, if something happened the cars had enough maneuverability to prevent the big wreck. But in the end, it was a typical superspeedway mess. With Zane Smith leading on the last lap coming to the finish, he was bumped by Tyler Reddick, hit the wall, the big wreck was on and Ryan Preece, who had never won a NASCAR race in 249 starts and may never win another one, snuck home with the win.
“I think it was a great job by NASCAR and the whole team, you know, coming up with something different here,” Denny Hamlin, a member of the committee that came up with the rule changes, said on USA Sports. “There definitely was a change,” Hamlin continued. “The cars felt a little different. I didn’t think it was quite as logjammed as it was in the past. If you wanted to get to the front I felt like you could.”
However, the general consensus seemed to be that not much was different, and some thought the new rules made things worse. Speaking to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Hamlin’s teammate, Christopher Bell, was highly critical of the racing on the track.
“Even with the lower downforce, there were no holes (to get into), there was no bubble (the air compressed by a trailing car closing on the car in front) to separate the cars, which meant there were no places to slide into,” Bell said.
“I don’t know. I expected it to be a lot different,” Bell continued. “There wasn’t a difference at all and it was worse with the fuel mileage and stage lengths we had tonight (Saturday).”
“Honestly, I could not tell a difference,” Brad Keselowski told NASCAR.com. “I couldn’t tell they changed the rules at all. My car drove almost identical to what it did (last year). I was shocked by that,” Keselowski continued. “I thought it would drive poorly (have less downforce), particularly here in the summer.
“I was caught off guard by that,” Keselowski said. “I don’t expect it to be much different at Talladega,” he added. “The car was pretty forgiving, maybe a little bit harder to build a run to push (get to the bumper of the car ahead of you) but it was not dramatic. The handling, I think we all thought handling would be a bigger factor than it was,” he said. “It really didn’t come into play.”
Oh well. Nice try NASCAR.
NASCAR NOTESp
Three most likely winners at Darlington Sunday: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner of the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington: Chase Briscoe. Top five in Cook Out Southern 500 last year: 1-Briscoe, 2-Reddick, 3-Erik Jones, 4-John Hunter Nemechek, 5-Justin Allgaier.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport picks: The OGS competition index does not score races at NASCAR’s three superspeedways, Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega. Last week’s race was at Daytona.
Top 10 in OGS competition index after 21 races: 1-Hamlin 565, 2-Bell 391, 3-Reddick 344, 4-Briscoe 312, 5-Ty Gibbs 295, 6-Kyle Larson 283, 7-Ryan Blaney 280, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 226, 9-Joey Logano 208, 10-Chase Elliott 192.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Darlington: 1-Hamlin 419, 2-Reddick 232, 3-Bell 212, 4-Briscoe 147, 5-Larson 129, 6-Elliott 120, 7-William Byron 99, 8-Corey Heim 78, 9-Brad Keselowski 63, 10-Carson Hocevar, Daniel Suarez 51.
