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For all the jokes I made about last weekend being somewhat of a holiday for me, what Talladega delivered was the equivalent of coal in the stocking on Christmas morning. Quite frankly: It was a worst-case scenario in all three NASCAR races this past weekend at Talladega.
The Craftsman Truck Series race was marred by a wreck on lap 17 that took out seven drivers including two that had a lot of focus on them: Tony Stewart and Cleetus McFarland. In listening to the coverage of the Love’s RV Stop 225 on the Sirius XM NASCAR channel, I thought I was listening to a rebroadcast of the season opener at Daytona, where both Stewart and McFarland were caught up in a wreck which ended their respective days quite early.
Sammy Smith, who will be competing in the Truck Series full-time in 2027, got a jumpstart on next year’s campaign with a win in the race. While we didn’t know it at the time, Smith’s weekend was only half over and he would be the writer of one of the better stories of the fall trip to ‘Dega.
In terms of the championship, it has come down to two drivers: Kaden Honeycutt, who finished fifth now has a 43 point lead over Layne Riggs, who finished eighth. The real race, if you can call it that, is for third with Ty Majeski, Chandler Smith and Christian Eckes separated by three points.
Having only listened to the race, I can’t really gauge how exiting the race really was. (As much as I applaud the efforts of the announcers on Sirius XM, NASCAR is truly a visual sport.) However, it had to have been better than the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race which might have been officially titled The Progress Group 250 but might as well have been dubbed the Follow the Leader 250.
Save for a lap or so after the restarts, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Talladega was about as exciting as watching cars drive down the 401. The few attempts to start a second line ended in failure. It was another flashback to Daytona, save this time it was like rewatching the 2019 race when Michael Annett led a single line of cars across the start-finish line in perhaps the most boring finish to a race at a superspeedway I have ever seen.
Sammy Smith took the checkered flag for his second win in as many days. It was a great boost for the young drivers career but with it came a somber reminder that he had been the first driver since Greg Biffle in 2001 to have won both what are now the Craftsman Truck Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races in the same weekend.
25 years! Let’s be honest. It’s not like the feat hasn’t been accomplished in the past quarter of a century. It just hasn’t been accomplished by a young driver who was competing full-time in one of the series in order to gain experience towards an eventual move to the Cup Series. Like a lot of so called feats in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series, I question just why you would acknowledge such a failure in the development of up-and-coming drivers. I’m not saying that this needs to happen every year but certainly should happen more times with series regulars than it does with Cup drivers.
Mini-rant aside, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series did leave Talladega with the deepest remaining Chase of all three national series. Jesse Love’s points lead is down to 19 over Justin Allgaier. Carson Kvapil is fifth in the standings at 59 points back. Corey Day and Sheldon Creed are still mathematically in the mix at third and fourth respectively. This gives the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series something neither of the other series has: a deep Chase battle. The Trucks Series race will be interesting with the two-truck battle for the championship with two races to go, but beyond Honeycutt and Riggs, everyone else is just trying to get a good finish to the season and planning for 2027.
This includes the Cup Series where the worst-case scenario of all took place on Sunday afternoon on the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway. While much of the post-race chatter centered around Joey Logano coming down the front stretch on his roof and the RFK cars having a 40-second lead over the rest of the pack, what no one seems to want to admit that exactly what I feared this format would produce. There is a better-than-average chance that Larson will clinch the championship during the Martinsville race, making the so-called “Championship Weekend” at Homestead irrelevant.
Kyle Larson had struggled at Phoenix, tightening up the Championship race to where Larson was only five points above second place Denny Hamlin and, in all, seven drivers could consider themselves in the championship picture.
Then Larson won his first-ever superspeedway race. Hamlin is still runner-up in points but is now 73 points back. Only two drivers, Christopher Bell (-74) and Chase Briscoe (-79) are within 100 points of Larson.
I used The Daily Downforce’s NASCAR Chase Calculator to see what possibly scenarios could save the situation. If Kyle Larson wrecks on the first lap and finishes 40th, he would still retain the points lead even if Denny Hamlin (+1), Christopher Bell (+2), or Chase Briscoe (+4) won both stages, the race and logged the fastest lap of the race. My understanding is that if Larson gets four more points than Hamlin, he will clinch the 2026 Championship.
That could happen in Stage 1. If Denny has an issue and falls off the pace or is out of the race entirely, Larson finishes sixth and the championship will be decided. Can you imagine how awkward that is going to be? Cliff Daniels making the call: “Come in for a four-tire stop. We’ll make a wedge adjustment. Oh and by the way, we won the championship!”
Actually, after 12 years of the eventual champion having to race for the win in the final race of the season, we now have a scenario where the champion can stop with a race and a half left to go in the season to celebrate the championship.
One more thing about Talladega: Immediately following the race, there was a lot of talk about NASCAR fans and experts about if Larson had gone below the double yellow to score the win AND if there had been unfair practices employed by Chevrolet to ensure Larson won.
My reaction:
It’s typical B.S. “My driver didn’t win so it’s not fair!”
I swear, sometimes I can’t tell if I’m reading social media posts about politics or NASCAR. I’m sure I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. The biggest lesson that needs to be taught in schools in 2026 have nothing to do with the ABCs or arithmetic. Kids need to be taught that they don’t always get what they want so they can grow up to be adults that realize that things will not always go their way.
You can be disappointed but get the *&@&% over it!
Full disclosure: I was disappointed that Larson won for three reasons:
(1) I’m not a fan of Kyle Larson (and there’s a longer blog around that opinion). Plus, Austin Hill was RIGHT THERE! Austin Hill. RCR. Kyle Busch’s former ride. How sweet would that have been?
(2) I knew Larson’s winning was going to totally screw up the Chase. (See above.)
(3) I’m not really a fan of manufacturers determining the outcome of a race. I get teammates working together to get to the final lap but in the end it should be every driver for themselves. Be selfish! Oh…and don’t complain that someone else doesn’t help you win just because they have the same emblem on their hood.
However, Larson won the race and that puts us in the situation we are in now. Let’s stop with the conspiracy theories and move on to Martinsville.
