2026 North Wilkesboro Race Report

The 2026 North Wilkesboro Race Report is a picture of domination by Joey Logano. Logano led 323 of the race’s 450 laps to win the first points-paying race at the track in 30 years. Let’s see how he did it.

2026 North Wilkesboro Race Report: Caution/Lead-O-Gram

Cautions

There were only three unplanned cautions, all accidents. Surprisingly (for those expecting Bristol, at least), all of the cautions were mostly one- or two-car incidents. The track is wide enough and the cars get strung out enough to allow drivers to get around blockages caused by crashes.

There were three accidents for a total of 24 laps and two stage-end cautions for a total of 19 laps.

That’s 4.2% of the race in planned cautions and 5.3% of the race in unplanned cautions for a total of 9.6% of the race happening under the yellow flag. That’s a relatively low percentage, especially for this year.

Leading

Nine drivers led for a total of 17 lead changes. That corresponds to 3.8 lead changes per 100 laps.

Joey Logano led 323 of the race’s 450 laps, a total of 72% of all laps led. I’d classify domination as anything over 50% of laps led. So while this wasn’t lead-every-lap domination, it was a great showing for a driver who has struggled mightily this season.

Shane van Gisbergen led the second-most laps with 49, followed by Ty Gibbs with 47 laps led. Gibbs’ potential was limited by a speeding penalty incurred at the first stage-end break.

The hatching on the lead-o-gram indicates how the lead was attained.

• No hatching indicates the lead was taken with a green-flag pass
• Dots and hatching indicates that the lead was acquired during pit stops; the new leader stayed out while other cars pitted. Hamlin stayed out after the first caution and inherited the lead. SvG then passed him under the green flag
• Just hatching means the lead was taken during pit stops. For example, Logano took the lead during the Stage-1 break because Gibbs sped.

All in all, we had:

• 5 green-flag lead changes, all attributable to Logano and Van Gisbergen
• 1 change inherited during yellow-flag pit stops
• 4 changes inherited during green-flag pit stops
• 6 changes during pit road under yellow.

Conclusion

This was a very different race than many people imagined it would be, even though everyone claimed afterward that this is exactly the way North Wilkesboro always behaves. A caution during a green-flag pit-stop cycle trapped a number of very good cars two laps down. The subsequent lack of cautions made it impossible for most of those cars to get their laps back.

A Request

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