Like every sport, NASCAR has ebbs and flows. Even the most dominant dynasties don’t last forever. Nor does any other display of dominance over a season. 

Toyota swept the top three and had seven of the top 10 finishers in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway, but Chevrolet is gaining. 

William Byron faded to fourth at the checkered flag but swept the stages and led a race-high 94 laps. Kyle Larson led 23 and finished second in Stage 2, while Alex Bowman drove up to fifth by race’s end. 

Chevy still has work to do at intermediate tracks to catch up with Toyota. But they’re much closer than they were a month ago, and certainly closer on speed than they were at the start of the season. 

How NASCAR ebbs and flows

Toyota has had dominant runs in NASCAR before. In 2016, it won 16 races in a year when it had Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards all driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. 

Every manufacturer has had its stretches in the sun. Chevrolet won a series-high 15 races in 2025 and 2024, 18 in 2023 and a whopping 19 in 2022. 2026 is shaping up to be the first season in the Next-Gen era that Chevy doesn’t lead the series in wins, as Toyota has a league-high 12 through the first 19 races. The last time Toyota led the series in wins was 2019, when it won 19 and the title with Kyle Busch. 

Chevy’s success isn’t at all limited to the Next-Gen era. It won 19 races in 2021 and 20 in 2014, a year in which Toyota, despite Kenseth, Busch and Hamlin all driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, won only twice. 

Even Ford, which has only one victory to its credit this season, won a series-high 18 in 2020, thanks to a 10-win season from Kevin Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing. The blue ovals also won 19 races in 2018 (Chevrolet won only four total with its new Camaro body), with all four Stewart-Haas drivers reaching the Round of 8 in the playoffs. SHR shut down at the end of 2024. 

Chevy once again has a new Camaro body this season, while Ford is preparing for its new Mustang Dark Horse in 2027. Toyota, meanwhile, is working with the same Camry XSE its had since 2024.

The bottom line is that the success of one team or one manufacturer ebbs and flows, and doesn’t do so in anything resembling a straight line. If Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet fans, along with their Team Penske and Ford counterparts, are frustrated with a lack of wins this season, wait a year or two. In NASCAR, things have a tendency to come full circle, and they will in due time. 

In the same vein, Toyota, led by 23XI Racing and JGR, could very well fall off next season or even near the end of the 2026 campaign. While it still has a stranglehold on the series at the moment, it is slipping slightly. 

Every team and manufacturer goes through both rough patches and dominant campaigns. This year, the dominance belongs to Toyota, 23XI and JGR. If you want to see that change, come back next year and the year after that to see a sport in which competitiveness evolves not over decades, but in the span of a single season.