by Patrick Zier | Jun 7, 2026 |
Toyota has become the Godzilla of stock car racing. Nobody can stop it. Not Ford. Not Chevy. Not even NASCAR. Toyota is crushing the competition and there’s no end in sight.
Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) and 23IX, Toyota’s top two teams, have taken over the sport. It didn’t happen overnight. It’s been brewing almost since NASCAR unveiled the new Next Gen car in 2022, something that’s been building for a while and came to fruition this year.
Ever since the Next Gen car came on line, NASCAR’s big three, JGR, Hendrick Motorsports (Chevy) and Penske Racing (Ford) have been in a race to see who could figure it out first.
All have made small gains, but the Toyota teams have discovered something which has given them a decided edge this season. They are not only running away from the pack, they have left it choking on the dirty air that swirls out of their tailpipes.
Toyota’s dominance is apparent when you look at the numbers it is putting up in the Old Guy Sport competition index. The OGS competition index is a better measure of competitive balance than the NASCAR point system because it rewards racing and leading laps under green rather than simply finishing the race.
It also eliminates the three superspeedways, Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, which don’t give you a true picture of who’s running well and who’s not because luck is the primary factor in determining how you finish.
And when you look at the OGS competition index, Toyota is in a class by itself. The top three drivers are Denny Hamlin, 330 points; Tyler Reddick, 281 and Christopher Bell, 217, all in Toyotas.
That’s the first time a single manufacturer has had the top three in the Next Gen era. What’s more, Hamlin, Reddick and Bell are running away from the pack. Hendrick’s Kyle Larson, with just 169 points, is fourth.
And five of the six factory Toyota drivers are in the top 10. Ty Gibbs is sixth and Chase Briscoe ninth. Only Bubba Wallace, who seems to be kind of leveling out, is missing. Wallace has just 10 points and is tied for 19th.
Toyota is dominating in other ways as well. It has 31, or more than half, of the top five finishes through the first 11 races. Chevy has 18 and Ford six. By themselves, Hamlin, Reddick and Bell have 19.
Toyota has gotten 227 points on the OGS competition index for leading laps under green. Chevy has 111 and Ford 71. By themselves, Hamlin, Reddick and Bell have accumulated 204 points.
“They have something figured out,” Larson, the defending NASCAR Cup champion, admitted on NASCAR’s website. “The Toyota’s are really, really fast. They have good grip. They’re able to be on offense all the time.”
Clearly, Toyota has done a much better job of adapting to the Next Gen car than anybody else. Generally speaking, Hendrick has been considered the best organization in NASCAR. That was always debatable, but JGR has now surpassed it. JGR stands alone.
In 2023, the second year of the Next Gen car, Hendrick’s four drivers totaled 2.310 points in the OGS competition index. In 2024, that dropped to 1,616 and in 2025, 1,412.
In 2023, JGR’s foursome was at 1,356 points. That rose to 1,518 in 2024 and 1,797 last year. Through the first 11 races of this year, JGR has nearly doubled Hendrick, outscoring the leading Chevy team 811-411.
In the Next Gen era Penske Motorsports, Ford’s top entry, has never been remotely competitive despite the fact it won NASCAR championships in 2022, 2023 and 2024. This is just one indication of how far off the mark the NASCAR point system is.
Penske’s four drivers had just 442 points in 2023, 816 in 2024 and 888 last season. While that indicates marginal improvement each year, the Next Gen car continues to be a mystery to Penske and Ford. This year, Ford has scored only 201 points in the first 11 events.
This despite the fact that Ryan Blaney has proven to be one of the most talented drivers in the sport and, by far, the leading competitor on the Penske team. Even though he is dragging the Ford anchor behind him, Blaney is currently seventh in the OGS competition index with 149 points.
So why have the top teams had so much trouble with the Next Gen car? Because it is radically different than anything that came before. Prior to 2022, when the Next Gen car was introduced, downforce was primarily generated by air going over and around the car and trapped by the rear spoiler, forcing the back of the car down.
The underside of the car was open, exposing all the mechanical components and pipes that were the guts of the power train. Because of that, air going under the car couldn’t be controlled and moved into any opening it could find, pushing the car up and reducing downforce.
But the Next Gen car has an underwing that covers the bottom on the car from behind the front wheels to just in front of the rear wheels, creating a smooth surface for the air to pass through.
So now, instead of keeping the front of he car down to keep air from getting under it, you want it up a bit to let a steady stream of air in. As the air is channeled back and out of the car, a low pressure area develops below it which creates downforce.
And whichever manufacturer does that the best has an advantage. “It’s (Toyota’s advantage over the others) not as much as you think,” Hendrick’s Chase Elliott, who has won twice so far, declared on NASCAR’s website.
