2026 NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series

Teams and drivers

Full-time teams

Team changes

• Kaulig Racing is pausing their Xfinity Series program for the 2026 season.
• Sam Hunt Racing will field two full-time cars in 2026 with the No. 24 car expanding from being fielded part-time to full-time.
• Young's Motorsports will expand to two full-time cars with the addition of the No. 02 driven by Ryan Ellis.
• ARCA Menards Series team Sigma Performance Services acquired AM Racing. The team, now known as SPS Racing, will field an entry in the series but did not specify whether it will be full-time or part-time. Although it was revealed that it wasn't finalized.
• Cope Family Racing will partner with Stanton Barrett Motorsports, a team returning to NASCAR for the first time since 2015 and the series for the first time since 2008, in 2026 and the team's car will switch from the No. 70 to the No. 30, a number SBM ran in their previous stint in the series from 2007 to 2008. On January 5, 2026, Barrett–Cope Racing was announced as the merged team's new name.
• Viking Motorsports will field two full-time cars in 2026 with Anthony Alfredo driving the No. 96 car.
• After collaborating with Jordan Anderson Racing for two years to jointly field Austin Green's entries with them part-time, Peterson Racing will split from JAR and field their No. 87 car on their own in 2026 with Green and the team running full-time in the series for the first time.
• SS-Green Light Racing with BRK Racing renumbered their No. 14 car to the No. 0 for 2026. Garrett Smithley, who drove that car in the majority of the races in 2025 and will again in 2026, is synonymous with that number from when he drove it for JD Motorsports from 2016 to 2019.
• Jordan Anderson Racing will expand into a three-car operation.

Driver changes

• Rajah Caruth will move up from the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, driving a full-time schedule between JR Motorsports in the No. 88 and Jordan Anderson Racing in the No. 32.
• Corey Day will run full-time in 2026, driving the No. 17 for Hendrick Motorsports.
• Brent Crews will run 29 races in the No. 19 for Joe Gibbs Racing.
• Lavar Scott, who ran full-time in the ARCA Menards Series for Rev Racing for two years, will run full-time for Alpha Prime Racing in their No. 45 car. He drove that car part-time in 2025.
• Patrick Staropoli, who in 2025 ran part-time for Sam Hunt Racing as well as part-time in the Truck and ARCA Series for Cook Racing Technologies and Venturini Motorsports, respectively, will run full-time in the No. 48 for Big Machine Racing, replacing Nick Sanchez.

• Connor Zilisch will move up to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2026 driving full-time for Trackhouse Racing.
• Leland Honeyman will move down to the ARCA Menards Series in 2026, driving for Nitro Motorsports. Both him and Thomas Annunziata, who will also run full-time in ARCA in 2026, will not return to Cope Family Racing in 2026.
• After running full-time with Kaulig Racing in 2025, Daniel Dye and Christian Eckes will both return to the Truck Series full-time in 2026. Dye will continue with Kaulig in the Truck Series with their Ram team while Eckes will return to McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, the team he drove for full-time for in the Truck Series in 2023 and 2024.

• Harrison Burton moved from AM Racing to Sam Hunt Racing for 2026.
• Parker Retzlaff moved from Alpha Prime Racing to Viking Motorsports for 2026. Retzlaff replaced Matt DiBenedetto.
• Josh Bilicki will not return to DGM Racing. He will join SS-Green Light Racing full-time for 2026.
• Josh Williams will return to DGM Racing full-time.
• Nick Sanchez will not return to Big Machine Racing for 2026.
• Anthony Alfredo moved from Young's Motorsports to Viking Motorsports for 2026.
• Austin Green will run full-time for Peterson Racing in their No. 87 car.

• Connor Zilisch will run part-time for JR Motorsports in 2026, splitting the No. 1 car with Carson Kvapil.

Crew chief changes

• Rodney Childers, a longtime Cup Series crew chief who most notably worked with Kevin Harvick at Stewart–Haas Racing for several years as a crew chief in the series, will join JRM in 2026 as the crew chief of the No. 1 car in which Kvapil and Zilisch will share.
• Jim Pohlman, who was the crew chief for JRM's No. 7 car driven by Justin Allgaier, moved up to the Cup Series to crew chief the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing car driven by Kyle Busch.
• Danny Efland, who was the crew chief of the AM Racing No. 25 car in 2025, will move to Viking Motorsports where he will crew chief their No. 99 car in 2026. He replaces Pat Tryson, who became the head of the team's shop operations.
• With JRM hiring Rodney Childers to crew chief the No. 1 car, former No. 1 car crew chief Andrew Overstreet will move to their No. 7 car to replace Jim Pohlman who left the team to crew chief for RCR in the Cup Series.
• JRM crew chiefs Phillip Bell and Cory Shea switched cars for 2026, with Bell moving from the full-time No. 8 to the part-time No. 9 and Shea moving from the part-time No. 9 to the full-time No. 8.
• Aeden McHugh moved from the No. 70 with Cope Family Racing to the No. 28 with RSS Racing. George Church will replace McHugh as crew chief for the renumbered No. 30 car for CFR in their new partnership with Stanton Barrett Motorsports.
• Joshua Graham, who previously crew chiefed for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in the Truck Series in 2025, will be the crew chief for Viking Motorsports' new No. 96 car driven by Anthony Alfredo. The two of them worked together in the series in 2024 at Our Motorsports in their No. 5 car.
• Joe Williams Jr, who crew chiefed the Alpha Prime Racing No. 4 car in 2025, will crew chief the new Hettinger Racing No. 5 car in 2026.
• Matt Weber, who was previously an engineer and crew chief for Our Motorsports, which closed down during the 2025 season, will be the new crew chief for Jeremy Clements' No. 51 car in 2026, replacing Kase Kallenbach.

Manufacturer changes

• Haas Factory Team will switch from Ford to Chevrolet in 2026, with a technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsports.
• RSS Racing will switch from Ford to Chevrolet in 2026 to continue its existing technical alliance with Haas Factory Team.
• Jeremy Clements Racing will form a technical alliance with Haas Factory Team.
• Viking Motorsports and Jordan Anderson Racing will each form a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing.

Rule changes

• NASCAR Cup Series drivers with three or more years of experience can participate in ten regular season races. They are still prohibited from participating in The Chase and the championship race.
• The minimum age to participate in an O'Reilly Auto Parts Series event is lowered to 17 years of age. The new rule applies, as in the case of the Truck Series minimum age rule, to short tracks and road courses only which account for 15 races at 12 tracks. Nashville Superspeedway, at 1.33 miles, and longer circuits still require drivers to be 18 years of age.
• Similar to the Cup Series, NASCAR changed the playoff format for the first time since the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series adapted the playoffs in 2016, the format changed on January 12, 2026. The amount of races in the Chase increased from 7 to 9. The win-and-you're-in, as well as the playoff point after a driver won a stage has been removed.
• On January 16, 2026, NASCAR announced that drivers who enter the garage during a race will no longer be eligible for the "Xfinity Fastest Lap Award". However, the driver's fastest lap before they entered the garage will still stand.

Schedule

Schedule changes

• Homestead–Miami Speedway will return to its traditional date as the finale for all three national series.
• The series will join the Craftsman Truck Series and the Cup Series at the Coronado Street Course.
• The series will not return to Portland International Raceway, Chicago Street Course, and Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
• The series will return to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019, and the second Darlington race was readded after a one-year hiatus.