One week ago at Talladega Superspeedway, a 142-race NASCAR Cup Series streak was quietly snapped.
Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron was eliminated from 2026 championship contention, meaning that this weekend's race at Martinsville Speedway was the first race in which he would not be a championship eligible driver since the 2022 season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
The reason for this is the fact that Byron was the only driver who qualified for the Championship 4 every year from 2023 to 2025. In fact, he was the only driver who qualified in both 2024 and 2025, so only three other drivers even entered the 2026 season having been championship eligible for 36 consecutive races. Byron entered the year with his streak at 108.
This week at Martinsville, Byron snapped another crazy 142-race streak, and this one went in his direction.
William Byron ends bizarre all-time NASCAR Next Gen drought at Martinsville
Since the start of the Next Gen era, no regular season champion has gone on to win a single race the following year.
Chase Elliott won it in 2022, and the 2023 season was his first winless season since 2017, which was before he had ever even earned his first win. Elliott did miss seven races that year, six due to injury and one due to suspension.
Martin Truex Jr. won the regular season crown in 2023, but his July 2023 victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was his final victory, even though he competed full-time for one more season in 2024.
Tyler Reddick won it in 2024, before going winless in 2025 for the first time since 2021. Like Elliott's 2017 season, Reddick's 2021 season was his final winless season before he earned his first victory.
Then in 2025, Byron won the regular season title. But he did not win any one of the 2026 season's first 34 races, and it put his six-year winning streak at risk of being snapped.
But the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet delivered a career-best performance on Sunday, leading 362 of the Xfinity 500's 500 laps around the four-turn (0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) Ridgeway, Virginia oval to win the season's penultimate race. It marked his fourth career win at Martinsville, all since 2022. His most recent win had come at Martinsville in the 2025 playoffs.
And yes, had NASCAR not gotten rid of the Championship 4, his win on Sunday would have locked him into the winner-take-all round for the fourth consecutive season, even though he hadn't won a race all year up until that point and is still only ninth in points.
Can he close out the year with a victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he dominated in 2021, to make the 2026 season his fifth consecutive multi-win season as well?
Maybe he will, maybe he won't, but perhaps his win will even give Denny Hamlin, this year's regular season champion, some hope heading into 2027 that it's not impossible to win the regular season title and then win a race the next year, especially as he will likely come up short of capturing that elusive first championship once again this fall.
This year's championship battle is down to Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell, and Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson. Larson is 67 points ahead of Bell and 70 ahead of Hamlin with just 76 points still up for grabs, meaning that anybody unseating Larson is extremely unlikely.
Live coverage of the Straight Talk Wireless 400 from Homestead-Miami Speedway is set to be provided by NBC beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, November 8. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss any of the action to wrap up the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season!
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