Chaos will continue despite NASCAR leaving Talladega

The NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on April 26 was, as most Talladega races are, chaotic. 

The race featured a 26-car pileup on Lap 115 and a first-time winner in Carson Hocevar, who then delivered an iconic celebration on the frontstretch. 

But just because NASCAR left the towering Alabama high banks of Alabama doesn't mean this weekend's race at Texas Motor Speedway will be a calm affair. 

In recent years, Texas has arguably become the most chaotic venue on the schedule, not named Daytona or Talladega. The racing product at the 1.5-mile oval isn't great, nor has it been since the 2017 reconfiguration of the speedway, but an aging surface has made recent races more entertaining by throwing curveball after curveball at drivers. 

Recent trends point to potentially chaotic race

All four Next-Gen era points races have had at least 11 cautions; the 2022 and 2024 races had 16 apiece, with the former marred by myriad tire issues. All four Next-Gen races at Texas have also had at least 20 lead changes each. 

The list of winners is somewhat standard — Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano — but how they got to victory lane was anything but. 

Reddick won in a race plagued by aforementioned tire chaos; Byron won after a dogfight with Bubba Wallace, Elliott won after a dominant Denny Hamlin wrecked late in the race and Logano earned his only win of 2025 after a thrilling late-race battle with Michael McDowell. 

During long green flag runs, fans likely won't be on the edge of their seat. An enthralling venue, lap after lap, TMS is not. 

But Sunday's race is likely to have plenty of yellow flags and restarts and lead changes that could all build to another finish that will likely be, at the very least, entertaining and highlight-reel worthy, even if most of the 400 miles run on Sunday afternoon are not.