Another day, another Toyota win in the NASCAR Cup Series.
NASCAR was in San Diego this weekend for the first-ever street course race at Naval Base Coronado, a 3.4-mile street course that was made up of part of the navy base’s runway and even featured the broadcast crew set up in an aircraft carrier.
The Cup Series race featured a thrilling finish which saw 23-year-old Corey Heim score his first ever Cup Series win after a battle with his teammate Tyler Reddick.
Heim is only running part time in NASCAR this season, but it was announced a few weeks ago that the phenom will be replacing Riley Herbst and joining 23XI Racing full time next season – a decision that was clearly affirmed by Heim picking up his first win in only his 13th Cup Series start.
Of course it helps that Heim is joining one of the hottest teams in the Cup Series right now. 23XI Racing, which is owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan along with Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, currently fields the #23 car for Bubba Wallace, the #45 for Reddick, and the #35 for Herbst, and has already won 6 races this season – with all of the previous 5 coming from Reddick.
Unfortunately for 23XI though, there’s another team that’s proven nearly as dominant this season: The team their owner Denny Hamlin drives for, Joe Gibbs Racing.
Despite Reddick jumping out to a 100-point lead in the points standings on the heels of his monster start, Hamlin has won 4 times this season (plus a win in the All-Star Race) and has managed to cut Reddick’s points lead to only 16 with less than 10 races to go before the Chase for the Championship. And Hamlin’s teammate Ty Gibbs also managed to score his first win earlier this season,
With both 23XI Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing running Toyotas, that means that the manufacturer has won 11 of the 17 races this season, with Chevrolet winning 5 races and Ford scoring their lone win thanks to Ryan Blaney at Phoenix early in the season.
The dominance for Toyota comes just a year after 23XI Racing only managed to win one race in 2025, and Reddick went winless the entire season. And it also comes after the offseason settlement between 23XI and NASCAR in the bombshell antitrust lawsuit filed by the Michael Jordan-owned team.
Ahead of last season, 23XI and Front Row Motorsports filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR over issues they had with the new charter agreement. I’m not going to break down the whole lawsuit, but needless to say things were obviously awkward for the team last year as they competed while also challenging NASCAR in court.
The teams were forced to race most of the season without charters, meaning they got a smaller portion of the prize money, and were also facing the uncertainty of whether they’d even be able to continue as a team if they lost the lawsuit and weren’t given their charters back.
But this past December, NASCAR agreed to settle the lawsuit after an embarrassing 8-day trial, and in that settlement 23XI Racing not only (reportedly) got a large payout but also got the permanent charters the teams had long been asking for and an increased voice in the governance of the sport.
After their success this season though, some fans are convinced that 23XI – and Hamlin – might have gotten something else in the settlement.
As expected when any competitor goes on a dominant run, the conspiracy theories have been flying every time 23XI Racing or Hamlin scores a win, with some fans convinced that NASCAR is allowing Toyota to cheat as part of the settlement in the lawsuit.
And yet again, even on a road course, Toyota has a competitive advantage that NASCAR won’t even consider addressing. Absolute joke. I guess MJ must have paid NASCAR off. I’m done.
— Jeff (@Jeff36640882) June 21, 2026
Denny Hamlin himself has even heard the criticism, and recently addressed it during an episode of his podcast Actions Detrimental:
“We’re running the same f—ing car for the last few years. The other manufacturers have changed their cars. We haven’t changed anything. The Toyotas in generally really got it clicking right now, but it ain’t unfair. This is a product of a lot of hard work.”
As Hamlin pointed out, Toyota hasn’t made any changes to the Camry XSE body that the manufacturer runs in the Cup Series since 2024. Chevrolet, meanwhile, debuted a new Camaro ZL1 body ahead of the 2026 season, featuring a redesigned hood and front grille. The new body clearly presents a learning curve for teams, though there have been signs that they’re figuring things out and finding speed – though not as much as Toyotas yet.
Ford, meanwhile, will be debuting a new Mustang Dark Horse SC body in 2027 after running their current body back in 2024, which has to make you question whether teams are already working to figure out the new body and not putting as much engineering and research into improving their speed with the current body.
All this to say, it seems like the simple explanation for Toyota’s dominance is that they’ve been able to perfect their current body while other manufacturers changed – or are changing – their race cars. And eventually Toyota will have to make changes to their body too, which will no doubt be a learning curve for them too.
Dominant teams in NASCAR are nothing new: For years, the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets were largely considered the top team in NASCAR, and Team Penske has also led the way for Ford in years past.
It seems more likely that this is just the natural progression in NASCAR: A team or manufacturer finds speed and becomes dominant for a while before another manufacturer eventually replaces them as the dominant team. This clearly isn’t going to last for Toyota, and it’s a little ridiculous to think that NASCAR would allow Toyota or 23XI to cheat (especially because Front Row Motorsports, a Ford team, was also part of the lawsuit).
If you’re a Toyota fan, just enjoy the ride. But if you’re a Ford or Chevy fan, rest assured that your team’s time will come too.
