FORT WORTH, Texas — Chase Elliott continued to show his early-season speed Sunday in Texas, two-stepping his way to victory lane with his second NASCAR Cup Series victory of 2026.

Elliott hasn’t won more than two races in a season since 2022, but he has led the way for Hendrick Motorsports so far this year. He is up to third in the point standings and has continued to show enough consistency to put him into championship contention as a potential top-three seed for the “Chase” — NASCAR’s 16-driver playoff — later this fall.

On a day when track position seemed to be significant, Elliott led more laps than anyone and was near flawless on the track while his team was equally so on pit road to maintain that crucial track position.

CHASE ELLIOTT WINS AT TEXAS! pic.twitter.com/zgZoyk4Re8

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 3, 2026

Elliott’s win snapped Toyota’s streak of three straight wins on non-drafting 1.5-mile tracks going back to September, when Elliott won at Kansas Speedway. In that race, Toyota dominated, but contact among the race-leading Toyotas in the final corners allowed a hard-charging Elliott to sneak through to snag the victory.

The win Sunday was both Elliott’s second of the season and second at Texas Motor Speedway.

“I have not been a huge fan of this place, and I’ve made that very obvious, but we continue to work hard,” Elliott said. “… We’ve not been where we wanted to be throughout portions of the season, but everybody’s just been digging in really hard — from the engine shop at Hendrick Motorsports to all the setup shops and everybody at Team Chevy.”

Similar to Kansas, another track of the same size, Denny Hamlin drove his Toyota to a second-place finish on Sunday. Alex Bowman finished third for the second consecutive week, with championship points leader Tyler Reddick and Texas native Chris Buescher completing the top five.

Kyle Busch intentionally wrecks John Hunter Nemechek

Kyle Busch ran in the top 10 for much of the day and had a shot to finish there in his first race with new crew chief Andy Street, but he threw his result away coming to the white flag.

Busch was trying to squeeze in front of John Hunter Nemechek for 12th place, but was not clear, and the contact between the two sent Busch into the wall.

The two then went down the track, and once they got side-by-side entering Turn 3, Busch door-slammed Nemechek hard enough to send him crashing.

Nemechek’s wreck did not bring out a caution, and he limped home to a 21st-place finish while Busch finished 20th.

Neither driver could be found for comment after the race, but Nemechek posted on X: “not freaking clear. great day going. and just got wrecked. what an a–.”

“And then he just wrecks him.”

Here’s what happened between John Hunter Nemechek and Kyle Busch coming to the white flag at Texas. pic.twitter.com/yoiFoZYtl7

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 3, 2026

Kyle Busch later posted on X his own version of events, placing blame on Nemechek.

“I did not start this,” Busch wrote. “The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS (right side) of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall. There was 2 ft outside him and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who your racing beside.” — Jeff Gluck

Christopher Bell’s hard luck continues

Christopher Bell endured a frustrating two races before Texas; he was running in the top 10 on the final lap at each race only to end up wrecked, costing him a pair of solid finishes and valuable points.

With as strong as the Toyotas have been on intermediate tracks, Texas represented a good place to bounce back and put the frustration behind. And that appeared to be precisely what was unfolding early Sunday, with Bell leading 22 laps and giving the appearance he’d contend for the win.

Such optimism was short-lived with his hard luck again rearing its ugly head. Just as Bell and second-place Hamlin came upon the slower car of Todd Gilliland, Gilliland lost control and started to spin, clipping the rear of Bell’s car. The contact sent Bell hard into the wall, causing significant damage.

Terrible luck for Christopher Bell in Texas as Todd Gilliland goes around right in front of him. https://t.co/YOhS9lqYWK pic.twitter.com/p4Luizl5w7

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 3, 2026

“It was another one of those 50-50 calls,” Bell said. “Me and Denny were side-by-side, and I saw (Gilliland) spinning and Denny lifted, and I thought that I could shoot the gap on the bottom. And I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom — but I got clipped.”

