By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

NEWTON, IA (August 10, 2026) – A two-tire call. An impeccable green-flag run. And Ty Gibbs had his second victory of the season.

Leap-frogging Joe Gibbs racing teammate Christopher Bell on pit road—thanks to crew chief Tyler Allen’s two-tire call on Lap 290 of 350—Gibbs kept Bell behind him the rest of the way in front of a packed house at 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway.

When Ross Chastain came to pit road to complete the cycle of green-flag stops, Gibbs had the race lead on Lap 331, with Bell close behind him.

Bell tried everything. Arcing high into the corner. Running the bottom. Crowding up to the bumper of Gibbs’ No. 54 Toyota and trying to force a mistake. But with Gibbs repeatedly taking his line, Bell couldn’t find a way past his 23-year-old teammate, who had claimed his first career victory at Bristol Motor Speedway in April.

Before he could get to a race-winning position, Gibbs had to rally from a blown pit stop that cost him 25 positions at the first stage break. With a cool head after the miscue, he maneuvered his way back to the front.

“We made a big step from last year, obviously, and I really appreciate it,” said Gibbs, who has finished in the top four at all four short tracks so far this season. “But I really appreciate all my teammates, too.

“I wouldn’t be here without all my teammates as well, week in and week out, just help keep developing the program. And, obviously, we’re all up front for a reason. I really appreciate Denny (Hamlin) and Chase (Briscoe) and Christopher for all their help, obviously.”

For the seventh time this season, and for the fourth time in the last five races, Bell had to settle for second. That he climbed from 10th to sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with the runner-up result was of little consolation.

“This is what you call a bad second-place finish, for sure,” Bell said. “I don’t know what else to say. Ty did a really good job. He did a great job managing the race.

“I could tell that he was slipping and sliding around. Similar to last week or two weeks ago with Corey Heim (at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he just didn’t make a mistake. So P2.”

Pole winner Ryan Blaney came home third after leading the first 93 laps and winning the first stage. Josh Berry finished fourth in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, scoring his first top-five of the season.

Overcoming brake problems and a start from the rear of the field, series leader Hamlin ran fifth and extended his advantage in the standings to 103 points over Gibbs, who jumped from fourth to second with the win.

“Just had to white-knuckle every lap,” said Hamlin, who complained of a “long” brake pedal early in the race. “Obviously, not knowing where my car was going to land when I got into the corner, obviously you want to have brakes, and that was a crazy race to have to do it the whole time without it.

“But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. The team did an amazing job. I would take that day 100 out of 100 times.”

Chase Briscoe finished sixth, followed by Chastain, AJ Allmendinger, defending race winner William Byron and Austin Dillon. Sunoco rookie Connor Zilisch was 11th, matching his best Cup Series result on an oval track (2025 at EchoPark Speedway).

Shane van Gisbergen ran 30th, three laps down after spinning, but remained 15th in the standings with a 47-point margin over the current cut line for the Chase.

The race wasn’t five laps old when a slip by Tyler Reddick ignited a wreck that had profound implications for the series standings.

With both cars running in the top seven, Reddick’s Toyota broke loose in Turn 2 on Lap 4 and collected the Camry of Erik Jones. Both cars slammed the outside wall and sustained damage that knocked them out of the race in 35th (Jones) and 36th place (Reddick).

The accident cost Reddick two positions in the standings and dimmed his hopes of overtaking Hamlin for the regular-season title. He’s now fourth in points, 120 behind Hamlin with three races left before the Chase field is set.

“Just got out of shape in an area—corner entry—where I thought we were pretty secure all weekend,” a chagrined Reddick said after exiting the infield care center. “For us to take ourselves out is one thing, but to take out a fellow Toyota teammate when they are racing for the Chase… pretty much ended their day as well.

“It’s the type of stuff you don’t do to yourself, and you don’t do to a teammate.”

The early exit was a crushing blow to Jones, who came to Iowa 18th in the standings, 44 points below the Chase cutoff. He leaves the Hawkeye State 20th in points, 50 behind Austin Cindric in 16th, the last Chase-eligible position.

“Yeah, we needed a few perfect weeks, and it needed to start here today, and obviously that didn’t happen,” Jones said. “Just unfortunate with how early it is. I’m just trying to settle in and get going.

“You don’t expect it either in the top-10, top-five. You don’t think you are going to get caught up in something crazy like that. It’s a bummer. It’s a huge mountain now from here on out to get to the Chase, so we’ll see.”

