Darlington delivers a Darlington race, which Tyler Reddick won

The on-track story of NASCAR in 2026, if you ask me, continues to be that the series is finally getting the package dialed in. Aero, tires, and engine are all in the right place to revive the racing at many of NASCAR’s most beloved tracks. They may not race exactly like they did in whatever your personal nostalgic favorite NASCAR era was, but they’re starting to race analogously to the old days, defining their own era.

The NASCAR media scene did itself and the few people who pay this much attention a disservice by overhyping the potential impact of the new high-falloff tires and higher horsepower package at Darlington. They created some expectation that the Cup race would be an all-timer. It wasn’t, but it may have been something better in the long-term, which is a regular old race at Darlington.

In fact, all three series had good Darlington races. Corey Heim stole the Truck Series race from Ross Chastain in a very exciting finish, and Justin Allgaier stole the O’Reilly race from Kyle Larson, which one always loves to see.

What was great about the Cup race was that the best car won. It was no lottery, but it was certainly a trial. The cars were a handful for everybody, but Reddick suffered electrical problems and had to go and win the hottest race of the year so far with no way to cool off. Mike Joy called the win in a pretty funny way, saying Reddick had returned to winning “after a two-race losing streak.” That’s four on the year, if you’ve lost count.

It was an exciting day for RFK — Keselowski, Buscher, and Preece were all top-five runners throughout the day, they combined to lead 183 laps, and Brad won stage two — but they couldn’t hang on. You’ve been able to see them coming for a couple races at this point, though, so I think there’s more to come from RFK this year.

Also of note was Carson Hocevar, who got his best Cup finish ever in his best livery ever, a very well done Chili’s-sponsored Dale Earnhardt Wrangler car throwback. Hocevar finished fourth, and teammate Daniel Suárez finished seventh. So look out for Spire, too.