By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service

PHOENIX, AZ (March 7, 2026) – JR Motorsports’ driver Justin Allgaier pushed forward when it mattered most, his No. 7 Chevrolet leading only the last 11 laps of Saturday night’s GOVX 200 at Phoenix Raceway to claim his third win at the one-mile oval and take over the championship lead in NASCAR’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

Allgaier had to pass the night’s most dominant driver, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love to earn the trophy. Love came into the race with the best average finish in the last four Phoenix races and again proved how good he is in the desert, leading a race best 114 of the 200 laps.

There were no caution periods in the opening two stages of the race – the first stage won by Allgaier’s teammate Sammy Smith and the second stage won by Love.

Two late race yellow flags however, bunched the field on restarts and allowed Allgaier’s team to rally from a slow pit stop earlier in the night. The two former champions went door-to-door following the final restart with 15 laps to go, the 2024 series champ Allgaier ultimately besting the 2025 champ Love with a daring move on the outside and then holding him off by .449-seconds at the finish line to earn JR Motorsports’ 107th victory.

“So proud of this team,” said Allgaier, praising the team for overcoming a poor stop early. “It wasn’t for lack of adversity and it seems like those are the ones that are big for us. I cannot say enough about this team.

“It never gets old winning,” added Allgaier, who has now won at least one race for a record 10 consecutive seasons. “This team rallied and never gave up.”

As encouraging as the night was – a stage win and fourth consecutive top-10 finish on the season for Love, the 21-year-old was understandably frustrated to finish runner-up after such a dominant showing.

“The car tightening up there at the beginning of stage three put us behind, so just frustrated,” said Love, noting that he refused to just walk away happy with a runner-up showing after such a strong effort.

“Obviously not why I’m here [to finish second]. Just beyond frustrated with myself. I don’t know what else to say, just upset, upset with myself.”

The top finishing 14 cars were Chevrolets. Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate Carson Kvapil, who looked strong midrace and led 22 laps, finished third, followed by Haas Factory Team co-drivers Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer.

Sammy Smith, Jeb Burton, Rajah Caruth, Corey Day and Anthony Alfredo rounded out the top-10. It’s the third top-10 of the season for both Smith and Day.

The championship standings now mirror Saturday’s outcome with Allgaier holding a three-point advantage over Love as the series heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway for next week’s The LiUNA (5:30 p.m. ET on CW, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Allgaier is the defending winner of that race.

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

AUSTIN, TX (March 1, 2026) —Ever since the Chicago Bulls reign of the 1990s, the “three-peat” has been the sole province of NBA superstar Michael Jordan.

Now “His Airness” has to share the distinction with one of his drivers.

Tyler Reddick made history on Sunday at Circuit of the Americas, powering the No. 45 Toyota co-owned by Jordan and Denny Hamlin to victory in the DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix Powered by Reladyne.

A week earlier at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta, Reddick became the sixth driver to win the first two races of a NASCAR Cup Series season. At COTA on Sunay, he became the only driver in NASCAR history to win the first three.

There was nothing easy about Reddick’s 11th career victory and his second at the 2.4-mile road course. In order to claim the trophy, he had to hold off New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen, who was seeking his sixth straight road course victory.

“It means the world,” said Reddick, who led a race-high 58 of 95 laps. “Yeah, it’s so fitting. We get going at the end there, and I’m leading and there’s SVG, the guy I’ve been trying to beat for a while now. Just to be able to outlast him there and hold on for the win is just incredible.

“Just really proud of this Chumba Casino Toyota Camry, everyone at 23XI. We worked really hard. We did not like getting beat like that at road courses. It’s one race, but it was so important, so fitting that we were able to get three in a row and make history.”

After the three victories, Reddick holds a commanding 70-point lead over 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace, who finished 11th on Sunday. Chase Elliott is third in the standings, 72 points back.
Jordan was elated with the NASCAR “three-peat.”

“He had a chance to win three in a row, and that’s the hardest one to win,” said Jordan, who led the Bulls to three straight NBA titles on two separate occasions. “He kept to his strategy, and, man, the guys put together a great car.

“I think (crew chief) Billy (Scott) did an unbelievable job in calling the game, calling the race, and Tyler did a good job. He beat some good competition. You see SVG coming back there, you get a little nervous, but I think he had him covered pretty much the whole day.”

Reddick maintained the lead after a restart on Lap 79, after the Chevrolet of Stage 1 winner Ross Chastain jettisoned a wheel to cause the third caution of the afternoon and the only one for an on-track incident.