Iowa once again proved a Waterloo for Kyle Larson, who started second and finished third in Stage 1, only to get collected with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman in a Lap 149 accident after John Hunter Nemechek forced Larson’s Chevrolet up the track and created an untenable four-wide situation on the frontstretch.

Larson finished 18 laps down in 33rd, two spots below his average finish for the first two Cup Series races at Iowa Speedway.

Blaney led three times for a race-high 129 laps, nine more than Bell’s total. Gibbs led the final 20 laps of the third stage, which ran under a green flag from Lap 219 through 350.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (Sunday, July 26, 2026) – Corey Heim stepped into Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time Friday. Two days later, he was celebrating on Victory Podium after an impressive drive to victory Sunday in the Brickyard 400 presented by PPG.

Part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Heim, from Marietta, Georgia, took the lead in the No. 67 Field & Stream Toyota of 23XI Racing on a frantic restart on Lap 127 and held off Christopher Bell over the final 34 laps for victory in his first Brickyard start. This was just his 15th career Cup Series race.

A star is born.

“This is a dream come true, winning at the Brickyard,” Heim said. “That was unbelievable. Caught a break early with the pit cycle and just executed all day. Made no mistakes, my pit crew and my team.”

Heim, 24, won the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship and is running a partial Cup Series season with 23XI Racing before joining the team full time in 2027. He became the first part-time driver to win this crown jewel NASCAR event and the second-youngest driver to win this race behind Jeff Gordon, who was 23 when he captured the inaugural Cup Series race at IMS in 1994. Gordon is the only other driver to win the Brickyard in his first start in the race.

This also was the second consecutive Brickyard victory for the 23XI team, co-owned by basketball icon Michael Jordan and Cup Series star Denny Hamlin. Bubba Wallace won last year for 23XI.

Bell finished second today in the No. 20 Rheem Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, .287 of a second behind Heim. Three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano was third in the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford of Team Penske.

Indiana native Chase Briscoe placed fourth in the No. 19 Mobil 1 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing, and Denny Hamlin placed three Joe Gibbs Racing cars in the top five in the No. 11 National Debt Relief Toyota.

Todd Gilliland earned a $1 million bonus for winning the NASCAR In-Season Challenge. He placed 24th in the No. 34 Grillo’s Pickles Ford of Front Row Motorsports, edging the No. 12 Menards/Delta Ford of fellow Challenge finalist Ryan Blaney of Team Penske, who finished 26th.

The pivotal point of the 160-lap race came on the final restart on Lap 127. Hamlin led the field to the green flag on the inside line, with teammates Bell and Briscoe right behind. Heim started second, on the outside line with Logano behind him.

But the JGR line on the inside lane was scattered, with Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe not aligned nose-to-tail to possibly bump-draft and keep Hamlin out front. Meanwhile, Logano pushed Heim ahead of Hamlin on the outside in Turn 1.

Hamlin nearly edged even with Heim in Turn 2, but Heim slammed the door shut and kept a lead he would never surrender.

“It’s a fight to win the race, and when you’re clear by an inch, you’re going to take that inch,” Hamlin said. “It’s really more on us and the 20 (Bell) and the 19 (Briscoe) to just not orchestrate the good pushes there.

“I thought the 20 was obviously onboard with giving us the push. It was just way too early, before the restart zone. I can’t go until you get to the restart zone. He said that Briscoe was on him way, way early or laying back, one of the two. That’s how you lose them. These restarts, when everyone kind of knows when you’re going to go, it’s about the pushes. That’s how I got the lead from the 67 (Heim) on the restart before.”

But once he got out front, it was far from a Sunday stroll to victory for Heim, who also won earlier this season in the street race at San Diego.

Bell stayed within three- to four-tenths of a second of Heim for the next 30 laps. He pulled to within .164 of a second with two laps to go, pouring on pressure, but Heim padded that gap to .364 of a second with one lap to go and held on to a loose-handling race car on the final trip around the 2.5-mile oval to win.

“That was a damn handful,” Heim said. “I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose. I had never really been in a lot of clean air throughout the day, so that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life to just make sure I focused on exits and kept them in dirty air. I’m pretty out of breath. That was a workout.”

Said Bell: “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get there at all. My guys were telling me he was going loose, and I knew that was going really be my only opportunity, was a mistake by him.

“I knew that 35 laps was a very long run. Man, I just needed one bobble. If he would have had one bobble, I was going to be able to get there. But he did a great job. He showed excellent mental toughness and put together 35 good laps.”

