Atop The Pit Box

Josh and Justin are back after a race that felt a lot like the season itself: fine, but not quite fireworks. Chase Elliott took the win at Texas and Denny Hamlin finished second — which, as Josh cheerfully points out, is exactly how he wants every race to go. Justin is... less thrilled, but mostly because he was busy moving into a new house.

On the fantasy side, Justin's winner is Daniel Suarez — quietly putting up a P6 at Texas, now the 11th-best fantasy driver in the league, owned by just 14 teams. Josh's winner is Ryan Blaney, who bounced back with a P10 after some self-inflicted pit road chaos (three missed gears, but who's counting). On the loser side, Christopher Bell leads the race, gets taken out, and finishes dead last — his bad-luck run continuing into a seventh consecutive race without a single-digit score. Josh's loser is Ty Gibbs, who dropped from 3rd to 9th in the driver standings after back-to-back 30-plus point weeks following seven straight single-digit scores.

The big storylines: Kyle Larson is now the 13th-best fantasy driver, and Justin is openly considering dropping him. The top 9 teams in the league don't have Larson on them — Denny Hamlin is on every single one. Jeffrey Bona 2 jumps into first place for the first time all season, fueled by Elliott, Reddick, and Hamlin. Tool Hangers drops from 1st to a three-way tie for 2nd after Christopher Bell's disaster. And the new "Commissioner's Dilemma" segment debuts, putting Justin on the hot seat about whether Tool Hangers should swap Bell for Chase Elliott.

In the picks contest, Josh wins for the fourth straight week — Buescher (P5) beats Byron (P8) — and he immediately takes SVG for Watkins Glen. Justin, ever the strategist, counters with Connor Zilich and explains his long game. The score sits at 9-4.

Looking ahead to Watkins Glen: SVG is the obvious favorite (1.5 average finishing position at the track), Buescher could genuinely contend, and Tyler Reddick — the league's runaway top driver at 2.5 points per race — is good on every single style of track.

Josh and Norton recap Talladega, where Carson Hocevar wins his first career race and delivers one of the most talked-about celebrations in recent memory — Josh missed it live and regrets every second. Hocevar is the Fantasy Winner at P1/-6 points, owned by just 42 teams (10.4% / 42 teams). Fantasy Loser is Kyle Larson, dead last at P40 with 229 teams (56.8% / 229 teams) feeling the pain. Norton raises the uncomfortable question: do you actually drop Kyle Larson? Josh says no — but it's not as easy as it used to be.

The track stats were historic: best score in the league was 52 points, average hit 115 — tying the all-time single-race high with Bristol Dirt. ToolHangerz takes first place for the first time, 2Z Designs falls to fourth. Chris Buescher enters the top 5 in driver standings after P2. JayMo's Zilisch-to-Reddick swap is now the season's best at +130, moving him from 267th to 69th. Nine swaps at Talladega, five of them dropping Kyle Busch — who then finished P10.

Josh called Hocevar, Norton went Keselowski — series now 8-4 Josh. For Texas, Josh takes Chris Buescher (first use, +2200 odds), Norton counters with William Byron. The loser punishment wheel gets formalized — spins after Charlotte.

We're a little late getting this one out — apologies for the delay — but Josh and Norton are back to recap what turned out to be a two-part Kansas recording after some brutal connection issues forced them to restart mid-episode. Tyler Reddick wins for the fifth time this season, and his average fantasy points per race somehow dropped again to 1.1 — the guys marvel at what his final number looks like if the wheels ever fall off. Josh makes him the Fantasy Winner while Norton gives the nod to Denny Hamlin, now up to second best fantasy driver with three straight single-digit scores. Fantasy Loser is Ryan Blaney, who hit Allmendinger on pit road and had his worst finish since Daytona at a track Penske typically owns. SVG gets the other nod as the Trackhouse struggles become impossible to ignore.

The top 10 is remarkably stable — only two teams swap in and out — with 2Z Designs back on top for the fifth time this season and JLAS Racing climbing to second. The guys spotlight Chase Briscoe's back-to-back top 5 finishes as a vindication of their "don't give up on him" stance, and Ty Gibbs now sits third in the driver standings with seven straight single-digit fantasy scores. Daniel Suarez gets some long-overdue credit, running $7 above his original value with only 12 teams owning him. The Pizza West bet on Busch vs. Bowman is not looking good for Josh — Kyle Busch just posted his worst fantasy result of the season at P35, and Norton notes Austin Dillon is outrunning him.

