North Wilkesboro has always been a cradle of legends; Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, all left their mark here. Gordon’s 1996 win was historic, but it also closed the track’s chapter as a Cup Series points race. Fans never forgot. After Dale Jr. and Co. brought the track back in 2023, its short-track magic had everyone buzzing. Now, 30 years later, North Wilkesboro returns for points, and Dover Motor Speedway will replace the 0.625-mile track to take the All-Star spotlight. A top executive has already set the wheels in motion.

NASCAR’s jaw-dropping innovation will be back

Mike Forde, NASCAR’s Managing Director for Racing Communications, said in a ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’ episode: “We offered the teams to run what you brung to a point for this year, but it was a little bit short notice. And so I think if we potentially want to relook at that idea, now’s the time to do it. Say, “All right, hey, like you now have five, six, seven months to think about it, and like, can we do this?”

Forde proposed that the teams will be given some free rein in determining the ‘run what you brung’ concept. “There’s going to be some brainstorming around how to make this different and make it really feel like a special event.” He added, “We’re trying to kind of make it bigger.” 

Ever since the Next-Gen car rolled out in 2022, it has been the subject of widespread criticism. From worrisome crashes to aerodynamic challenges, the single-spec parts of this car made things difficult for race teams. NASCAR did not allow performance modifications for the sake of parity. Ahead of the 2025 All-Star Race, NASCAR proposed a “run what you brung” format, giving teams more flexibility to adjust cars for better racing quality while keeping safety components and single-source parts unchanged. But this proposal met with massive criticism as well.

Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing, observed that the costs would be heavy, and the $1 million would not be enough to cover them. Hamlin estimated that making modifications could cost his team roughly $2 million in research and development, especially since any changes would not carry over to points races. Despite the backlash faced this year, NASCAR will propose the same deal for Dover’s All-Star Race next year. According to Hamlin, a three-time Dover winner, the Monster Mile is not suited for short runs. It also does not have track lights for a night race.

Teams cited several reasons for declining the “run what you brung” idea, too. Costs, the risk of using multiple chassis, and a lack of lasting benefits for future points races were all concerns. Crew chiefs from mid-tier teams said they couldn’t compete with bigger teams’ resources and feared overspending for a non-points event. Still, many expressed interest in revisiting the idea if NASCAR further loosened the rulebook.

But back then, in April 2025, Forde clarified misconceptions about costs, saying that teams would not have to build new parts or alter single-source components. Teams could adjust ride heights, nose weight, diffusers, and spoilers from existing inventory, which could have saved money for smaller teams. “If you didn’t want to do anything, you could just use hand-me-down panels that weren’t race-ready for a points race but fine for the All-Star Race,” he said. “That could actually save teams money.”

And now, Forde said that public opinion is slowly liking the idea. “Obviously, you know, when it was announced that Dover was the all-star race, there was a lot of consternation around that, and understandably because Charlotte and then I guess Texas was kind of also kind of like, oh, that’s that’s a weird place, and then North Wilkesboro everyone loved…Seemingly talking to the folks at SM, the ticket sales right now for Dover renewals are really good. I think people are kind of embracing it.”

With developments proceeding towards Dover, we can only wait and see what happens. Meanwhile, the Cup Series garage is racking its brains over one particular track.

The dangerous of them all

Up next is Talladega Superspeedway, the second race of the Round of 8. The 2.66-mile high-banked oval in Alabama is the seat of ‘Big Ones’. That is because the superspeedway-style drafting is unpredictable. If a driver switches lanes, a wreck can result if the driver is too slow to make the block and keep their momentum ahead of the faster lane. With little time to react in the pack, crashes of a dozen cars or more can occur. And for the playoff drivers, except for Denny Hamlin, the pressure of advancing to the Championship 4 compounds the fear of wrecks.

Chase Elliott (minus-23 to the cutline), Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney (minus-31) all face a must-win situation at Talladega or Martinsville. Logano, the 2024 Cup Series champion, is biting his nails: “I don’t know if I’m a huge fan of where it is in the playoffs, but the rules are the rules and we’re going to play by them. That’s the whole thing with this whole playoff system.”

Ryan Blaney and William Byron, both of whom encountered DNFs in Las Vegas, are also tense. “Everything has to go right in this Round of Eight,” Byron said. “That’s something major that went wrong that I feel like was out of our control. We’ve just got to probably go and win one of the next two.” Blaney is in a better position, as he has three prior trophies in Talladega. Yet anything can happen, as he said, “You’ve got to be optimistic. We’ve had good success at the next two events, so hopefully we can come and bring the speed and try to overcome the hole we put ourselves in.”

Clearly, Talladega is dominating the drivers’ attention for now. Let’s wait and see what reactions NASCAR’s proposal about Dover elicits.