DARLINGTON, S.C. — NASCAR Cup Series crew chiefs will have a carbon copy of the rules configuration and Goodyear tire setup that teams managed in their most recent visit to Darlington Raceway in March. What they won’t have is the benefit of practice, qualifying or an according-to-form starting lineup.
The Chase presented by Mobil 1 opens with Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the first of 10 postseason races that will determine the Cup Series champion. Tyler Reddick starts from the pole position — his same perch on the grid from the circuit’s springtime visit to the 1.366-mile oval — but how he got there this time was far different.
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A series of nearby lightning strikes amid a threatening forecast washed away Saturday afternoon’s practice and qualifying, forcing competition officials to set the lineup according to the NASCAR Rule Book. The inclement-weather lineup was established by the performance metric, a formula that weighs 70% of the previous race’s finish and 30% of the current position in the team owner points.
Because of the topsy-turvy nature of last weekend’s regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, half of the 16 drivers in The Chase field will be starting Sunday’s 500-miler from outside the top 15.
“It stinks just because our metric was bad from last week,” Luke Lambert, crew chief for Carson Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, told NASCAR.com. Hocevar crashed last week at Daytona and starts 34th in the 38-car field Sunday. “We’ve got a really good package here. We feel like we were really good in the spring, so excited about the race. Just hate the metric got messed up from last week.”
Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford team was caught by the same snare, with a last-lap tangle for driver Ryan Blaney dropping him to 33rd in the Daytona rundown. He’ll set sail from 24th, but the group’s placement was compounded by issues in Saturday’s opening technical inspection, where the No. 12 failed twice, leading to a crew ejection and loss of pit-stall selection.
That pit-road portion of the penalty could have ramifications in one of the schedule’s longest races, where over-the-wall performance will be at a premium.
“It’s definitely not great, but there are plenty of openings here,” Hassler told NASCAR.com, noting how the handful of breaks in the pit wall provide easier ingress and egress. “Fortunately, you get a fair number of cars a lap down, so early in the race, I think it’ll definitely be something that we’ll have to kind of deal with. But hopefully, as the night goes on, it’ll work out to be OK.”
The same softer-compound Goodyear tire that teams raced with in the springtime returns for Sunday’s Southern 500, but the allotment has grown. Teams will have 12 new sets of tires to deploy on the abrasive 1.366-mile track, but how crew chiefs opt to use them in each stage — which divide almost neatly into thirds of 115, 115 and 137 laps — remains a question.
“The stages are longer, so you’re probably going to see different strategies,” said Justin Alexander, crew chief for Legacy Motor Club’s No. 43 Toyota and two-time Southern 500 winner Erik Jones. “The biggest thing is how many times we’ll pit in each stage, whether guys will pit once, twice, or even three times, so that’ll depend on fall-off, and that’ll depend on obviously how hot it is and the weather and things of that nature. So from a fall-off perspective, I think you’ll see it’ll be very similar to the spring race, and from a racing perspective, same thing. But our strategies change up a little bit, just due to the nature of the length of the race.”
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Alexander’s remarks came in Darlington’s Saturday morning hours, just before weather wiped out practice and qualifying. That schedule adjustment will force teams to be even more reliant on their notes from the 400-miler here in March, where the tire setup debuted alongside the low-downforce, higher-horsepower package that was instituted this year.
The lack of preliminary on-track time — save for the no-qualifying lineup quirks — wasn’t viewed as a complete negative, however, with Reddick calling it the “best-case scenario for us. Yeah, it’s pretty sick.” Hassler shared at least some measure of his opinion.
“I kind of like the opportunity to go and start the race without practice,” Hassler said. “I think you know that definitely pays dividends to the teams that sort of do their homework and then can start the race without that. So I like that opportunity. I just wish we were going to start a little bit further forward.”