Heim, who started seventh, led four times for 58 laps, both race highs.

Pole sitter Carson Hocevar led the first 31 laps in the No. 77 Ziegler Auto Group Chevrolet of Spire Motorsports before making his first pit stop. But he never led thereafter and finished ninth.

Heim inherited the lead on Lap 41 by running long on the first pit cycle before Ty Gibbs took the top spot on Lap 45 in the No. 54 SAIA Freight + Logistics Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing. Gibbs stayed there – also winning the first stage at the end of Lap 60 — until pitting on Lap 74, with Heim taking over the lead from Laps 75-91.

Ross Chastain won the second stage, which ended on Lap 100, in the No. 1 Busch Light Chevrolet of Trackhouse Racing. By that point, Heim had climbed back to fifth and jumped to third when leader Chastain and second-place Gilliland pitted on Lap 101.

Nearly the entire field pitted for their final stops on Lap 115 during a caution, and Heim’s earlier pit strategy paid dividends. His previous stop was on Lap 93, later than most of his rivals, so he needed less fuel and a shorter stop, giving him the lead as the field approached the restart on Lap 120.

Hamlin passed Heim on the outside of Turn 1 on that restart, but another caution flew almost immediately when John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Toyota nudged Blaney into the Turn 3 wall. That set up the fateful final restart on Lap 127 where Heim took the lead for keeps.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (Saturday, July 25, 2026) – The relief was mixed with tears, joy and a stage dive from his car into his crew’s arms at the fabled Yard of Bricks for Carson Kvapil.

Kvapil earned his first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory Saturday in the Pennzoil 250 presented by Take 5 Oil Change at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, leading a historic sweep of the top four finishing positions by JR Motorsports, co-owned by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The breakthrough victory in the No. 1 Wilde Protein Crackers Chevrolet came in the 64th career start in the series for Kvapil, 23, son of 2003 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion and former NASCAR Cup Series driver Travis Kvapil.

“It means the world to me,” Kvapil said. “It’s very emotional. I rode around on that (victory) lap backward and sat there and thought about all the hard work I put in, me and my dad, Travis, to get to this point and the faith that (team owners) Dale Jr., L.W. Miller, Kelley Miller put behind me to give me this opportunity, to give me a second chance to come back at it this year.

“From Lap 1 in practice, the thing was a rocketship. I just knew we had to do all the right things and make the right adjustments. I just couldn’t make any mistakes. This is going to be an exciting one for a long time. I’m just going to try not to cry too much; I’ve already shed a few tears. I’m just trying to hold it together right now.”

JR Motorsports earned its third victory in this race, adding Kvapil’s name to a winner’s list including Connor Zilisch last year and Justin Allgaier in 2018. The team also became the first in series history to take the top four spots in a race and has 14 victories in 22 races this season in NASCAR’s second-tier championship.

Allgaier finished second in the No. 7 BRANDT Professional Agriculture Chevrolet, his late-race charge toward his teammate falling .643 of a second short.

Ross Chastain placed third in the No. 9 Roto-Rooter Chevrolet, with Chase Elliott rounding out JRM’s fantastic four in the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet after starting last in the 38-car field. William Sawalich finished fifth in the No. 18 SoundGear Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Kvapil, who started second, took the lead for good on Lap 79 of 100 when he powered past Chastain on the back straightaway. With 10 laps to go, Kvapil led by .82 of a second.

Then Allgaier entered the picture. Allgaier, who started 13th, passed Chastain for second in Turn 1 on Lap 93 and was .96 of a second behind leader Kvapil.

But series points leader Allgaier began to methodically chip away at Kvapil’s lead, pulling to within .283 of a second with one lap to go. But Kvapil kept his poise, hit his marks on corner entry and eased away from Allgaier on the final trip around the 2.5-mile oval.

“I’m disappointed we ran second,” Allgaier said. “We knew that short-run speed was going to be a challenge all day, and long-run speed was where we were going to be great, and we were. Just came up a little bit short.

“Happy for Carson. The kid has worked his tail off to get to this point and really cool to see him get this first victory.”

Chastain led three times for 31 laps, both race highs.

Jeremy Clements won the first 30-lap stage in the No. 51 Sky Fund Aviation Chevrolet before fading to 37th. Rajah Carruth won the second 30-lap stage by keeping his No. 32 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet on track when most of the field pitted during a caution from Laps 55-57. Carruth pitted during the ensuing stage break and finished 22nd.