“That’s the challenge for us right now. You’re just fighting for such small margins (of improvement),” he added.bbs
That’s true. But right now, Ford and Chevy are losing that fight. And it doesn’t look like it will get better anytime soon.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Michigan this week: 1-Christopher Bell, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Tyler Reddick. Last year’s winner at Michigan: Hamlin. Top five at Michigan last year: 1-Hamlin, 2-Chris Buescher, 3-Ty Gibbs, 4-Bubba Wallace, 5-Kyle Larson.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Nashville picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Bell. Last week’s Nashville winner: Hamlin. OGS record through 11 races, 6-5.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Hamlin 330 points, 2-Reddick 281, 3-Bell 217, 4-Larson 169, 5-Chase Elliott 166, 6-Gibbs 163, 7-Ryan Blaney 149, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 128, 9-Chase Briscoe 101, 10-Brad Keselowski 63.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Michigan): 1-Hamlin 254, 2-Reddick 176, 3-Bell 126, 4-Elliott 105, 5-Larson 86, 6-Briscoe 67, 7-Keselowski 63, 8-Daniel Suarez 51, 9-Blaney 37, 10-William Byron 34.
by Patrick Zier | May 31, 2026 |
Realistically, Daniel Suarez had no shot at winning Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600 last Sunday. for the most part, he had been hanging around mid-pack, which is where most Spire Motorsports cars run most of the time.
The race had been dominated by a bunch of snarling Toyotas, four of them belonging to Joe Gibbs Racing and another driven by 23XI’s Tyler Reddick, who would end up leading 119 laps.
Combined, Reddick and the four JGR entries were up front for 289 of the race’s 373 laps, leaving the rest of the field just 84 to fight over with only 50 of those under green. It seems nobody can stop Toyota. Right now, they’re the Jolly Green Giant of NASCAR.
Meanwhile, pretty much unnoticed, Suarez was making slow but steady progress. And as the race unfolded and everybody started making their final pit stops, he began moving up.
According to Lapraptor.com’s analytics, Suarez was 21st On lap 329. As more cars came in for fuel and tires, he jumped to 17th on lap 333, 15th on lap 349. And when he pitted on 356, he had moved up to seventh.
By now, everyone was trying to factor in the weather. How long would the race go? Would the raindrops which had been mildly disruptive in the early going become a deluge at the end?
Reddick was leading, with the other Toyotas in tow, when Suarez pitted. And then Ryan Sparks, Suarez’ crew chief, decided to make a move. With nothing to lose, he put two tires on instead of four, allowing Suarez to get back on the track ahead of Reddick and take the lead.
Now, it was wait-and-see. If the storms held off and the race went green most of the rest of the way, Suarez was a dead duck. With all the Toyotas and almost everybody else on four fresh tires instead of two, they would swarm past Suarez and he would be lucky to finish 10th.
“I don’t know, something in the back of my head told me to just go ahead and put on two,” Sparks said according to NASCAR’s website. “I kind of looked and saw what everybody else had for tires in front of us, and I figured there was going to be a good opportunity for us to be first or second. Just wanted to get that clean air and give ourselves a chance,” he added.
Still, if the race stayed green and he had to go any distance, Suarez was in trouble. With all the Toyotas behind him faster and on four tires, he needed yellow flags. Yellow flags, and rain.
Coming out of the pits, Suarez caught his first break. The race was under caution because of rain, and it stayed that way for three laps. It went green again on lap 360, but as the Toyotas started to close on Suarez, it went back to caution on 362.
The rain had become a little more steady, and the field slowly circled the track for eight more laps. Back to green on 370, with the Toyotas side-by-side and battling each other instead of Suarez.
Then, on 373, the skies above the speedway opened up. Red flag for rain with Suarez in front. No way to dry the track. Game, set, match. Sparks’ gamble had paid off, big time.
So what does this tell us about Spire Motorsports? Is this the little engine that could? One of several nondescript Cup teams finally breaking out of anonymity? Or is this just a one-time thing?
Spire was started by Jeff Dickerson in 2019, with Rick Hendrick serving as a consultant and providing engines for the team. In just its first year, with Justin Haley driving, Spire won Daytona’s Coke Zero Sugar 400.
It then went winless until this season, when highly touted Carson Hocevar won at Talladega. Hocevar got a ton of attention for his victory celebration, which had him hanging out the driver’s side window while doing burnouts and circling the track.
Just 23 and extremely aggressive on the track, Hocevar drew comparisons to Dale Earnhardt, which seemed a bit premature. And with Suarez now winning at Charlotte, some are ready to crown Spire as the next big thing in Cup.
But that’s likely a bridge too far. At this point. Spire still hasn’t done much. Two of its three wins are on superspeedways, where anybody can win.
Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest and most important event, when he was just 20 years old and had only run two Cup races in his entire career. He was driving for the Wood brothers, a tired team well past its glory days at the time.