Bell finished 38th, last, and he’s now 56 points above the cutoff to qualify for the Chase playoff. With over half the regular season remaining and holding nearly a full race of points as a buffer, there is no need to panic. Still, for a driver who came into the year considered a viable contender to win the regular-season points title, that possibility is looking less and less likely.

“We don’t need to do anything,” Bell said when asked about his luck turning around. “I’m really thankful to have fast cars to drive, thankful to be driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, and thankful I get another opportunity next week. It’s going to turn around at some point.” — Jordan Bianchi

Ryan Preece clashes with Ty Gibbs

Shortly before the end of Stage 1, a seemingly displeased Ryan Preece voiced his displeasure with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, with the RFK Racing driver telling his team over the radio that he was going to send Gibbs a message at some point.

“When I get to that 54 (Gibbs’ car number), I’m done with him,” Preece said. “F—ing idiot. That car is so f—ing fast, pisses me off. Stupid. … I can’t stand when idiots like him have fast race cars where they can do stupid s— and get away with it. End of rant.”

Not too long later, after Preece’s self-described “rant,” his moment of retribution appeared to come as Gibbs suddenly crashed into the wall. Although replays were inconclusive on whether Preece actually made contact, Shane van Gisbergen offered his perspective of what transpired, pointing the finger at Preece as the culprit.

“Holy s—, (Preece) just committed a murder!” van Gisbergen radioed his team. “It looks like (Preece) just full-throttled (Gibbs)!”

Gibbs was evaluated and released from the infield care center. When asked by Fox Sports about the incident, Gibbs said he had yet to see a replay and didn’t know what happened. — Jordan Bianchi

TAMPA, Fla. — It would be easy to look at the Montreal Canadiens winning Game 7 on Sunday and eliminating the Tampa Bay Lightning in their own building as a coming-of-age moment.

They are, after all, the youngest team in the playoffs.

But a more accurate view would be that the Canadiens had already come of age, and it is that maturation process that allowed them to win Game 7.

Alex Newhook scored his first goal of the playoffs at 11:07 of the third period to snap a 1-1 tie and send the Canadiens to the second round against the Buffalo Sabres with a 2-1 victory over the Lightning. It capped a seven-game series that had one two-goal lead, had every game end with a one-goal margin, with four of them ending in overtime. It was a truly incredible series, and both teams were deserving, but only one team can win in the end.

It’s been a relatively short process for this young Canadiens group to win its first playoff series just five years after the previous incarnation of the Canadiens lost Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in this very building in 2021.

“After the Cup final, there was a lot of tough times,” said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki, who played in that final and scored his first goal of the playoffs in the first period. “A lot of guys left and we started this rebuild and slowly but surely we drafted some really good players and found an amazing coach. It’s definitely been probably faster than most people expected, but when you get a lot of great players together with a great system and great leadership, things can turn quickly.”

Suzuki and leading scorer Cole Caufield were young players on that veteran Canadiens team, but they are now veteran leaders of this group, with 12 players on the current roster younger than Caufield, who turned 25 on Jan. 2. That includes rookie starting goaltender Jakub Dobeš — Montreal’s best player, by far, in Game 7 with 28 saves — rookie star winger Ivan Demidov and Caufield’s linemate Juraj Slafkovský, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft who kick-started this rebuild.

But Slafkovský is a perfect example of the difference between age and experience. He just turned 22 on March 30, but has been in the NHL since 2022 and is completing his fourth season with the Canadiens.

“Young in age,” Brendan Gallagher, the Canadiens’ longest-tenured player who also took part in that 2021 Cup final, said Sunday morning when asked if he felt his team was still young.

They showed it in Game 7, even if that youth showed a bit in a difficult second period where the Canadiens failed to get a shot.

Except that’s where coach Martin St. Louis comes in, as he has throughout this journey, guiding this young group at the difficult moments.