Kansas snapped the two-week swap drought with 12 moves, pushing the season total past last year's record. Most notable: three Logano-to-Reddick swaps, two Chastain-to-Gibbs swaps, and a deep dive into the Shox 8's McDowell-to-Zane-Smith move that the guys aren't sure will pay off. Best swap of the season holds at Bowman-to-Gibbs at +137 points; worst is still Gibbs-to-Buescher at -72. Looking ahead to Talladega, Josh takes Carson Hocevar (first use for either) and Norton rides Brad Keselowski. Josh leads the series picks 6-4.

Josh and Justin return from the bye week — one day late, because Norton delayed them — and immediately dive into a Bristol recap that had them competing with the Masters for screen time. The big story is Ty Gibbs winning for the first time in his career, ending his streak as the all-time laps-led-without-a-win leader at Bristol. Josh makes him the Fantasy Winner, noting that Gibbs went from dead last in our driver standings after Atlanta all the way to 4th best on the season. Justin's Fantasy Winner is Kyle Larson, who dominated on paper thanks largely to Blaney's historically bad pit crew, and finally delivered the negative fantasy score his owners desperately needed. Christopher Bell is the Fantasy Loser after breaking a toe link and finishing P27 on his best track. SVG gets the other nod after a crash-filled day exposed that his strong early-season run may have been masking real problems at Trackhouse.

The standings see a three-way tie at the top -2Z Designs, Chasing Cars in Circles, and Don Goede (like Brady) all share first. Hendrick Motorsports is the team-wide story of the week:

Larson aside, Byron finished P30 in a backup car, Elliott was P22, and Bowman was dead last — William Byron finished behind Ty Dillon, which gets its own moment of silence. The track posted a 66-point average, on the low end for Bristol. Best swap of the season is now a two-way tie at +128 points for the Bowman-to-Gibbs teams that made their move after Phoenix. Worst swap remains the Gibbs-to-Buescher drop, now -71 points. Zero swaps happened during the bye week, which shocks both guys. A side bet gets made: Josh says Kyle Busch finishes higher in the standings than Bowman the rest of the way; Norton takes Bowman - loser buys lunch at Pizza West. For Kansas, Josh takes Bubba Wallace and Norton takes Chase Elliott, his first use of the season. Josh leads the series picks 5-4.

Josh and Justin open with a season-retrospective question — knowing what they know now, what would they have done differently? The answers: Reddick on everything, ditch Zilisch, and maybe think twice about Briscoe. From there, they recap a snooze-fest at Martinsville where Chase Elliott wins via pit strategy, Denny Hamlin dominates and finishes second (after walling Blaney), and Tyler Reddick posts his worst finish of the season — a P15 — while somehow still holding the top fantasy driver spot at a whopping 1.7 average points per race. The guys crown Elliott the Fantasy Winner and split the Fantasy Loser between Bubba Wallace (two straight weeks in the 30s, dropping from 2nd to 12th best fantasy driver) and Ty Dillon, who brings home dead last — with a fun reveal that the other Ty Dillon owner, Team Piston Cup, is actually sitting in the playoffs at 87th. The standings see a first-time shakeup at the top as rookie Rit Racing claims first place, while former leaders 2Z Designs and JLAS Racing tumble to 5th and 6th. The track set a new Martinsville record with a 49-point average — nearly the all-time low at any track. Swap talk highlights 17 more this week (83 total, closing in on all of last season), including two teams making the puzzling decision to drop Chase Elliott for Reddick and Blaney. Best swap of the season holds at Bowman-to-Gibbs (+85 points, worth 179 standings spots). Looking ahead to Bristol after the bye week, Norton takes Christopher Bell with the pit box advantage and Josh counters with Denny Hamlin. Series picks are now tied 4-4. They close with a PSA: starting April 20th, recording moves to Tuesdays because golf league.

