Brad Keselowski grabbed the lead on a late pit stop with 10 to go in Stage 2 and held off Alex Bowman and Martin Truex Jr. for the stage win on Sunday at Darlington Raceway. This was the second stage win for the Team Penske driver in 2020.
RELATED: Stage 2 results
Bowman took second in the stage, while Truex finished third after not scoring any points in Stage 1. Kevin Harvick, who led most of the stage, but lost the lead on pit road after a lengthy pit stop, finished fourth. Ryan Preece, a second-year driver for JTG Daugherty Racing, nabbed his first stage points of the season with a seventh-place finish in Stage 2.
Stage 1 winner William Byron had a tire go down coming off of Turn 3 on Lap 111 and that left him several laps down. Daniel Suarez's spin on Lap 125 brought out another caution. Rookie Christopher Bell had a spin off of Turn 4 on Lap 174 to bring out a caution out with 11 laps in the stage.
Finish
Driver
Team
Points
1
Brad Keselowski
Team Penske
10
2
Alex Bowman
Hendrick Motorsports
9
3
Martin Truex Jr.
Joe Gibbs Racing
8
4
Kevin Harvick
Stewart-Haas Racing
7
5
Clint Bowyer
Stewart-Haas Racing
6
6
Kurt Busch
Chip Ganassi Racing
5
7
Ryan Preece
JTG Daugherty Racing
4
8
Joey Logano
Team Penske
3
9
Denny Hamlin
Joe Gibbs Racing
2
10
Erik Jones
Joe Gibbs Racing
1
STAGE 1: Byron nabs stage win on last lap
An incident coming off of Turn 2 of the last lap of Stage 1 took Jimmie Johnson away from a stage win and set William Byron up for his first stage win of 2020 on Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
Johnson had taken the lead from another Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Alex Bowman, with 10 to go in the stage but some contact coming up on Chris Buescher ended up with Johnson hitting the inside wall. As a result of the incident, Johnson's day was done.
RELATED: Stage 1 results
Byron charged to the stage win after starting 18th. Denny Hamlin finished second while Bowman took third. In his first race back after missing three races following a last-lap wreck at Daytona, Ryan Newman finished the stage in ninth.
Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, who started from the rear after failing pre-race inspection twice, finished 15th in Stage 1. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was involved in a Lap 1 wreck coming off of Turn 2. He will finish the race scored last.
A competition caution at Lap 31 froze the running order and allowed for longer pit stops, allowing teams to make more extended in-race adjustments that might normally be made during practice. Brad Keselowski had led each lap prior to the competition caution.
Sunday's race, The Real Heroes 400, marked the first race back for NASCAR since the COVID-19 stoppage that occurred in March. The race is the fifth of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season.