Corey Day’s name keeps getting louder in NASCAR’s silly season conversations. With Alex Bowman reportedly on the hot seat at Hendrick Motorsports, Day has increasingly been linked to the No. 48 seat in the Cup Series. And after Freddie Kraft added more fuel to the speculation, the conversations around the young driver have only continued to grow.

“Talking about Corey Day, talking about silly season’s kind of ramping up, now you hear a lot of sh*t, I would have thought Corey Day was a year away from getting in the 48 car or at least getting a chance to get in the 48 car. I think that there are some serious conversations about whether he might get in that car next year now,” Kraft said recently on the Door Bumper Clear podcast.

Day himself, however, is not exactly feeding the fire publicly. Here is what Corey Day had to say when asked about the speculation directly.

Corey Day refuses to fuel Hendrick Motorsports rumors

“I’m just doing all I can to focus on getting as good as I can this year,” Day said recently when asked about the growing speculation surrounding a possible move to Hendrick Motorsports and the Cup Series in 2027.

It was a careful, measured answer from a driver suddenly finding himself at the center of NASCAR’s silly season rumors.

While NASCAR no longer publicly reveals driver salaries, Hendrick Motorsports has long been viewed as one of the sport’s financial heavyweights. Around the garage, it is widely speculated that HMS Cup drivers operate around an $8 million base salary range before sponsorship incentives and bonuses are added, which only adds more intrigue whenever a young prospect gets linked to one of Rick Hendrick’s seats.

And right now, most of those rumors center around Bowman. He is currently in the final year of his contract with HMS, and his long stretch of poor performances has only intensified questions about the future of the No. 48 team. Bowman last won a race way back in 2024. The 2025 season was unimpressive, with him eventually finishing 13th and having zero wins.

2026 has been even tougher. Earlier this year, Bowman missed races while dealing with vertigo symptoms before eventually returning to competition. Since coming back, consistency has remained an issue. He finished 37th at Bristol and 18th at Kansas before showing signs of life with back-to-back third-place finishes at Talladega and Texas, only to fall back to 25th at Watkins Glen last weekend.

Day, meanwhile, has seen his stocks rise rapidly. The 20-year-old has quietly put together one of the strongest development seasons in NASCAR this year. Day currently sits fourth in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings, already collecting ten top-10 finishes and five top-fives through the opening stretch of the season. He broke through with a win at Talladega three weeks ago and backed it up again yesterday at Dover.

So while Day continues staying “tight-lipped” publicly, the noise around him inside the NASCAR garage only keeps getting louder.

Day’s Dover dash

Corey Day now has two wins in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series thanks to his statement drive at Dover on Saturday. Driving the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Day spent most of the afternoon chasing down Justin Allgaier rather than controlling the race outright.

In fact, he did not lead a single lap until the closing moments. But with four laps remaining, everything changed.

As Day and Allgaier approached the lapped car of Blake Lothian, hesitation from the slower traffic opened the door just enough for Day to capitalize. The young HMS prospect aggressively attacked the gap, completed the pass for the lead, and immediately pulled away to secure the victory.

After the checkered flag, cameras even caught Allgaier speaking with Lothian in what many interpreted as a teaching moment, after the indecision in traffic directly influenced the outcome. Behind Day and Allgaier, Sam Mayer finished third, followed by William Sawalich in fourth and Austin Hill in fifth.

“Yeah, it’s super fulfilling. I just owe it to my 17 guys, you know, we really were not good there early in the race,” Day said afterward. “Kind of struggled in the bottom the whole entire race, and when it moved up, we’d be okay, but definitely not as good as we were at the end there.”

What stood out most was not just the win itself, but how patient and composed Day looked while earning it. He waited for the opportunity, attacked at exactly the right moment, and closed the race like a veteran.