Toyota has won 7 of 13 races in 2026 — and zero of five at Nashville. The Cracker Barrel 400 lines them up 1-2-4-6 anyway.
Cracker Barrel 400 — Nashville Superspeedway, Sunday, 7 p.m. ET on Prime Video. Here's the only weekend in the sport where a manufacturer that wins everything starts the favorite — and you can probably guess how this ends.
Here's a stat that should not be allowed to exist. Toyota has won seven of the first thirteen races this season. They have three of the top four drivers in points.
Their cars are starting first, second, fourth, and sixth on Sunday. And Toyota has never won a Cup race at Nashville Superspeedway. Not once.
In five tries. Five seasons of the best team in the sport rolling into Music City and going home with a guitar pick. Chevy won the first three.
Ford won the last two. Toyota is the kid at the recital who plays the whole song perfectly and forgets to bow. Here's the stat that turns it from coincidence to curse: in the last five Nashville races, Joe Gibbs Racing's Toyotas led 727 of the 1,531 total laps run.
Hendrick Motorsports, in second place, led 335. JGR has led more than twice as many laps as anyone else and won zero races. That's not bad luck.
That's a haunting. The front row is a Toyota sandwich Rain washed out qualifying for the second straight week, so NASCAR set the lineup by the performance metric. The result: Toyotas line up 1, 2, 4, and 6.
Hamlin on the pole. Tyler Reddick beside him. Christopher Bell fourth.
Ty Gibbs sixth. The universe just handed the only manufacturer that can't win here the best parking spots in the lot. For free.
Because of weather. You cannot script this stuff, and yet Nashville keeps doing it anyway. Denny Hamlin's confidence tour hits a speed bump Hamlin, 45, is the loudest, most relentlessly self-assured human being in the garage.
This is a man who flew an "11 Against The World" flag at Martinsville last spring after winning, has 61 career Cup wins, just won the All-Star Race at Dover two weeks ago, and once explained that trash-talking is, quote, his "superpower." He calls himself the King of Irrational Confidence. He has business cards. Probably.
At Nashville, he has led more laps than any driver in the field — 344 — and won zero races. His average running position here in the Next Gen era is 3.8, the best of anyone in the field. Still zero trophies.
And on Saturday, the King of Irrational Confidence admitted he is, in fact, capable of feeling things: "I really, really want to win here pretty badly... on certain weekends where I really want to win I start getting a little nervous pre-practice." Denny Hamlin. Nervous.
Before practice. The man whose entire personality is built on making other drivers feel small has one track that gives him butterflies, and it's the one where the winner has to hold up a guitar. (Yes, a guitar.
Custom Gibson "Victory Guitar." Country singer Gavin Adcock is in the pace car. Nashville commits to a bit.) Christopher Bell, professional almost-winner Bell's relationship with Toyota's Nashville disaster is so on-the-nose it feels rude. In 2024 he swept both stages here, led a race-high 131 laps, and looked completely unbeatable.
Then he got wrecked late and didn't win. Last Sunday at Charlotte, in the Coca-Cola 600, he finished second. He arrives in Nashville hoping for a vibe shift.
Instead he gets the curse's welcome mat. Kyle Larson: best here, can't win anywhere The defending champion is the most decorated driver this track has ever seen. Kyle Larson owns the best average finish at Nashville at 5.2.
He's the only driver in the field with a top-10 in all five races run here. He is also dragging a 37-race winless streak into town — the longest of his entire Hendrick Motorsports career, dating to a Kansas win in May 2025. A full year.
So the most accomplished driver at this specific concrete oval is also the guy who can't win at any oval, concrete or otherwise. Nashville does this to people. It is not a normal place.
Speaking of which: winning here is a curse Five Cup races. Five different winners. Zero repeats.
Larson 2021, Elliott 2022, Chastain 2023, Logano 2024, Blaney 2025. Each won once, politely declined to ever do it again. Logano did it from 26th in 2024 — the deepest starting spot to ever win here — which means your grid position Sunday isn't a ranking.
It's a vague suggestion. The Cracker Barrel 400 isn't a race. It's a witness protection program.
The part of the weekend that isn't a joke This is the sport's first road trip since two-time champion Kyle Busch passed away at 41 on May 21. Austin Hill is in the RCR No. 33 in his place.
Truck winner Layne Riggs dedicated Friday's rain-delayed victory to him. Pace car rider Gavin Adcock has called Busch his favorite driver. The garage is racing with heavy hearts, and rightly so.
Some things sit outside the punchlines. What else is happening Tyler Reddick is having one of the great seasons in modern NASCAR history . He leads the standings by 122 points on five wins and a 5.54 average finish.
He won the first three races of the year — nobody had ever done that — and became the first driver since Dale Earnhardt in 1987 to take five of the first nine. 23XI just named reigning Truck champion Corey Heim its full-time 2027 Cup driver in the No. 35, with co-owner Hamlin calling him a "generational talent." And Daniel Suárez rolls in starting third off a stunning Coca-Cola 600 win — his first in 82 races, the first by a Mexican-born driver in the event's history, the same race that ended with Bell finishing second.
Of course. The only question that matters Sunday night is whether Toyota finally breaks the curse, or whether the best team in NASCAR gets its heart ripped out by a guitar one more time. Green flag at 7.
Eleven million dollars on the line. Bring snacks. KEY TAKEAWAYS Toyota has won 7 of 13 races in 2026 and 0 of 5 at Nashville.
Joe Gibbs Racing led 727 of 1,531 laps in the last 5 Nashville races — and won none. Hendrick led 335. Toyotas start 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th on Sunday.
Hamlin leads all drivers with 344 laps led at Nashville and has 0 wins here. Larson owns the best average finish here (5.2) and a 37-race winless streak. 5 different winners in 5 Nashville races — 0 repeats.
Reddick leads the points by 122 on 5 wins and a 5.54 average finish. Green flag: 7 p.m. ET, 300 laps, 399 miles, $11.2M purse.