Hendrick Motorsports teammates lockout the front row for the 2026 Cookout Clash

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — After nearly ten inches of snow and three additional days, Kyle Larson captures the 2026 Cookout Clash pole here at Bowman Gray Stadium.

Larson starts his title defense with a strong lap (14.137) which edged out teammate William Byron (14.141) to lead the field to green for tonight’s main event.

Qualifying

Following them in the second and third rows are another pair of teammates.

Ty Gibbs (14.146) in third, Chase Briscoe (14.147) in fourth, Christopher Bell (14.150) in fifth, and Denny Hamlin (14.151) in sixth but last of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates.

After the third row, finding the win tonight seems impossible at a quarter mile track. In every quarter mile event held in the next-gen era, every winner came from the first two rows.

See who else has locked into the 2026 Cookout Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium below.

Practice

The NASCAR Cup Series finally gets on track at Bowman Gray Stadium for the 2026 Cookout Clash.

Due to the schedule condensing, practice for the Clash was split into three groups.

The drivers were split into groups listed below in ascending order by their 2025 total owners points.

Each group had two eight minute rounds of practice to get their car right before qualifying.

Group 1 comprised of the drivers with the least previous points and they had the difficult task of laying down rubber on a completely green track. With the temps in the low 40’s it took until the third group for the groove to fully come in.

Bumping and moving will be the story of the weekend and it didn’t take long for the drivers to demonstrate that.

Alex Bowman moved John Hunter Nemechek in the second group while Shane Van Gisbergen came out of the gates fast and bumped Denny Hamlin a few times in the third group.

Some drivers and crews found themselves in prime preseason form in the first session. Chase Elliott came out with his gas cap undone

Leading the groups in their first sessions are Cole Custer (14.437), Chris Buescher (14.324), and Ross Chastain (14.255).

From the first session, William Byron achieved the best 20 lap average with a 14.4 second average. Then followed close by Tyler Reddick (14.44), Ross Chastain (14.45), Bubba Wallace (14.47), and Chase Elliott (14.49).

Following the first session NASCAR had to dry the track as the snow built up along the outside of the walls continued to melt.

Session Two

Tires where a major topic of discussion. NASCAR came to town with five sets of sticker tires for the day so where the teams used them where the question.

Most teams in this session opted to fit new tires on with various results. Group 1 teams such as Front Row Motorsports and Kaulig fitted tires with little to show while the drivers who topped their groups in the first session only improved with the new tires on.

Cole Custer improved his time to a 14.348 while the other drivers in his group improved only marginally.

Chris Buescher led the second group again with a 14.266. Kyle Busch also climbed the charts with a time of 14.280 but scuffed the wall into turn three.

Christopher Bell took control of the third group with a blazing 14.193 with Ryan Blaney jumping to second fastest with a 14.219.

After two round of practice the top ten comprised of the following:

1. Christopher Bell 14.193
2. Ryan Blaney 14.219
3. Ross Chastain 14.255
4. Tyler Reddick 14.257
5. Chase Briscoe 14.259
6. William Byron 14.261
7. Chris Buescher 14.266
8. Shane Van Gisbergen 14.273
9. Kyle Busch 14.280
10. Joey Logano 14.304

MORE:

• NASCAR 2026 Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium: Odds, format, times and more info