If you strip away the superspeedways and Suarez’s win in the rain-shortened Charlotte race, nothing leads you to believe Spire will be the next 23XI.
Hocevar’s best finish this year, outside of the superspeedways, is a fourth at Darlington and he has only two in the top 10. Suarez’s best before Charlotte was a sixth at Texas and if you throw out his fifth at Atlanta, another superspeedway, he has just three top 10s counting Charlotte.
Spire’s third driver is veteran Michael McDowell, who once won the Daytona 500 and is pretty good on road courses. This year, he has two top 10s, a fifth on Austin’s road course and a second at Watkins Glen.
So Spire looks like a paper tiger, although Sparks says they’re on their way. It was tough, he said, when the Next Gen car came out and Spire was working out of a beat up building near Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“We all slept in the shop,” Sparks commented. “There were 20 of us working on two Cup teams each and every week and it was a grind. We’ve had a steady progression since then.
“And you’re seeing the results. We’ve been building this thing for five years. Nobody believed in us until Hocevar put us on the map at Talladega and now Daniel (Suarez) at Charlotte. Eventually, they’re going to take us seriously,” Sparks declared.
Problem is, everybody that’s not with Gibbs, Hendrick, Penske or now 23XI has been saying that for years and of all the second-tier teams out there, only 23XI has made it stick.
Especially in racing, it’s easy to talk about reaching lofty goals. But talking about what you’re going to do and then actually doing it, well, that’s two different things.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Nashville: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Nashville: Ryan Blaney. Top five at Nashville last year: 1-Blaney, 2-Carson Hocevar, 3-Hamlin, 4-Joey Logano, 5-William Byron.
Old Guy Sport’s Charlotte picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Reddick, 3-Chase Elliott. Charlotte winner: Dennis Suarez. OGS season record, 5-5.
OGS competition index top 10 after 10 races: 1-Reddick 274, Hamlin 274; 3-Bell 172, 4-Elliott 166, 5-Ty Gibbs 163, 6-Kyle Larson 161, 7-Blaney 144, 8-Shane van Gisbergen 116, 9-Chase Briscoe 70, 10-Brad Keselowski 63.
OGS competition index on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Nashville): 1-Hamlin 198, 2-Reddick 169, 3-Elliott 105, 4-Bell 81, 5-Larson 78, 6-Keselowski 63, 7-Suarez 51, 8-Briscoe 36, 9-Byron 34, 10-Blaney 32.
by Patrick Zier | May 23, 2026 |
Kyle Busch probably didn’t think much about it. Sinus infections can be irritating, but drivers fight through this kind of stuff all the time. Colds. The flu. Upset stomachs.
It’s not going to keep you out of your car. If it’s bad enough, you may need an IV after the race, treatment of some kind, but you’re not getting out of your car. You race because, well, that’s what drivers do. They race.
So, Busch ran the Cup race at Watkins Glen and, over the radio, requested that a team physician give him a shot when it was over. It did not sound like he was in any major distress. He was told the physician would meet him at his bus and that seemed to be the end of it.
Actually, from a competitive standpoint, it was a very good day for Busch. He finished eighth, his best showing of the season. A few days later he was in Dover, where he won the truck race and then finished 17th in the All-Star event. If anything was still wrong, it seemed to be minor and under control.
And then it all fell apart. Wednesday, Busch was testing in the Chevy racing simulator at Concord, N.C., looking ahead to the Memorial Day race in Charlotte, when he began having difficulty breathing.
A 9-1-1 call was made and an unresponsive Busch was taken to the hospital. Busch’s family then issued a statement saying he would not run Charlotte’s Memorial Day race and had cancelled all his activities because of “a severe illness resulting in hospitalization.”
Busch’s car owner, Richard Childress, followed that with a release that said “Kyle Busch’s health is our utmost priority and he and his family have the full resources of RCR behind them.
“Kyle is an integral part of our organization and we wish him a safe and speedy recovery. His No. 8 Chevrolet will be ready and waiting for him. We’re thankful to Austin Hill for stepping in to drive the No. 8 Chevrolet this weekend.
“Please keep Kyle and the Busch family in your prayers and help us respect the family’s privacy at this time,” the release concluded.
Then came Thursday, and the announcement that stunned the entire NASCAR community as well as others in motorsports around the world.
“On behalf of the Busch family, Richard Childress Racing and all of NASCAR, we are devastated to announce the sudden and tragic passing of Kyle Busch,” the release began. “NASCAR lost a giant of the sport today (Thursday), far too soon,” it concluded. Shockingly, Kyle Busch had died.
Saturday, the family said Busch contracted a severe case of pneumonia that triggered sepsis, which attacks the body’s vital organs.
