Considering three drivers essentially dominated the lead last week in Vegas, the Pennzoil 400 was a fairly entertaining race. Maybe the Gluck poll voters disagree but who knows what the masses want in a race any more? Villain-turned-favorite Denny Hamlin took care of business in Stage 3 and takes over the tenth position on the list of all-time winningest drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series. DH beating everyone else in the field certainly helped a few of our matchup positions tied to the grizzled veteran. Thankfully, he made up for some bad ones behind Ross Chastain! Now the action shifts back east to the fabled Darlington Raceway for the 2026 Goodyear 400.
- Track type: intermediate (high tire wear)
- Track length: 1.366 miles
- Laps/total miles: 293/400.24
- Stage lengths (laps): 90/95/108
Handicapping the 2026 Goodyear 400
Not only is Darlington “The Track Too Tough To Tame”, it has no primary comps. It is unique and they’ll never make another one like it. Using the trusty ifantasyrace.com Similar Track Guide to line up comps, there are no primaries. Dover and Homestead, however, are secondaries at a lower weighting. Chicagoland is a secondary comp as well according to Ryan, though we don’t have anything useful from that track…yet. The 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval races like an intermediate track but has two distinctly different ends and a very abrasive surface. Good luck getting your car to be great in both 1 & 2 as well as 3 & 4.
One interesting takeaway from Las Vegas is the teams’ adaptation to the new Chevrolet nose. While the three Trackhouse teams struggled all day, Hendrick’s cars finished 2-3-7 with Justin Allgaier as the outlier. The O’Reilly Series star never truly had a handle on the afternoon. The Spire trio also generally failed to launch with their three teams putting up performance ratings just inside the top twenty. And I haven’t found any good intel stating whether Hendrick is simply ahead of the learning curve or if they’re out-muscling this ealry-season disadvantage. And what happened to the Team Penske camp? They were no shows in practice and qualifying compared to the field. On race day, the three RFK Fords were head-and-shoulders above the four Penske cars on the Las Vegas oval. The most glaring absence from the top ranks is Ryan Blaney and his lack of speed all day.
Too Tough To Handicap?
Your weekly Alex Bowman update: AB was announced OUT for at least three more races. Justin Allgaier is in the #48 again, so disregard this team from the power ratings plot. Looking at the plot below, it is much like last year’s version as opposed to the last few weeks. The car number logos are out because the current form element comes in. Each team has given us enough of a taste across several track types to lean on form stronger. And the next two weeks will really bolster our perspective. After Martinsville, the circuit will have essentially hit all key track types at least once. Note that our form ratings still look back at the final weeks of the 2025 campaign with a reduced weighting. The form element will be fully powered after Martinsville when we have five non-superspeedway races in the books for 2026.
We first call attention to Chase Briscoe, your back-to-back Southern 500 champ. He won the first one driving the Stewart-Haas Racing #14 Ford then turned around and nailed another in his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing. Not bad at all, especially considering how Briscoe was never able to crack the top ten here before the 2024 season. Rattling off three top five finishes in his last four Darlington starts arguably deserves to bump him up the chart further. Plus Chase ran well at Homestead the last couple times and finished P2 at Dover last year in the midst of an extended hot streak. I’ll be the first to admit that the #19 deserves a stronger early week power rating above what the plot implies.
Tyler Reddick scores high marks at Darlington despite not having won here. He has been one of the most consistent racers along with the likes of William Byron, Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, and Ross Chastain. I am gun shy with the latter two given their rough starts to the 2026 campaign – as represented by their yellow-to-orange form designations in the plot. Chastain is beefing with former teammate Daniel Suarez while struggling on the track. And Kyle Busch seems to have checked out in his final year under contract with RCR. AJ Allmendinger is an interesting one with his Darlington and Homestead resume outpacing his general profile on the ovals. With all that said, it’s time to dig into some matchups for the 2026 Goodyear 400…
Featured Head-To-Head Matchups
C Briscoe -120 vs. T Reddick -110
I’ve already admitted to our ratings being low on the defending back-to-back Southern 500 winner. Three of Chase’s last four finishes – including the two wins – are top fives with performance numbers generally supporting those results. Expanding the net to include Homestead races over the last two seasons improves Briscoe’s profile via P4 and P12 finishes with similar speed ratings. Plus the #19 team continued to be great at Dover with a runner-up there last summer.
