4 Takeaways From Chase Elliott's Victory At Texas

Texas Motor Speedway (Fort Worth, Texas) — Chase Elliott isn’t always known for being a driver who is able to win early in the season. But he’s making 2026 a year when he's capitalizing on opportunities. Elliott earned his second win of 2026. This season, he has notched two victories in the first 11 races, six races earlier than he has ever done in his previous 11 seasons. "I'm proud of our team for that because anytime you can check off new boxes in this sport when you've been doing it for 10-plus years is cool. It's hard to do," Elliott said in his post-race news conference. "It's hard to win. So I'm really proud of our team for that and just proud of the day that we had. It was one of our strongest races that we've had in quite some time." Here are my takeaways: 1. Chase Elliott A Threat While Tyler Reddick has been the talk of the season with five wins, Chase Elliott earning two already has him third in the standings. With the team still figuring out the new Chevrolet body, they might have the most potential for growth. "We just feel like the Toyotas came into the season really hot, and they did some great work over the offseason," four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon said in his post-race news conference as Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman. "I want to give them credit. We had a lot of change-over with the new car. We're searching and finding what's going to work. And some tracks, it works good. Some tracks it doesn't." 2. Wrecks Stymie Contenders Contact on pit road foiled a potential race-winning day for Chase Briscoe and Joey Logano, while contact on the track foiled potential race-winning days for Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs. Bell was leading when he got clipped by spinning Todd Gilliland. Briscoe was in the top five when he had contact with Kyle Larson on pit road. In another bizarre pit-road incident, Joey Logano ran into Cole Custer, who had stopped in front of Logano to let Ty Gibbs out of his pit. Gibbs was soon in the garage after slapping the wall from apparent contact with Ryan Preece. Gibbs told me he didn’t know what happened. The common theme with all the drivers here? All of them except for Gibbs are still looking for their first win this season. For Bell, he knows he had a race-winning car. "I thought that I could shoot the gap on the bottom, and I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom, and I got clipped," he told me and other reporters after the accident. 3. Busch-Nemechek Tangle At End Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek tangled at the end of the race with them having contact up by the wall when battling for position and then Busch door slamming Nemechek, sending Nemechek into the wall. They both took to social media, with Nemechek indicating that Busch wasn’t clear to pull the initial move and Busch indicating that Nemechek had enough room to move up and for them not to have contact. NASCAR, as it always does with any on-track incident, will review it to determine if any penalties are warranted. 4. Bowman Back-To-Back Thirds Alex Bowman, who missed four races because of vertigo earlier this year, has posted back-to-back third-place finishes. That they came at the high-speed Talladega and Texas tracks should give him confidence as he continues to rally from the injury. "We're definitely headed in the right direction," Bowman said in his FS1 interview after the race. 4 1/2. What’s Next: Watkins Glen The Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen for a rare trip in the spring rather than the summer. The Mother’s Day weekend race will feature all three national series. And at least three drivers are doing all three races — the three Trackhouse drivers, Connor Zilisch, Shane van Gisbergen and Ross Chastain. Zilisch and SVG are known for their prowess on road courses and will be among the favorites for all three. The truck race will include another Cup driver who is a road-course ace: AJ Allmendinger will be in a Kaulig Racing truck.