DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Imagine a scenario in the NASCAR world — say, around the Brickyard 400 in July — when the hot topic isn't just which driver might kiss the bricks.
Try, which driver could kiss his current ride goodbye.
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Driver Tyler Reddick leads other cars out to the track during a NASCAR Daytona 500 practice, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Driver Bubba Wallace works on the track during a NASCAR Daytona 500 practice, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Kyle Busch runs during NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Chase Briscoe, (19) runs during NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
What if NASCAR took a cue from stick-and-ball sports and had a trade deadline?
Forget trading paint. How about trading a star driver for a pair of minor-league prospects? Maybe a couple of veterans who wore out their welcome on one team get a fresh start with another?
Baseball players are traded. NFL and NHL stars get swapped, and the NBA has cornered the market on building in-season buzz with a trade deadline where the action among front offices sparks more headlines than any action on the court.
Go ahead, NASCAR. Set a date and let fans turn on those NASCAR social media post notifications to stay abreast of all the latest rumors and deals.
Sounds fun, right?
Sure. Only it's about as doable as successfully driving a stock car with three flat tires.
“You can’t pull that off with the current league structure because we’re all independent contractors,” 2012 NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski said.
“But,” Keselowski added, “that would be something compelling.”
Trades came around in NASCAR about as frequently as a race without a caution flag.
There are only 15 teams with at least one car in Cup, and only Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing field the maximum four cars. Organizations that didn’t already have four cars before the 2025 season are capped at three full-time teams. That automatically shrinks the trading pool.
Trades are not unprecedented; notably Spire Motorsports sent Corey LaJoie to Rick Ware Racing for Justin Haley in September 2024. There was a catch with that deal: Haley had already agreed to join Spire for the 2025 season and simply got a headstart with his new crew. LaJoie raced just four times for RWR in 2025.
There are no rules that prevent teams from swapping drivers.
In some cases, trades seem easier on the drivers than in the NFL or NBA where players are often forced to uproot their families on short notice. Most drivers live near their race shops in the North Carolina area and wouldn’t have to pack up the U-Haul and start over halfway across the country. The schedule is the same for every team, every driver, every week.
NASCAR can get tangled up in wheels and deals because of contracts with sponsors that prop up teams with needed cash that are not necessarily easily moveable. Big Cereal Brand A may only want to sign with an elite team where more eyeballs – and open wallets – are on the product and not have to deal with the effects of getting dumped to a non-contender.
There can be conflicts with the manufacturers as well. Teams have deals with one brand — Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports or Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing, for example — and squeezing in another manufacturer could spark all sorts of headaches.
There are essentially way more parties involved to make a trade feasible in NASCAR than just the negotiations between a pair of general managers.
But it can be idealistic to imagine a NASCAR world where fans can fire up the trade machine and propose swaps of drivers and players to be named and cash considerations and all the mechanisms that make up blockbuster trades in sports such as baseball.
Most drivers don't see a path where trades become as ingrained as silly season.
“I think it’s probably a stretch,” seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson said. “There’s a lot of layers to go. We have a soft cap now in my opinion, with a standardized car. There have been discussions around a cost cap. If more of those things happen over time, I guess we get closer to do it.”
Three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin has another possible idea to warm up the NASCAR hot stove season.
“If you want content, driver free agency would definitely cause it,” Hamlin said.
His idea, a portal much like in college athletics where drivers could declare they’re out with their old teams and sign with the highest bidder each offseason.
"It'd be quite interesting if everyone just went into free agency every single year,” Hamlin said. “My guess is, I don’t know that anyone would compete with Hendrick or Penske on what they could pay.”
For now, it’s just fun to dream of trading Bubba Wallace for Ross Chastain. Or proven champion Chase Elliott for the rights down the road to future developmental drivers.
Trades are out. True free agency seems a long shot.
What's left?
“I do like the draft," Keselowski said with a laugh.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Driver Tyler Reddick leads other cars out to the track during a NASCAR Daytona 500 practice, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Driver Bubba Wallace works on the track during a NASCAR Daytona 500 practice, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Kyle Busch runs during NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Chase Briscoe, (19) runs during NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Daytona, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new crew rocketed toward the International Space Station on Friday to replace the astronauts who returned to Earth early in NASA's first medical evacuation.
SpaceX launched the replacements as soon as possible at NASA’s request, sending the U.S., French and Russian astronauts on an expected eight- to nine-month mission stretching until fall. The four should arrive at the orbiting lab on Saturday, filling the vacancies left by their evacuated colleagues last month and bringing the space station back to full staff.
“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the astronauts reached orbit. “That was quite a ride,” replied the crew's commander, Jessica Meir.
NASA had to put spacewalks on hold and deferred other duties while awaiting the arrival of NASA’s Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev. They'll join three other astronauts — one American and two Russians — who kept the space station running the past month.
Satisfied with medical procedures already in place, NASA ordered no extra checkups for the crew ahead of liftoff and no new diagnostic equipment was packed. An ultrasound machine already up there for research went into overdrive on Jan. 7 when used on the ailing crew member. NASA has not revealed the ill astronaut’s identity or health issue. All four returning astronauts went straight to the hospital after splashing down in the Pacific near San Diego.
It was the first time in 65 years of human spaceflight that NASA cut short a mission for medical reasons.
With missions becoming longer, NASA is constantly looking at upgrades to the space station’s medical gear, said deputy program manager Dina Contella. “But there are a lot of things that are just not practical and so that’s when you need to bring astronauts home from space,” she said earlier this week.
In preparation for moon and Mars trips where health care will be even more challenging, the new arrivals will test a filter designed to turn drinking water into emergency IV fluid, try out an ultrasound system that relies on artificial intelligence and augmented reality instead of experts on the ground, and perform ultrasound scans on their jugular veins in a blood clot study.
They also will demonstrate their moon-landing skills in a simulated test.
Adenot is only the second French woman to launch to space. She was 14 when Claudie Haignere flew to Russia’s space station Mir in 1996, inspiring her to become an astronaut. Haignere traveled to Cape Canaveral to cheer her on.
Hathaway, like Adenot, is new to space, while Meir and Fedyaev are making their second station trip. Just before liftoff, Fedyaev led the crew in a cry of “Poyekhali" — Russian for “Let's Go” — the word uttered at liftoff by the world's first person in space, the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.
On her first mission in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk. The other half of that spacewalk, Christina Koch, is among the four Artemis II astronauts waiting to fly around the moon as early as March. A ship-to-ship radio linkup is planned between the two crews.
Meir wasn’t sure astronauts would return to the moon during her career. “Now we’re right here on the precipice of the Artemis II mission,” she said ahead of liftoff. “The fact that they will be in space at the same time as us … it’s so cool to be an astronaut now, it’s so exciting.”
SpaceX launched the latest crew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Elon Musk’s company is preparing its neighboring Kennedy Space Center launch pad for the super-sized Starships, which NASA needs to land astronauts on the moon.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard the Dragon space craft lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026 . (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 mission Commander Jessica Meir, left, and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, wave as they leave the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard the Dragon space craft lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard the Dragon space craft lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026 . (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leaves the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 mission astronauts, from left, pilot Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, commander Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leave the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon spacecraft stands ready for launch on pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 . (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 astronauts, from left, pilot Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, commander Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leave the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