The latter part is in contrast to Tyler Reddick’s middling track record at Dover. However, his work at Homestead balances out his comp track profile. As good as Chase has been in South Florida, Tyler has been arguably better for longer. One bust out in 2022 is overshadowed by his 2024 playoff win and a pair of top ten finishes. Plus Reddick has a pair of top fives in the previous generation of car, although those pre-2022 races are not integrated into our power ratings.
ifantasyrace.com has a nice Total Speed Heat Chart looking back at Auto Club, Homestead, and Darlington since 2023. Reddick has outpaced Briscoe by a considerable margin in those ten races (6.4 vs. 16.1). Isolating Chase’s “improvement seasons” of 2024 and 2025, Tyler still has been faster (4.3 vs. 10.5). Take out the 2025 spring Darlington race’s tough result and Briscoe’s average speed ranking still lags at 7.0. This disparity is a testament to the #45 team’s top tier consistency in the high tire wear environment.
WAGER: Reddick -110 > Briscoe
This matchup is available with either driver as the -110 dog depending on sportsbook availability. Obviously, we’ve elected to take the cheaper route with our preferred driver, Tyler Reddick. He’s been very impressive at Darlington in the Gen7 era, racking up 5 top five finishes in 8 contests. Plus Reddick’s performance metrics have been elite, especially over the last five. The #45 team gets our top power rating before practice and qualifying so taking a reasonably-priced position against a quality opponent is perfectly fine.
B Wallace -115 vs. T Gibbs -115
We stay in world of Toyota for the second featured matchup between the 23XI and JGR organizations. You can see how much further to the right Bubba Wallace is on the ratings plot compared to the #54. Granted, Ty Gibbs is still on the upswing of his career and can be projected better than his past results. That’s a can, not necessarily a should. The junior JGR member has an impressive runner-up finish in the 2024 spring Darlington contest with a corresponding race quality rating. Otherwise, Gibbs has consistently delivered performance outside of the top ten here. That’s in contrast to Bubba’s top ten performance in 5 of the last 6 with P7 or better finishes in 4 of those races going back to 2023.
Comp assessment is somewhat split between these two. Gibbs has delivered better results at Dover, while Wallace has topped him in the Homestead races. Sounds a lot like the Reddick/Briscoe comparison. Ryan’s speed chart tilts in the favor of Bubba as well. The average speed comparison is substantially favorable to the #23 team when isolating the 2024-2025 races at Darlington and Homestead. It’s not the best comparison though, as Gibbs has several duds in that time period.
WAGER: Wallace -115 > Gibbs
Most everybody is under the assumption that Ty will get his first Cup Series win soon. Last year you could ride the preseason fade train with a fat +190 price for him not to win a race. This season, the books made you lay a big number to fade Gibbs getting a win. So there is hope for the young man at some point to hoist a trophy. Both of these racers are lined similarly in the win pool around 25/1 with the #54 camp slightly behind in the top 5 and top 10 markets.
When it comes to Sunday, however, Bubba Wallace has plenty of handicapping aspects on his side. The big one not in the #23’s favor is how well Ty Gibbs has run these last three weeks. P5, P4, and P4 are highly impressive finishes across a variety of track types. Wallace has been one step behind him, which is probably why these two are priced at -115 on the head-to-head line right now. The cost is high for a 50-50 proposition, though Bubba’s track record at Darlington and Homestead is where this matchup no longer becomes a coin flip in our opinion. We will find out soon enough whether Ty’s upswing is enough to overcome his background of lesser performance in this scenario. BOL with your action this week!
Back in Black
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