This weekend, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series took center stage as the Cup Series got the weekend off. But, if you missed all that action, here’s a look at what the NASCAR community took away from NASCAR’s lone trip to The Rock this year.
NASCAR fans like trends, so try this one on for size: In back-to-back seasons, at least one of the two NASCAR National Series racing at Rockingham Speedway has had a car or truck disqualified during post-race inspection.
Last year, it was NASCAR Xfinity Series winner Jesse Love, who forfeited his win to Sammy Smith and JR Motorsports. This year, Front Row Motorsports fell victim to post-race inspection (which is nothing new as Seth Eggert showed in his post above), with Chandler Smith’s fourth-place finish thrown out.
Whatever it is that Corey Heim has on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series field is impressive. After a season in which many felt his record-breaking success was a combination of team and driver, Heim has proven himself as a winner with both TRICON’s No. 5 and No. 1 teams.
Better yet, the 23XI Racing prospect, despite missing two races this season, is now the Truck Series points leader after dominating back-to-back races. Unfortunately, due to NASCAR’s rules surrounding playoff eligibility, Heim will not be able to race for the championship if he were to find a full-time ride.
Corey Day was one of the more polarizing figures in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field early on this season. His many, many run-ins with his fellow drivers and HMS/JRM teammates made the Hendrick Motorsports prospect enemy No. 1 for a multitude of reasons.
But, since his scraps with drivers like Justin Allgaier and Connor Zilisch, Day has continued to build on an incredible start to 2026. Through the first eight races of the season, Day and series points leader Allgaier are the lone two drivers with seven top tens. Unfortunately, despite his solid work this weekend, winning both stage one and stage two, Day was not able to find victory lane.
This weekend, YouTube star Cleetus McFarland, whose real name is Garrett Mitchell, made his long-awaited, and somewhat controversial, NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut. While Mitchell did not make any real waves in his series debut, the 30-year-old finished the race, bringing his Richard Childress Racing No. 33 car home in 32nd.
Though this was exciting for Mitchell and his fans, given the tough nature of racing at The Rock, many diehard NASCAR fans felt that this lackluster debut overshadowed the top storylines of the race weekend. Regardless of how you feel, when NASCAR OAP Series TV Ratings come out later this week, expect this heated discussion to reignite.
In 2024, NASCAR opted to move the Easter race weekend to Richmond, scrapping the Bristol Dirt race in doing so. Last season, the sport moved on from an Easter Cup Series race weekend entirely, opting for the ARCA East, Trucks, and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series triple header at The Rock.
During the 2025 weekend at Rockingham, some fans expressed their sadness that the Cup Series took the weekend off, with many still not over the end of the Bristol dirt race.
This year, while many were still elated that NASCAR is racing at the Rock, support for NASCAR on dirt continued in the online community, something that will likely continue each Easter weekend, given that the Cup Series does not return to dirt in the near future.
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