5 KYLE LARSON
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Age: 33 (July 31, 1992)
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Hometown: Elk Grove, California
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Last Week: N\/A
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Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels
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Standings: N\/A
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No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet
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Kyle Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team enter the 2026 campaign as reigning NASCAR Cup Series champions.
\nDuring the 2025 season, Larson delivered three wins, 15 top-five finishes and 22 top 10s with 1,100 laps led and 10 stage victories across 36 starts.
\nVia his championship last season, the 33-year-old driver is the only driver that is locked into the 2026 Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. Competitors qualify for the main event by finishing in the top five in one of four heat races Saturday night while two more spots are earned via last chance qualifier on Sunday. A 23rd spot is reserved for the driver who finished highest in points in 2026 who did not qualify otherwise.
\nIn the 2025 Clash, Larson and the No. 5 team won the last chance qualifier.
\nThe Elk Grove, California, native is one of two drivers to finish in the top five in all three Clashes run at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
\nLarson has logged 407 laps in the top 10 during the Clash on a quarter-mile track, fifth among active drivers. <\/p>\n
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9 CHASE ELLIOTT
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Age: 30 (Nov. 28, 1995)
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Hometown: Dawsonville, Georgia
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Last week: N\/A
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Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson
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Standings: N\/A
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No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet
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Chase Elliott returns for his 11th full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2026. It marks the 22nd for crew chief Alan Gustafson.
\nThis weekend, the series takes on Bowman Gray Stadium for the Clash exhibition race for the second consecutive year. In 2025, Elliott started from the pole after winning his heat race. He led 171 of 200 laps in the main event, taking the checkered flag for his first career Clash victory.
\nElliott also competed at the North Carolina short track in the ARCA East Series in 2011 and 2012, finishing 18th and sixth, respectively.
\nOverall, Elliott ended 2025 with the second-best average finish (12.6) among full-time premier series drivers. He had two points-paying wins (Atlanta Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway), 11 top-five finishes, 19 top 10s and led 454 laps. Elliott advanced to the Round of 8 in the playoffs, finishing eighth in points.
\nThe Dawsonville, Georgia, native won the 2025 National Motorsports Press Association\u2019s Most Popular Driver award, marking his eighth straight season earning the honor. <\/p>\n
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24 WILLIAM BYRON
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Age: 28 (Nov. 29, 1997)
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Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
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Last Week: N\/A
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Crew Chief: Rudy Fugle
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Standings: N\/A
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No. 24 Valvoline Chevrolet
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William Byron and the No. 24 team won the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship and earned their third consecutive Championship 4 appearance after three wins, 11 top fives, 16 top 10s and 1,330 laps led. He finished fourth in points.
\nTo kick off 2026, Byron and the Cup Series head to Bowman Gray Stadium for the second time for the NASCAR Clash.
\nByron, like the rest of the field, got his first Cup Series start at Bowman Gray last year in the Clash where he advanced out of his heat race, starting 11th for the main event.
\nOther than last year\u2019s Clash, the Charlotte, North Carolina, native raced at Bowman Gray in the ARCA East Series in 2015, scoring a 15th-place finish.
\nBefore the Clash was moved to Bowman Gray it was held for three years at the LA Coliseum, also a 0.25-mile venue. Over that trio of starts, the 28-year-old driver made the main event each year and had a 5.78 average running position (second best) and an average finish of 8.67.<\/p>\n
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48 ALEX BOWMAN
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Age: 32 (April 25, 1993)
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Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
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Last Week: N\/A
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Crew Chief: Blake Harris
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Standings: N\/A
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No. 48 Ally Chevrolet
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Alex Bowman returns as the driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet for the ninth consecutive season in the NASCAR Cup Series with Hendrick Motorsports.
\nIn the 2025 inaugural Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, the No. 48 team advanced to the main event after finishing fifth in their heat race.
\nPrior to last year’s event, the Tucson, Arizona, native raced at Bowman Gray Stadium in the ARCA East Series in 2011, where he finished 12th.
\nBlake Harris enters his fourth season with Bowman as crew chief on the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. In the last three seasons, the duo has earned one win (Chicago Street Course, 2024), four poles, 17 top-five and 41 top-10 finishes.
\nBowman and the No. 48 team closed out the 2025 season 13th in driver points with six top fives and 16 top-10 finishes. Bowman earned the final playoff spot on points, to make his second consecutive postseason appearance and fifth overall. <\/p>\n
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HENDRICK
MOTORSPORTS \/
Hendrick Motorsports
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Chase Elliott’s victory in last year’s Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium gave Hendrick Motorsports eight wins in the NASCAR Cup Series exhibition preseason opener, good enough for a tie for second all time.
\nThe organization enters the 2026 season coming off its 15th championship in the premier series, won by Kyle Larson. Hendrick Motorsports is the all-time leader in titles as well as Cup Series points-paying wins (320).
\nIncluding the Clash, Cup Series All-Star Race and All-Star Open, and Duel at Daytona races, Hendrick Motorsports has recorded 40 victories in special non-points events, 11 more than any other team.
\nWith a win, Elliott would become the fourth driver to win the Clash twice for Hendrick Motorsports, joining Ken Schrader, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. <\/p>\n
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QUOTABLE \/
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Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet, on preparing to open the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season: \u201cOffseasons are fun and give you the ability to refresh but as the new season approaches, I get really antsy and ready to go. I look forward to being around everybody again, getting into meetings and preparing for the race weekends and all of that. We\u2019ll see what the weather is like, but either way we\u2019ll be ready. I am just excited to get back to racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet, looking back on last year\u2019s Clash: \u201cIt was a really smooth weekend for us, and I think that was probably the biggest takeaway. Qualifying well sets you up well for your heat race. Got us into a great position to have good track position all night. I don\u2019t necessarily think that\u2019s the end-all be-all. I think Ryan (Blaney) debunked that with his performance in the main. But certainly it would nice to get off to a good start again this year and I think we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet, on the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium: \u201cThis weekend brings a lot of unknowns especially with the way the weather is trending right now. I\u2019m excited to get back on track though, whenever that may be. We\u2019ve had a good offseason, and the team has been working hard for the season to start back up. We have a couple new teammates so this will be a good first step to make sure we\u2019re all working on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet, on the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium: \u201cI\u2019m curious to see what\u2019s going to happen this weekend. It\u2019s definitely going to be cold; it was cold last year but not that cold. For me, it\u2019s not that different. As a driver, we fight the heat all the time so it\u2019s a nice change to drive when it\u2019s cold. From the race team perspective, there are a lot of factors on the technical side that the team will have to fight with to try to keep things going through some really cold temperatures. I hope we can get it in; it\u2019ll be interesting what shakes out, but whenever they let us back in the race car, I am excited to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendrick Motorsports PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 KYLE LARSON\u200a Age: 33 (July 31, 1992)\u200a Hometown: Elk Grove, California\u200a Last Week: N\/A\u200a Crew Chief: Cliff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,717,925,4384,19115,720,12716,634,582,721,722,82],"class_list":["post-441185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-charlotte","tag-daytona","tag-hendrick-motorsports","tag-jimmie-johnson","tag-motor","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-speedway","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}