“Obviously no one was happy with that second period, and he comes in, all fired up, getting us going for the third, really motivating the guys,” Suzuki said. “He’s our leader and everyone would do anything for him. He’s a hell of a coach, and he’s only been doing this for a short period of time, so I can imagine he’s only going to continue to get better. He loves what he does and we love playing for him.”

Dominic James scored for the Lightning, who dominated long stretches of Game 7 but couldn’t figure out Dobeš. And now the Lightning have lost in the first round four consecutive seasons and will head into the offseason with some serious soul-searching and perhaps a need to make some tangible roster changes to shake themselves out of this first-round rut.

Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said there wasn’t much to say post-game to a room full of players he felt deserved a better fate.

“It doesn’t matter what you say really. The words probably will mean something in a couple of days, but I think it’s just a lot of blank stares from everybody wondering how that one got away from us,” Cooper said.

For Cooper, it reminded him all too much of what happened in the Olympic gold medal game in Milan where, as Team Canada head coach, his team outshot and outchanced Team USA but ran into a brick wall named Connor Hellebuyck. This time, the wall was Dobeš.

“As soon as that last buzzer went, that’s the feeling I had, I’ve seen this movie before,” Cooper said. “All you can ask of your team, whether it was the Olympic tournament or a best-of-seven playoff, is to get better as you go. And I thought we got better as we went. I thought tonight we played our best game of the series. Sometimes you win the game and not the score. But it’s Game 7, there’s no moral victory in that.”

A second period to remember … or to forget

Trailing after 20 minutes, the Lightning outshot the Canadiens 12-0 in the second period and finally broke through with James’ tying goal. The Canadiens did not register a shot on goal despite getting two power plays in the period, but for the vast majority of time at five-on-five, they seemed simply content to hand the puck back to the Lightning and let them attack.

Now, the Lightning deserve credit for that as well. They were suffocating in the neutral zone and pressured Canadiens puck carriers all over the ice into mistakes.

But considering how the middle frame went, the Canadiens were lucky to have a chance to win the game in the third. And that was thanks largely to …

Jakub Dobeš was on fire

Many of the Canadiens’ young players had moments in this game where their youth showed.

Not the case with Dobeš.

He made 11 saves in that second period and turned aside a number of quality Lightning chances in the first as well, with two of his best coming off Gage Goncalves one-timers from the slot area. He made another off Goncalves on a one-timer from the slot at 5:10 of the third period.

“Many times in the season, the guys helped me out and bailed me out. I tried to do the same, vice versa, sometimes they don’t play good, sometimes I don’t play good. They’ve always got my back and I’ve always got theirs. That’s our mentality.”

Dobeš entered the game with a .916 save percentage in the series and provided some of its finest moments. But that second-period performance might have been his best.

All a team can ask of its goaltender is to give them a chance to win. Dobeš did that, and more.

Stunned Lightning

As the media entered the home dressing room after Game 7, about half the Lightning players were still sitting at their stalls, stunned look on their faces.

“There’s obviously some disbelief in our room that we can play like that and not walk away with anything,” Cooper said.

Said Tampa star Brandon Hagel: “You can’t say much about the game tonight, you’re going to win 99 percent of those games.”

The Lightning outshot the Canadiens 29-9 and owned a lot of the puck, but the scoreboard said a different story. It was gut-wrenching for a team that was sure this season they would get back to their deep playoff run ways.

They felt they left it all out there Sunday night.

“I thought that was probably our best game of the series,” said center Anthony Cirelli. “Their goalie played well. We had a lot of looks at it. Disappointing.”

Hagel pointed to one particularly disappointing aspect of this series.

“At the end of the day, you lose three games at home, you’re probably not going to win the series,” he said.

Cooper said it was still too fresh to dissect everything but in the moment, he doubts he will regret how his team played.

“We couldn’t have played it any better,” he said. “And it still wasn’t good enough. At some point, too, you have to tip your cap to Marty St. Louis and the Montreal Canadiens and Jakub Dobeš. They had a plan and stuck to it. They got the lead and protected it. And when they broke down, the goalie was there for them.”

