For the first time in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet finally found victory lane with Chase Elliott's win at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. That was all made possible by a clever pit call from crew chief Alan Gustafson, which gave Elliott the track position he needed when a pair of late cautions came out.
While runner-up Denny Hamlin actually scored more points than Elliott, NASCAR's most popular driver jumped to fourth in the standings and inched closer to points leader Tyler Reddick, who had his worst performance of the season in 15th.
Add us as a preferred source on GoogleReddick was not the only 23XI Racing driver who was ready to get out of Virginia and head into the off weekend for Easter, though. Bubba Wallace, who began the season with five consecutive top 11 finishes and was second only to Reddick in the standings for much of the early going, suffered his second straight finish outside the top 30 after Sunday's run-in with Carson Hocevar.
That ultimately forced him to retire from the race in 36th, one week after a disaster at Darlington Raceway resulted in a 34th place finish. Those two results have caused Wallace to drop nine spots in the standings from second to 11th, but there is more to it than just a sudden plummet outside the top 10.
Bubba Wallace feeling the impact of new points system already
To be fair, Wallace was not exactly running well on Sunday when he got into Hocevar and moved him out of the way entering turn three. The fact that he did not score any stage points, however, is what makes the end result so crushing for him.
Wallace is now 147 points behind Reddick. While he remains 48 points above the playoff cut line, it is becoming clear just how valuable points are going to be in this new format.
Just one season ago, Wallace only posted an average finish of 18.5, but by virtue of his Brickyard 400 win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he was locked into the playoffs regardless of where he finished in the final four regular season races.
With more trophies to chase and his points situation taken care of, Wallace had nothing to lose and put together back to back top 10 finishes at Iowa Speedway and Watkins Glen International afterward.
Considering the fact that a win will not lock a driver into this year's Chase, points are at a premium even more. Wins definitely carry some extra weight, as Reddick can attest to with his sizable points lead, but the days of securing a postseason berth with them are gone.
That only makes performances like Wallace has had the past two weeks so costly when all the progress through the first five weeks is almost completely lost.
Fortunately for Wallace, he has had good speed at most tracks and has run inside the top 10 in most of the stages. He had scored stage points in every race up until the Martinsville race, and he still leads all drivers in stage points with 60.
But his two most recent finishes show how quickly a points cushion can evaporate when other drivers are picking up those lost points.
There is plenty of racing to go and too much speed in the 23XI Racing Toyotas for Wallace to panic this early in the season. However, no driver wants to be toward the bottom of the top 16 when the Chase rolls around, needing to make up additional ground following the pre-playoff points reset. If Wallace has too many races like he has had recently, his points deficit will only continue to grow in a system that rewards consistency.