Saturday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway, a 20-year-old out of Clovis, California, climbed onto the roof of a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and pointed at the sky. Corey Day had just won his first race in NASCAR's second-tier touring series. He led exactly one lap to get it done — the last one. He passed Sheldon Creed to do it.
Let me tell you something. Hendrick Motorsports — the four-Cup-car shop in Concord — had not won a NASCAR national-series race below the Cup level with a non-Cup driver since Kyle Busch did it in 2004. Twenty-two years. Day broke that streak. He also gave Hendrick its first-ever NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series win at Talladega. A track they had raced for years and never won at. First time. Kid in his rookie year. ON THE FINAL LAP.
Six days later, the same family is back at the front of the grid. Different shop, different car, different track, different driver.
This Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, the JR Motorsports No. 88 goes to Kyle Larson. Larson won this same Texas race a year ago, May 2025. Connor Zilisch is in the JRM No. 1 for his first career Texas start in any series. Austin Dillon, the 2013 series champion, climbs into the Richard Childress Racing No. 3 — his first start of 2026 and his first anywhere in this series since Iowa last August. Three Cup-affiliated drivers. Three different cars. One 300-mile intermediate.
Update, May 3, 2026: Texas happened. Day's race ended on Lap 1 — a hard wreck off Turn 2. He held fourth in O'Reilly Series points on the strength of his cushion alone. Kyle Larson held off Justin Allgaier for an O'Reilly Series win and a JR Motorsports 1-2, and the Cup pole went to Carson Hocevar — whose Concord-based Spire Motorsports team locked the entire front row with Daniel Suárez second.
Larson has finished top-five in nine straight O'Reilly Series starts on 1.5-mile tracks. He has run three races this season at this level. Three top-fives. 384 laps led between them. One win. He is the most efficient driver in the series for the simple reason that he barely shows up. When he does, he is at the front.
JR Motorsports' Mooresville shop sits twenty-five miles from Hendrick's Concord campus. Rick Hendrick co-owns JR Motorsports. Day winning at Talladega and Larson driving at Texas — that is the same family, two cars, two tracks, six days apart.
Here is what Saturday's race is for everybody else in the field. It is the last Dash 4 Cash event of 2026. One hundred grand to the highest-finishing eligible driver — Sheldon Creed, Sammy Smith, Day, and Brent Crews. Creed has won the last two ($200,000 in two weeks). Day is making his first D4C appearance ever. Crews is hunting his way into the Chase from outside the top twelve.
And then there is Justin Allgaier — your points leader, who has built a season unlike anything anyone has seen in this series in a long time. One hundred and sixty-one stage points through eleven races. The most through eleven races in any of NASCAR's three national series since Denny Hamlin in Cup, 2021. Thirty-one career O'Reilly Series wins, tied for sixth on the all-time list with Jack Ingram. Seven career stage wins at Texas — leads all drivers. Eighteen career stage wins on 1.5-mile tracks — leads all-time. One more win Saturday and Allgaier is alone at sixth.
The math, for the record: Allgaier has won five of the last six stages run at Texas. He is two top-ten finishes away from tying Kyle Busch on the all-time list of 1.5-mile top-tens. He is the only driver in the field this season who has scored stage points in every stage. He is, by the math, the favorite. The math is not the story this weekend.
A few other things, because there are always a few other things at this level.
There are ZERO Ford entries at Texas. The series has not run a race without a Ford on the grid since October 27, 1991, at Martinsville — thirty-five years ago. Chevrolet has won nine of the first eleven races this year. Toyota has the other two.
JR Motorsports is also riding a 68-race streak of getting at least one car in the top ten. Second-longest in series history. The all-time mark is 79, held by RFK Racing's run from May 2008 to July 2010. JRM held the previous record at 64 races before this one. Eleven more races and they pass it.
Green flag at 3:30 p.m. ET on The CW. Three Cup drivers in the field. One 20-year-old from Clovis trying to prove what he did at Talladega isn't a one-off.
Two shops. Twenty-five miles apart. Three of the most-watched cars on the grid Saturday afternoon in Fort Worth.
This town, folks, runs on something. And Saturday, you will see what.