Well, the 2026 Clash at Bowman Gray certainly happened

After nearly a week of weather delays, NASCAR finally forced the Clash to happen last night, and from the beginning of practice to just past halfway through the race, we were looking at a classic. The last-chance qualifier was one of the best short-track races the NextGen car has ever put on, for my money. In the main event, exciting prospects such as Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch looked to be in strong positions, especially as the weather got dicier. There was some drama about whether they could keep going, NASCAR declared the race wet, everybody changed tires, and we more or less thought NASCAR had finally found its balls and had set us up for an all-timer.

Folks, it was not an all-timer.

Ryan Preece — a real, honest-to-god race car driver — won handily, his first win in a Cup car, and that was nice and deserved. It was fun to celebrate afterwards, but it was hard to enjoy during the race.

Kyle Larson started on pole, but he ended like this:

Forgot to post last night. This car has seen some things.

[image or embed]

— John Newby (@johnnewby.bsky.social) Feb 5, 2026 at 8:54 AM

Chase Briscoe became my public enemy no. 1 by taking out everyone I wanted to win this race in one fell swoop, and even as plucky drivers continued to try to win the race, the same old boring guys kept constantly wrecking each other and neutralizing any progress. It was a 50-mile race that took three hours. They dropped it from network straight to FS2 after it was clear it wasn’t ending anytime soon. In short, NASCAR is back, baby. Hell yeah.

Here’s the highlight reel. I’m sure it’ll be funnier this way.