Last week, I created a new folder on my computer for my 2026 columns and articles.
It’s the 24th one on the drive, one for every season I’ve put pen to paper (or, at least, fingers to keyboard).
That’s … quite a body of work. It’s a far cry from what some journalists have amassed, but it’s mine. It’s something I made, word by word, stat by stat, memory by memory. Enough to pick up a handful of NMPA awards along the way, alongside some of the writers I have looked up to and learned from.
Enough to see drivers begin and end careers. Enough to create some amazing working relationships. Enough to tell a lot of stories. Collectively, enough to tell my own story.
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And while my story in the scheme of things doesn’t matter (shouldn’t matter because I only tell the real story), the stories I have gotten to tell, the ones I haven’t yet and even the ones I’ll never have a chance to tell … they matter.Â
History matters. In the world and in sport, it matters.
The past, a collective past shared by competitors and fans, is just that: the past. It’s static in that nothing we do will change it — the races have been won or lost, triumph and tragedy have changed the landscape only for it to be wiped clean and changed again and again. Records have been built and toppled. They will be again.
Why should anyone care? After all, at its very heart, racing is ridiculously simple: drivers going in circles, trying to be faster and last longer than all the other drivers. And if that was all it would ever be, fans would still come.Â
To some, maybe that’s all it will ever be. A little fun on Sunday, some loud noises, a crash or two (we all know some of you watch for the crashes, don’t even deny it) and that’s it.Â
But every race is also a part of something more.Â
History can be divided into two things: numbers and people. It’s easy to say the numbers aren’t important because the people are, but that’s not exactly true. Numbers — statistics and dates — give us perspective. Even when a direct comparison is next to impossible because of differences in time, rules, equipment and the evolution of the sport, they lend perspective.Â
There are arguments for just about every era of the sport being the most difficult, the best, the most exciting. Put one driver against another with similar numbers, and there are compelling cases to be made about why each should be top dog. The numbers are the foundation of this rhetoric, and they can be woven in a number of ways and still be correct. Â
Numbers can also be as simple as an obscure footnote, a short narrative of something that happened one day that made it different from all the others.
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History is also about people and their stories. There will be tens of thousands of people at Daytona International Speedway this week. Teams, drivers, officials, guests and fans will all experience race week as a collective, but every single one of them will have a different experience. The race winner, his team and his fans will experience a special kind of euphoria. The ones who fall just short, the ones who watched their driver crash out early or perhaps miss the show and head home before it even starts, the teams who just couldn’t coax enough out of the car and the driver who experiences the eerie quiet of an airborne car all have a story to tell.
Sometimes, the stories that aren’t widely seen are the best stories of all. The moments shared between a driver and a young fan, the first laps turned, the obstacles overcome just to be there are a part of a much bigger story, making it richer and all the more worth telling and worth hearing.
Everything that NASCAR is and has been is part of what it will be years from now. I get to tell the stories that have made it what it is, and they’re why I care deeply about its present and future. I get to tell them … but every driver, crewman and fan gets to be part of them. And as much as things change, that’s what keeps us coming back.
Stay tuned for the numbers and the people and the stories they tell. Come talk some NASCAR history. It’s what binds the sport together. And together, you all get to create some more of it. For better or for worse, 2026 will make its own stories.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com’s Around the Track page.