O'Reilly Auto Parts Series StatChat 2026 - COTA
- Adam Carabine
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
By Adam Carabine
Happy weekend everyone, it’s time for another edition of O’Reilly Stats Friday. This weekend the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series travels to Austin, Texas for the Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas, or COTA.
The portion of the track that NASCAR uses at COTA is a 17-turn 2.4-mile road course. The facility opened in 2012, and NASCAR first visited in 2021. Kyle Busch won the first O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (Xfinity) race there that year. Connor Zilisch won this race last year.
Tomorrow’s race will be 65 laps long (for a total of 153.14 miles), with stage breaks occurring at 20 – 40 – 65. Pit road speed is 40 mph, and the caution vehicle runs at 45 mph.
This year, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has run 283 laps, for 551.02 miles so far this season. Only 8 cars have completed 100% of all laps.
Top 5 Career Average Finishers at COTA:
Sam Mayer | 6.00 over 4 races |
Jesse Love | 6.00 over 2 races |
Taylor Gray | 7.00 over 1 race |
Austin Hill | 11.25 over 4 races |
Parker Retzlaff | 14.00 over 2 races |
Bottom 5 Career Average Finishers at COTA:
Josh Bilicki | 29.00 over 4 races |
Kyle Sieg | 26.50 over 2 races |
Josh Williams | 26.50 over 2 races |
Nick Sanchez | 24.00 over 1 race |
Ryan Ellis | 23.25 over 4 races |
COTA is a Road Course
Top 5 Career Average Finishers at Road Courses:
Austin Hill | 10.26 over 30 races |
Austin Green | 11.00 over 13 races |
Sam Mayer | 13.51 over 31 races (4 wins) |
Taylor Gray | 13.57 over 7 races |
Jesse Love | 13.64 over 13 races |
Bottom 5 Career Average Finishers at Road Courses:
William Sawalich | 30.00 over 6 races |
Ryan Ellis | 27.06 over 32 races |
Kyle Sieg | 27.02 over 18 races |
Dean Thompson | 24.86 over 7 races |
Anthony Alfredo | 23.99 over 28 races |
AJ Allmendinger is the winningest driver in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at COTA, with 2 wins.
Drivers who ran their first Cup Series race at COTA:
Austin Green | 2024, P7 |
Notable drivers who have not won at COTA:
Justin Allgaier | (has won at 20 other tracks) |
Austin Hill | (has won at 7 other tracks) |
Sam Mayer | (has won at 6 other tracks) |
Brandon Jones | (has won at 4 other tracks) |
Harrison Burton | (has won at 4 other tracks) |
Based on average finish, Dean Thompson lists COTA as his BEST track, but no driver lists it as their WORST.
Based on their point pace, let’s have a look at how this season is comparing to last season for drivers:
Drivers Faring Better than in 2025
Austin Hill | +626 pts |
Sheldon Creed | +436 pts |
Ryan Ellis | +340 pts |
Jesse Love | +207 pts |
Blaine Perkins | +155 pts |
Drivers Faring Worse than in 2025
Harrison Burton | -639 pts |
Sam Mayer | -493 pts |
Brandon Jones | -289 pts |
Dean Thompson | -228 pts |
Nick Sanchez | -203 pts |
Rookie of the Year Battle
Patrick Staropoli | 43 |
Lavar Scott | 30 |
The Manufacturer Standings are calculated by awarding points to the highest finisher for each manufacturer according to their finishing position. (40 for 1st, 35 for 2nd, 34 for 3rd, etc.) No stage points or playoff points count.
Manufacturer Standings
Chevrolet | 110 |
Ford | 48 |
Toyota | 39 |
Here is the same formula, but used on a team-vs-team basis:
Chartered Team Standings
RCR | 87 |
Haas Factory | 68 |
Jordan Anderson | 64 |
JR Motorsports | 64 |
Viking | 58 |
Young’s | 50 |
Alpha Prime | 43 |
Big Machine | 43 |
Hendrick | 43 |
SS-Green Light | 43 |
Joe Gibbs | 39 |
AM Racing | 35 |
RSS Racing | 35 |
Sam Hunt | 34 |
Hettinger | 31 |
Peterson | 31 |
Barrett-Cope | 24 |
DGM | 14 |
Jeremy Clements | 13 |
Joey Gase | 7 |
At each stage break, the Top 10 drivers are awarded points based on their finishing positions. Here are the leaders this year:
Stage Point Leaders
Milestone Watch
Justin Allgaier | Looking for his 170th Career Top 5 |
Taylor Gray | Looking for his 19th Career Top 5 |
Sheldon Creed | Looking for his 70th Career Top 10 |
Harrison Burton | Looking for his 60th Career Top 10 |
Taylor Gray | Looking for his 10th Career Top 10 |
Here are the top 10 longest active winless streaks:
Winless Streaks
Jeremy Clements | 111 races |
Jeb Burton | 92 races |
Harrison Burton | 69 races |
Sammy Smith | 25 races |
Justin Allgaier | 21 races |
Nick Sanchez | 18 races |
Sam Mayer | 13 races |
Brandon Jones | 7 races |
Taylor Gray | 3 races |
Jesse Love | 2 races |
The race begins Saturday, February 28th at 3:00 pm EST (12:00 pm PST) – Enjoy the race everyone!
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Is there an error? Is there a stat missing that you’d like to see? Let us know!
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