Three big questions ahead of the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega

The 10th race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season will bring the best stock car drivers in the world to the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway. 

Here are three big questions ahead of Sunday's Jack Link's 500 (3 p.m. ET, Fox, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). 

Who goes home? 

For the first time since the season-opening Daytona 500, a driver who shows up to the racetrack will fail to qualify. 

Forty-one cars are on the entry list for Sunday's race, but only 40 will make the show, sending one team home. 

The matter gets more complicated when you factor in the rain and thunderstorms in Saturday's forecast, which could cancel qualifying and set the starting lineup according to the NASCAR rulebook. 

Should qualifying be canceled, driver Casey Mears and the No. 66 Garage 66 team would miss the race due to having no owner points on the season. 

Qualifying is set for 10:30 a.m. ET Saturday, with coverage on Prime Video and MRN. 

Will adjusted stage lengths help fuel saving?

To answer the question: maybe, but also no. 

NASCAR adjusted the stage lengths for Sunday's race in an effort to promote less fuel saving by drivers and more full-throttle racing. A 98-lap Stage 1 will be complemented by two 45-lap stages to make up the 188-lap, 500-mile race distance. 

Next-Gen era superspeedway racing has been defined by fuel saving in an effort by drivers to gain spots in the pits that are harder to gain on the track. The Next Gen car's draggy nature makes it difficult for drivers to gain significant ground while racing at full throttle. 

Still, while fuel mileage racing may be less prevalent on Sunday than it was at Daytona in February, expect drivers to still save fuel in Stage 1 and even in Stage 2 of Sunday's race. 

Can Tyler Reddick find another way to win?

Reddick, the Cup Series points leader and winner of five of the first nine races this season, is a former Talladega winner himself, winning at the Alabama superspeedway in the spring of 2024. He also won the first two drafting races of the season at Daytona and Atlanta. 

Despite not being a historically great superspeedway racer, nothing has stopped Reddick and the No. 45 team this season. 

That doesn't mean Talladega, an inherently chaotic racetrack, will step aside and hand him the win. Reddick will have to compete with his 23XI Racing teammate, Bubba Wallace, another prior Talladega winner, along with the Team Penske Fords and his car owner, Denny Hamlin, if he wants to win. 

Those aforementioned drivers are only the favorites for Sunday's race, in which all 40 cars that take the green flag have a shot to win. Anything can happen in the draft, and anything can happen at Talladega, which makes Sunday's race one of the most unpredictable in motorsports.