Longtime teammate and sometimes rival Denny Hamlin summed up the thoughts of almost everybody. “I absolutely cannot comprehend this news,” he said.
Joe Gibbs Racing, where Busch spent most of his career, also issued a statement. “Kyle was a fierce competitor, an incredible teammate, and, far more importantly, a devoted father, husband and son. His impact on our organization and on the sport of NASCAR will never be forgotten,” the JGR release read in part.
While his talent is undeniable, Busch was probably the most physically gifted driver in NASCAR, his often belligerent, confrontational attitude toward NASCAR, other drivers and even the fans shaped the way he was perceived.
When he was winning, Busch’s standard victory celebration was to bow to the grandstand while sweeping the checkered flag in front of him, usually to a resounding chorus of boos.
Busch was considered a phenom when he came up in his late teens and quickly advanced to Cup as a development driver for Hendrick, wining his first cup race when he was just 20 years old.
But Hendrick fired him to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr., a source of contention between the two for many years, and Busch hooked up with Gibbs.
In his first year with JGR, Busch won eight races, and he won at least once every year he was there.
But after the 2022 season, Busch, then 37, and Gibbs couldn’t agree on a contract extension. Caught between a rock and a hard place, there were no openings on the other elite teams, Hendrick and Penske, Busch signed with Richard Childress Racing, which had become a second tier operation.
At the time, many thought Busch had been pushed out the door by Gibbs to make room for his grandson, Ty Gibbs, who was considered an emerging talent and was ready to race Cup.
The loss of his ride at Gibbs couldn’t have come at a worse time for Busch, who had to cope with NASCAR’s introduction of the Next Gen car while he was adjusting to a team which lacked the resources and quality personnel at JGR.
The Next Gen car was introduced in 2022, Busch’s last year with Gibbs, and he did okay with it, finishing ninth with 270 points in the Old Guy Sport competition index. The OGS competition index is used to measure competitiveness rather than the NASCAR point standings because NASCAR’s standings are based on finishing races, not competing in them.
In 2023, Busch’s first year with RCR, he improved to seventh in the OGS standings with three wins and 314 points. But that was an anomaly. When the Next Gen car hit the track, teams could do almost nothing to modify it.
And because the cars were virtually all the same, the best drivers got the best results, and Busch was one of the best drivers. But by 2024, the elite teams, JGR, Hendrick and Penske, with their superior analytics, engineering and technology, were figuring out ways to improve the car, and RCR fell behind.
In 2024, Busch dropped to 17th in the OGS competition index with just 99 points. Last year, the number fell to 48, good for the 22nd spot. And through the first nine races of this year, RCR hasn’t scored a single point (OGS does not count the superspeedway races, Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, because luck is the primary factor in determining how well you run there.)
On top of that, Busch had trouble adapting to the Next Gen car. “It’s probably hurt me more than it’s helped me,” he admitted before his death. And the numbers back him up. He was going no place at RCR. There was going to be no return to greatness.
At the time of the tragic illness that ended his life, Busch had gone a staggering 141 races without a win. At one point this year, he ran five races in a row where he finished 20th or worse. In his entire career, Busch had never gone five races in a row finishing that low. And he had led just 19 laps this season.
In today’s world, a driver is only as good as his car, and Busch’s cars, in the last years of his life, were not very good, with little indication they were going to get any better.
But that does not take anything away from what he did in NASCAR. Kyle Busch was one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport. He proved that.
Over the course of his career, he won 69 truck races, more than anybody. He also won 102 races in the O’Reilly series, a step below Cup and again, that’s more than anybody. And his 63 Cup wins are ninth all-time, although he will probably be overtaken by Hamlin, who currently has 61.
Still, his 234 wins across all NASCAR divisions is the best ever, and his records are always going to be there. Nothing that happened at RCR will ever change that.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Charlotte: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Chase Elliott. Last year’s winner in first race at Charlotte: Ross Chastain.
Top five in first race at Charlotte last year: 1-Chastain, 2-William Byron, 3-Chase Briscoe, 4-A.J. Almendinger, 5-Brad Keselowski.
Watkins Glen Old Guy Sport picks: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Christopher Bell, 3-Reddick. Watkins Glen winner: van Gisbergen. Season record, 5-4.
OGS competition index top 10: 1-Reddick 240 points, 2-Hamlin 236, 3-Elliott 166, 4-Ty Gibbs 162, 5-Kyle Larson 150, 6-Ryan Blaney 144, 7-Bell 128, 8-van Gisbergen 116, 9-Briscoe 66, 10-Keselowski.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most like Charlotte): 1-Hamlin 160 points, 2-Reddick 135, 3-Elliott 105, 4-Larson 67, 5-Keselowski 63, 6-Bell 37, 7-Byron 34, 8-Blaney 32, Briscoe 32, 10-Alex Bowman 30.
