Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway was exciting right until the last, with a dramatic overtime finish to boot.
As with every week in the Cup Series, coming out of the race, there are several
storylines across the field, with some big winners and losers from the action.
Here, we've picked out just a few of them, explaining why they're on our minds heading to Kansas.
Winner: Ty Gibbs
Let's start with a positive, shall we? Ty Gibbs was literally the winner at Bristol Motor Speedway, but you simply cannot understate how much of an important result it is for the driver of the No. 54 Toyota.
Gibbs has often come in for a lot of criticism given his results in recent seasons and the fact that he drives for one of the best teams in the field in Joe Gibbs Racing, but he finally silenced his doubters on Sunday.
Sure, it has taken him 131 Cup Series races to get there, but the result comes after a marked improvement so far this year, with five top-fives under his belt in the opening eight races.
Of course, there's a long way to go in the season, but Gibbs now sits fourth in the standings heading to Kansas, and nobody would have predicted that back in February.
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Loser: Kyle Busch
Unfortunately, Sunday's race proved to be another tough outing for Kyle Busch, as his nightmare start to 2026 continues. The year might have started brightly when he won the pole at the Daytona 500, but it has all gone rapidly downhill since then.
Eight races in, the two-time champion has yet to achieve a top-10 finish, and the last four races have ended in 28th, 21st, 24th, and 25th-place finishes, the latter of which came at Bristol on Sunday.
Busch and his key team members - crew chief Jim Pohlman and spotter Derek Kneeland - were audibly frustrated on the team radio, and you do wonder where it goes from here.
Of course, we're only eight races in, and there is plenty of time to turn things around for Busch and his team. However, Cup Series races come thick and fast, and in a contract year, there are no doubt some difficult weeks and decisions ahead.
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Winner: Tyler Reddick
Tyler Reddick continues to lead the way in the Cup Series points standings after a phenomenal start to the season, and Sunday was another step in the right direction.
Despite winning four races this year, one constant topic repeated time and time again is that Reddick must improve his performance and results on short tracks, like Bristol.
As per driveraverages.com, Reddick's finish at Bristol was his second-best at a short track in the next-gen era, and matches his previous best result at Bristol, which came in 2020. Just for reference, Reddick finished 18th and 15th in the two Bristol races last year.
If the driver of the No. 45 Toyota can continue to notch up results like this at the short tracks, he really will be the man to beat when The Chase comes in the fall.
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Loser: Ryan Blaney (and the No. 12 team)
If you didn't see Sunday's race, you might be thinking, 'Ryan Blaney finished second, how can he be a loser?' Well, it's for that exact reason.
Blaney's No. 12 Ford was the quickest car on track in Tennessee, and he drove superbly throughout the race, but those ugly pit road issues reared their head once again.
Multiple times throughout the 500 laps of action, Blaney lost several positions during his pit stops, and despite all of that, he still nearly drove back to the front and won it all.
Blaney's troubles sparked Larry McReynolds to reveal an astonishing statistic. Blaney has lost 86 spots (now more) on pit road this season, which at the time he spoke, was 30 more than anyone else in the Cup Series.
Blaney is doing a great job, but his pit crew needs to clean it up big time if he's going to add to his championship tally this year.
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