A look at the weekly NASCAR Cup Series stock watch after the race at Phoenix, including 23XI Racing.
Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway served as an early measuring stick for the NASCAR Cup Series season. After two drafting tracks and a road course to open the year, Phoenix offered the first real look at how teams stack up on a more traditional oval.
Ryan Blaney took the victory, but the bigger story may be the trends beginning to take shape across the garage early in the season.
With that in mind, here are three NASCAR Cup Series drivers or teams trending up and three trending down after Phoenix.
NASCAR Cup Series Stock Watch After Phoenix
📈 Stock Up
23XI Racing is Legit
Tyler Reddick made history by winning the first three races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. While his streak ended at Phoenix, the strength of the 23XI Racing program remains clear.
Reddick’s eighth-place finish was actually one of his better results at Phoenix in recent years.
The bigger surprise came from Bubba Wallace, who entered the race with an average finish worse than 20th in his last 10 Phoenix starts before delivering a strong sixth-place run.
Even Riley Herbst added a solid top-20 finish for the team, his first such result in the Cup Series at Phoenix.
Four races into the season, 23XI Racing looks like a legitimate contender not just for occasional race wins but in the championship picture as well.
If the organization continues showing this level of speed across multiple track types, it may not be long before the rest of the garage begins viewing the Michael Jordan-backed team as a weekly threat.
Ryan Blaney’s Phoenix Mastery
Even before the Straight Talk Wireless 500, Ryan Blaney was already one of the best performers at Phoenix Raceway in recent seasons. Sunday only strengthened that case.
With the victory, Blaney now has two wins, four runner-up finishes and nine top-five results in the last 10 Cup Series races at Phoenix. Even with a 28th-place outlier last spring, his average finish over that span sits at an astonishing 5.1.
Unlike his win here last fall, Blaney’s speed was undeniable all afternoon. The No. 12 car drove through the field twice after pit road issues and still proved to be the class of the race.
At this point, Blaney is simply the driver to beat whenever the Cup Series heads to the desert.
Shane van Gisbergen’s Oval Consistency
NASCAR’s resident road course ace is beginning to show that he can succeed on ovals as well. Shane van Gisbergen may not have gotten the outright win at Circuit of the Americas two weeks ago, but there will be plenty more road racing opportunities for him to reach victory lane this season.
The real motivation for highlighting him in this week’s NASCAR Cup Series stock watch is his consistency to begin the season. An 11th-place finish on Sunday was by far his best in three career starts at Phoenix.
In just his second season running a full-time Cup Series schedule, van Gisbergen is proving that he can contend in multiple racing disciplines. He also took home a sixth-place finish in the draft at Atlanta three races ago.
The strong start to the season has van Gisbergen situated fifth in the points standings after Phoenix. If he keeps it up in the coming weeks, his championship standings status could have staying power.
📉 Stock Down
Chase Briscoe’s Early-Season Hole
As a past winner at Phoenix Raceway, Chase Briscoe entered the Straight Talk Wireless 500 hoping to build momentum after a slow start to the season. Instead, he now finds himself in an even deeper hole in the championship standings.
Briscoe actually showed promising speed early in the race. Despite starting 20th on the grid, the No. 19 Toyota worked its way into the top 10 during the opening stage before disaster struck.
A blown tire sent Briscoe hard into the outside wall, abruptly ending what had been shaping up as a strong afternoon.
The result continues a troubling trend at Phoenix. In his last four starts at the track, Briscoe has finished 29th or worse three times and has failed to record a single top-15 finish.
The bigger concern, however, is the points picture. Four races into the season, Briscoe sits 33rd in the standings which is unfamiliar territory for a Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
There’s plenty of season left, but the No. 19 team will need to start climbing quickly beginning next week at Las Vegas.
Chevrolet’s New Body Facing Early Questions
Sunday’s race at Phoenix marked the first real look at the new Chevrolet body on a traditional oval. The early results suggest the Bowtie brigade may have some work to do.
While drivers like Kyle Larson, William Byron and Michael McDowell managed to salvage top-10 finishes, Chevrolet teams appeared to be a step behind Ford and Toyota for much of the race. In fact, Chevy drivers led just one lap all afternoon.
Several teams were forced to make significant in-race adjustments just to stay competitive. Recovering for a respectable finish is possible, but constantly chasing the setup is far from ideal.
With the series heading to Las Vegas, a true 1.5-mile intermediate oval, the next race should provide another revealing test of how the new Chevrolet body performs on a different type of track.
Kyle Busch Off the Pace
The Straight Talk Wireless 500 was largely a frustrating race for Kyle Busch. Had he not managed to recover for a respectable finish, the alarm bells might be ringing even louder.
Busch’s difficult weekend began on Saturday when the No. 8 car qualified just 29th. That poor starting position quickly turned into a bigger problem on Sunday as Busch went a lap down during the early portion of the race.
Things nearly went from bad to worse when Busch made contact with the outside wall, putting his afternoon in serious jeopardy.
Fortunately for the Richard Childress Racing team, the race featured 12 cautions, tying the Phoenix Raceway record. Those restarts provided opportunities to make adjustments and allowed Busch to gradually climb back through the field.
By the closing laps, he was restarting inside the top 10 before ultimately finishing 17th.
It wasn’t a disastrous result, but Busch and the No. 8 team clearly have work to do heading to his hometown track at Las Vegas.