Noah Dobson returns for Canadiens

Noah Dobson suffered what appeared to be a left-hand injury on April 11, with some fears he might have broken a bone.

Three weeks and a day after the injury, Dobson was in uniform for Game 7. And he made an impact.

“We had a terrible second period, but I thought we regrouped well in the third,” Dobson said. “It’s not pretty, but throughout this series as a whole you could say we deserved to win. We had lots of chances last game. It was tight, and we found a way. Dobes was incredible. Gutsy.”

He was not sheltered by coach Martin St. Louis, was able to shoot the puck and made some important defensive plays. The Canadiens might have lost a bit of physicality with Arber Xhekaj giving up his spot to Dobson, but they added a ton of poise and puck-moving.

One of Dobson’s biggest plays came on the shift after the James goal tied it. Lined up for an offensive zone faceoff, Dobson’s shot from the point went wide to the outside and rimmed around the boards to Brandon Hagel, creating a two-on-one break for the Lightning with Dobson defending. Just as Hagel was getting ready to pass it across, Dobson slid on the ice and poked the puck away with his stick.

With just over five minutes left in regulation, Dobson blocked a Hagel shot in the Canadiens’ slot and slowly made his way to the bench, in clear discomfort. There were replays suggesting he might have taken the shot off the injured hand.

“It was in the proximity, yeah,” he said with a big smile. “But honestly, I feel good. I’m just happy to be back with the guys. We’ll enjoy this one, and get ready for the next one.”

He is able to talk about the next one because he helped the Canadiens reach in the second round for the first time in five years.

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Sunday was the New York Liberty’s last practice run in first-year coach Chris DeMarco’s new system.

Against the Indiana Fever on April 25, they looked out of sorts, fumbling their way through for 40 minutes with just one offensive set ready to deploy. But Sunday, DeMarco’s “family style” offense began to take shape in the Liberty’s 79-67 win over the Connecticut Sun. Jonquel Jones led the Liberty with 15 points and five rebounds, while Marine Johannes and Pauline Astier added 12 apiece. Sun center Brittney Griner led all scorers with 16 points.  

DeMarco opted to leave his starters, minus Breanna Stewart, on the court to open the second half, a decision he said pregame would be determined by how the first half went. But less than three minutes into the third quarter, Sabrina Ionescu was on the ground, having rolled her left ankle on a reverse layup. Within moments, she walked back to the locker room on her own accord.

Ionescu did not return to the game and finished with 6 points and two assists in 16 minutes.

“She just rolled her ankle,” DeMarco said postgame. “She’s getting an MRI tomorrow.”

Ionescu had surgery on her left ankle in 2020 to remove scar tissue that was causing irritation. When asked if there was any concern that Ionescu’s injury was to the same ankle, DeMarco said the outlook is “positive now.” She left Mohegan Sun Arena wearing a boot on her left foot but was not using crutches.

The Liberty were ravaged by injuries during the 2025 campaign, playing just four regular-season games at full health. Jones (ankle) and Stewart (knee) both missed 13 regular-season games. Ionescu (neck, toe) missed six. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed the entire 2025 campaign recovering from surgery to repair a meniscus injury in her left knee. Former Liberty forward Nyara Sabally was limited to just 17 games as she dealt with a nagging knee injury. 

Former Liberty coach Sandy Brondello utilized a total of 18 different starting lineups over the season.

“Obviously it wasn’t good to see,” Jones said of Ionescu’s injury. “I was able to chat with our (performance staff) during the game just to know she was okay. But like Chris (DeMarco) said, our fingers are crossed, obviously, and we’ll just handle it as we get more information.”

The Liberty open the 2026 season against the Sun on Friday at Barclays Center. Ionescu’s status for New York’s season opener is currently in question.

“Sab is a tough cookie,” Stewart, who had 4 points and six rebounds Sunday night, said. “She’s gonna get it checked out, but she seems in good spirits.”