Restarting third, Van Gisbergen charged past Ryan Blaney and secured the second position downhill through the esses. For the first eight laps of the final 18-lap green-flag run, SVG harried the race winner, but Reddick gradually pulled away, using his Camry’s horsepower and forward drive to gap Van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Chevrolet up the hill toward Turn 1.

Reddick’s winning margin over the Trackhouse Racing driver was a deceptively large 3.944 seconds.

“We lacked a little bit of turn and a little bit of drive,” Van Gisbergen said. “Tyler was just amazing. The way he was driving was really good, and his car was good. We just didn’t quite have enough, but it was a great points day for this No. 97 Safety Culture Chevrolet team, which is what we need for getting into the Chase.

“It was still an amazing result, but you’re always disappointed with second when the expectations are so high. But overall, it was a really good day.”

Defending race winner Christopher Bell finished third, followed by Stage 2 winner Ty Gibbs and Michael McDowell. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Elliott ran sixth and seventh, respectively.

Eighth was Blaney, who pressured Reddick early in the final stage, pulling beside the 23XI Camry in Turn 6A. Just as he did later with Van Gisbergen, however, Reddick fended off the attack and pulled away before he and Blaney came to pit road for fuel and tires on Lap 69.

AJ Allmendinger and Denny Hamlin completed the top10, though Allmendinger needed medical attention after the race, thanks to a failure of his cool shirt in the Texas heat, with track temperatures measured at 109 degrees at the start of the race.

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

AUSTIN, TX (February 28 2026) — With a bold, brilliant move moment after the final restart of Saturday’s Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas, Shane van Gisbergen once again exhibited his road course supremacy.

Taking the inside line into Turn 1 after the restart with five laps left, van Gisbergen made a four-wide pass for the lead from the sixth position and pulled away to win the fifth NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts race of his career, this time by 0.780 seconds over runner-up Austin Hill.

In a rough-and-tumble event with more than its share of contact, van Gisbergen led five times for 31 laps, including the last five after the decisive move, as then-leader and Stage 2 winner Sam Mayer ran wide in the first corner, clearing the inside lane for the winning pass.

“I was a bit unsure there, starting sixth on the outside,” van Gisbergen said. “I kind of got to the inside, which was good, and nosed in on the 41 (Mayer), and he reacted. When he reacted, I thought no way he’s stopping that, and he kind of pushed everyone wide, which was awesome, and it worked out for us.”

The win was SVG’s first at COTA in his second O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at the track. He is winless in two NASCAR Cup Series starts at the Texas road course.

“I’ve always been fast here but never managed to win,” van Gisbergen said. “So I’m pretty stoked to finally get it done—pretty flawless day.”

van Gisbergen’s victory was the 10th straight on road courses for JR Motorsports and the 106th for the organization overall.

Austin Hill’s runner-up finish was his third in five starts at the 2.4-mile track.

“I made a lot of mistakes out there today, but that’s going to happen on these road courses,” said Hill, the series points leader through three races. “Stage 2, I was struggling a little bit, just trying to figure out what I needed to be better.

“That (last) restart, I did a really good job getting left. As soon as they went off into the corner, I knew that they were going to slide up, and I was able to file in there in second, and then I had to go to work on SVG.

“He’s just so good at the first three laps of a run. He can really get away. I was struggling a little bit with front turn for the first two or three laps, and he kind of got that gap and was able to manage from there. Hats off to those guys. A better guy beat us today.”

In a race billed as a matchup between van Gisbergen and pole winner Connor Zilisch, Sammy Smith finished third, followed by Jesse Love and Corey Day, as Zilisch suffered a litany of issues that dropped him to 21st at the end.

After Zilisch led 12 laps during the first stage, the left-rear brake rotor on his No. 1 Chevrolet sheared, and the 19-year-old prodigy quickly dropped through the field. After stopping for repairs to the rear brakes, Zilisch started the final stage in 29th but just as rapidly worked his way forward.

With fewer than three laps left, he had just cleared Day’s No. 17 Chevrolet for fourth, when contact from Day’s car sent Zilisch spinning and damaged his Camaro.

“He got right in front of me there, and as soon as did and he crossed over my nose, I lost a little bit of what I had left (of front turn),” Day said. “It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t want to wreck him.”

The accident ruined Zilisch’s impressive charge from the back of the field.

“Really unfortunate,” Zilisch said. “Hopefully, he can figure it out… All I want is an apology, but he just stands over there and stares at me and makes it worse. But he’ll figure it out.”

Seventeen-year-old Brent Crews finished sixth in his series debut after taking the lead on
the Stage 2 restart. Crews is the first driver under 18 to lead laps in the series since Casey Atwood accomplished the feat in 1998.

William Sawalich, Justin Allgaier, Ross Chastain and Brennan Poole completed the top 10.