Josh and Justin recap a solid-but-not-spectacular Darlington race — they compare it to a "6 or 7 out of 10" and debate whether consistent good racing is better than the boom-bust cycle of duds and classics. On the fantasy side, Brad Keselowski steals the show as the clear Fantasy Winner, with two stage wins and a P2 finish pushing him to 4th in the driver standings — all with a broken femur. Tyler Reddick wins for the fourth time and is somehow sitting at negative fantasy points on the season through six races. Joey Logano and Bubba Wallace are the Fantasy Losers, with Logano raising real concerns about his speed on ovals. The top of the standings remains a two-team arms race between 2Z Designs and JLAS Racing, who have swapped first and second three weeks running. The Bowman/Zilich swap exodus continues — 25 swaps this week alone, bringing the two-week total to 47, already half of last year's entire season volume. The bottom of the league gets a hard look at Fast and Flawless, sitting dead last with Larson, Logano, Bowman, and Kyle Busch. Josh closes with a shoutout to listener Tanner Crosley (Lap Dancers), who demanded his swap get called out on air. Looking ahead to Martinsville, Justin grabs Ryan Blaney with the pit box advantage, and Josh counters with Brad K. Series picks stand 4-3 in Josh's favor.

Denny Hamlin put on a masterclass at Las Vegas, and fantasy teams with him are finally feeling it. Josh and Norton are back to break down a race that rewarded the patient and punished the impatient — five weeks in, the cream is officially rising to the top.

The guys dig into a top 10 that got completely reshuffled, with four new teams crashing the party — including Tool Hangers and K-Stud making their top 5 debuts on the strength of the Hamlin-Byron-Elliott trio. Meanwhile, the teams holding onto struggling low-value drivers like Shane Van Gisbergen (dead last, 36 fantasy points) are now staring at some tough decisions.

Swap mania has officially hit the league. 22 swaps in a single week — more than half the season's total — driven largely by Alex Bowman's vertigo situation. Josh also makes his own swap live on air (Zilisch for Byron), and Norton barely keeps a straight face when he realizes the "listener question" was coming from his co-host all along.

Plus: RFK Racing is quietly becoming a fantasy powerhouse, Bubba Wallace is the most underrated player in the game at only 23 ownership teams, Brad Keselowski continues his quietly impressive top-10 streak, and the Connor Zilisch reality check is getting harder to ignore. Josh leads the season picks challenge 4-2, and both hosts make their calls for Darlington — a race the drivers are already calling a potential tire-shredding nightmare.

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Josh and Justin break down a genuinely great race at Phoenix — tire wear drama, strategic gambles, comers and goers — and all of it hit the fantasy standings like a wrecking ball. Ryan Blaney's -9 fantasy score is the best of the 2026 season so far, and the teams that had him shot up the charts while the teams that didn't tumbled. The guys dig into exactly who rose, who fell, and who is quietly becoming a major problem on rosters across the league.

Josh and Norton break down the first road course of the NASCAR season at COTA, where Tyler Reddick scores his third straight win, holding off SVG and Christopher Bell in a surprisingly dominant performance from Reddick.They discuss the state of road courses in NASCAR, driver fatigue issues, and several cooling suit failures that impacted the field.

On the fantasy side, Ty Gibbs, Michael McDowell, and Reddick headline the winners, while Chase Briscoe and Alex Bowman anchor the losers. The new top 10 features a big shakeup, including 2Z Designs jumping from outside the top 100 to the overall points lead. Major movers include Scooby Doobies (+214) and Refuse to Lose (–194).

The hosts also analyze early-season swaps, surprising overperformers like Ty Dillon, and struggling premium picks. Looking ahead to Phoenix, they outline key track stats, highlight drivers poised for strong runs (Bell, Larson, Blaney), and make their picks: Justin takes Kyle Larson, while Josh selects Ryan Blaney.

Josh and Norton break down a massive leaderboard shift following the high-speed action at Echo Park Speedway, where the gap between the top contenders and the rest of the field is beginning to widen. They analyze how standout performances from drivers like Tyler Reddick are reshaping the standings, while high-priced favorites like Kyle Larson continue to struggle, leaving many managers searching for answers. They review the Top 10 and update the top and bottom fantasy drivers. They also preview the race at COTA and make their picks.