Jeff Gluck isn’t a fan of North Wilkesboro Speedway right now. Even before Sunday’s Window World 450 got underway, Gluck was skeptical about how a 450-lap race would play out at the venue, citing concerns based on the All-Star Races held there between 2023 and 2025. He simply doesn’t believe the Next Gen car is well suited to the track, and he stood by that opinion after Sunday’s race, drawing criticism from fans. Gluck, however, has doubled down on his stance, insisting he doesn’t understand why the NASCAR community remains so drawn to the circuit.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“I thought it s*cked,” Gluck said on a recent episode of The Teardown podcast, where he explained why he didn’t like the 2026 Window World 450.
He admittedly felt bizarre calling the track out. Especially because fans, including himself, love ‘pure racing’, and on paper, North Wilkesboro provides just that. Multiple lanes, multiple options, lots of traffic. But the problem was simple enough to describe. Gluck thought that the race was just not entertaining enough.
Talking about Team Penske’s Joey Logano leading 323 laps — after having led a combined total of just 116 laps in all the 2026 races before Sunday — Gluck added, “He was never challenged really, so to speak. I mean, it was just sort of like, yeah, you’re just sort of waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever happened.
And let’s be honest, like half the field got taken out with that Alex Bowman, Tyler Reddick caution. It put a ton of guys a lap down, and you took some good cars out of it. You know, trapped some guys, you know, Chase Elliott got trapped, lap down.”
Gluck was referring to Lap 183 of the race, when Alex Bowman tried to enter pit road during a round of green-flag pit stops. In the process, the Hendrick Motorsports driver cut across Tyler Reddick’s nose, sending both cars spinning and bringing out a caution while teams were still making their pit stops.
The timing of the caution changed the race. Several frontrunners, including Chase Elliott, were trapped laps down after getting caught in the middle of the pit cycle, while race leader Joey Logano had yet to pit. By the end of the race, only six cars remained on the lead lap, one of the main reasons Gluck felt the race lacked competitiveness.
“Yeah, it’s like, that was, that was a key moment, I think, to take a lot of cars off the lead lap. Ultimately, you only had six cars on the lead lap, which again, I get it’s old school classic, whatever, and that’s enough for a lot of people. I just, like, I don’t know,” he added.
Gluck revealed that many fans had reached out to him, often quite aggressively, over his opinion on North Wilkesboro. However, it is a stance he has no intention of changing. More broadly, the veteran NASCAR journalist believes the Next Gen cars introduced in 2022 do not produce good racing on traditional short, flat tracks. He has voiced similar criticism of Martinsville and even Bristol, where he took issue with Kyle Larson leading 411 of the race’s 500 laps in 2025.
For drivers, meanwhile, the criticism usually depends on where they finish on the track. No one really burst out against North Wilkesboro as Gluck did. But there were contrasting emotions in the garage for certain. For instance, Logano was a happy man on Sunday, having broken his 45-race winless streak. Denny Hamlin, however, finishing second, sounded disappointed.
A respectful but rueful nod to Logano’s victory for Hamlin
Joey Logano knew coming into the Window World 450 that early track position could determine the outcome of the race. It’s common knowledge by now that the aerodynamics of the Next Gen cars make it difficult for drivers to pass, especially on shorter, flatter tracks. And North Wilkesboro is notorious for its narrow racing grooves.
Logano started 11th and climbed to fourth by Lap 37. Then, on Lap 86, he took the lead and never looked back, holding onto it for the rest of the night on his way to Victory Lane.
“When you come to a track like North Wilkesboro, if we didn’t have speed, we’d really be scratching our heads because we feel like this is our best racetrack,” the Team Penske driver said in his post-race interview.
Denny Hamlin, meanwhile, spent the vast majority of Stage 3 trying to get past Logano’s No. 22 Ford. But he ultimately came up short, crossing the finish line 0.859 seconds behind him. Although Hamlin hinted at his disappointment afterward, he praised Logano’s performance and the way he defended the lead.
“There was a lot of time where it felt like my car was kind of close where it needed to be [but] just a smidge off,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said of his race. “It was a great battle. At least we could keep him honest there.”
For Hamlin, a second-place finish was not a bad result. With five races left in the regular season, he now holds a 68-point lead over Reddick, who finished 30th after his Stage 2 incident. The 15 bonus points he would earn by holding onto the No. 1 spot and claiming the regular-season championship could prove invaluable once the NASCAR Playoffs begin.
Logano, meanwhile, leapt two spots to 15th in the standings, building a 49-point cushion over 17th-place Erik Jones and significantly boosting his playoff hopes.
Sunday’s race only added to the debate around North Wilkesboro. For Gluck, Logano leading 323 laps was another sign that the Next Gen car still doesn’t race well on traditional short tracks. For Logano, though, it was simply about making the most of a fast car and track position. Whether fans enjoyed the race or agreed with Gluck’s criticism, North Wilkesboro continues to split opinion across the NASCAR community.
