The No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Toyota of Matt DiBenedetto failed pre-qualifying inspection twice on Saturday at Darlington Raceway. As a result, NASCAR ejected a crew member (car chief Greg J. Emmer) for Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 and will dock the team 15 minutes of practice time at the next event.
The team will not need to move to the back of the field for the 500-mile Throwback Weekend race, which gets underway at 6 p.m. ET with coverage on NBCSN. For more on the at-track penalty protocol, click here.
Seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson has two regular-season races left to punch his ticket into the 16-driver playoff field. Right now, he’s outside the bubble, sitting 18th in the championship standings with 565 points (26 less than Daniel Suarez in the final spot). Johnson clearly hasn’t won a race this season, otherwise he’d be postseason bound.
“It’s weird to see,” Kyle Larson said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “When you are watching somebody like that dominate, you never expect to see them in this position – being winless for as long as he’s been; at risk of not making the playoffs and having a chance to with the championship.
“Obviously, I’m a huge Jimmie Johnson fan. I want to see him either run well these next two races to get himself in a better points position or win. I would like to see him just win to shut everybody up.”
The last time Johnson won was June 2017 – 83 races ago. His last title run was 2016.
Among active and retired drivers, Johnson is tied for the most championships. He, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt are the only ones to ever hoist trophy No. 7 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. No one else currently driving has more than one tally next to his name.
“I don’t take any pleasure in someone else’s pain, and I know that’s probably very painful for him,” Brad Keselowski said. “I don’t have any solutions. I’m not close enough to what’s going on over there, but it just gives you, myself included, a sense of how fragile this sport is and how fleeting success can be.”
Johnson has even switched up his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet roster. Race engineer Cliff Daniels was promoted 21 races into the season to crew chief, as Kevin Meendering was sidelined. The team has finished 19th twice (Watkins Glen International and Bristol Motor Speedway) and 34th (Michigan International Speedway) since the change.
Out of the 24 races overall, Johnson has had three top-five and eight top-10 runs. He’s averaging a 16.2 finish. His best result was third place at Daytona International Speedway back in June.
“He definitely still has it, and he’s not given up,” teammate Alex Bowman said. “They have two more chances to win or get a lot of stage points and point their way in. I think everyone has learned over the years that you can’t count the 48 out by any means.”
Johnson has never missed the NASCAR Playoffs, which were installed in 2004.
The hope lives within the two races remaining. The first is this Sunday at Darlington Raceway (the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where Johnson has won three times in 20 starts. The second is next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home to four wins by Johnson in 17 showings.
“I can’t wait to shut up the keyboard warriors that are out there,” Johnson said. “The people that are close to me, the people on my race team – they know the truth and they know the story. We’re working hard on it, been working hard and will continue to work hard. Wins will come. Wins will be there for sure.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — The 2020 outlook for Richard Childress Racing’s fleet of drivers has yet to take shape. Conversations with two key players Friday afternoon at Darlington Raceway didn’t make that long-term forecast much clearer.
Reigning Xfinity Series champ Tyler Reddick has shown he’s primed for Sunday duty in NASCAR’s top division. Cup Series rookie Daniel Hemric has struggled to find results to show for his performance in an uneven first season. Both indicated that efforts were in full swing to get their deals done, but the full picture of what those deals would be hasn’t been made public.
“Uncertain. Everyone’s working really hard to make something happen,” said Reddick, who has four wins this year and leads the Xfinity standings. “A lot up in the air still, but obviously as it kind of goes without saying, if you get too caught up in thoughts of next year, it could take away from what’s right in front of you. For me, that’s just trying to make our car a little better this weekend.”
Reddick is among the favorites for Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 (4 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM) at the 1.366-mile track, which is his immediate focus. The longer-term focus is where the 23-year-old driver may land next season. Pressed on whether that destination might include the realm outside of the Childress organization, Reddick was reluctant to say.
“All the guys at RCR have been great. Everyone’s working hard to try and figure something out, but it’s at the point where I’m honestly not going to talk about it,” Reddick said. “That’s just where I’m at. I don’t want to say something that could take away from somebody else or get something pointed in the wrong direction, so I’m just not going to talk about it.”
Hemric has been the subject of intense questioning about his future in RCR’s No. 8 Chevrolet in recent weeks. In an Aug. 19 appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Hemric described his contract situation as “iffy” but that an agreement for next year was 90% done.
Hemric ranks 25th in the Monster Energy Series standings, not far behind his 23rd-place teammate, Austin Dillon. Though he’d acknowledged the lack of clarity for 2020, Hemric affirmed that his commitment to RCR remained strong.
“Deep down in my heart, I know that Richard Childress and all the folks at RCR, and myself included and all of our partners are doing everything we can to honor agreements that we made with each other to compete again at a high level in 2020,” Hemric said. “Lot of variables involved, but I know this logo I’m wearing of RCR on my chest has my back and I have their back and that’s what we’re working toward.”
Another race weekend means another audition for driver Matt DiBenedetto.
But that’s nothing new. That has always been DiBenedetto’s mindset.
DiBenedetto learned recently that Leavine Family Racing would not be picking up his option for 2020. On Aug. 17 at Bristol Motor Speedway, in his first race since receiving the bad news, DiBenedetto finished second after surrendering the lead to Denny Hamlin with 11 laps left.
That strong performance was a great addition to the resume, but DiBenedetto has yet to find a seat for next season.
“I got a lot of like really nice, encouraging texts and stuff from a lot of fellow drivers and such, so that was really neat and encouraging,” DiBenedetto said of the Bristol aftermath. “Nothing in particular. Just keeping all options open.”
DiBenedetto has 12 races left in the No. 95 LFR Toyota, and that means 12 more chances to showcase his talent. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’ll be doing things differently.
“I drive the same really any race under any circumstances,” said DiBenedetto, who was fifth fastest in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice. “At Bristol, some people were like, ‘Oh, did you drive different there?’ and I’m like, ‘No, it doesn’t make a difference.’ When I strap in the car, I’m 100 percent every single lap I’m on the race track, no matter what.
“I’ve learned that lesson and been that way a long time. I always feel like I’m auditioning every time I climb in a race car for basically my whole life. That’s nothing any different, but I want to win for this team really, really bad, because it would be really special to get their first win for the team.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — The word he was looking for is perspective.
For the first time since his private plane crashed two weeks ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. publicly spoke out and answered questions about the accident. Dale, wife Amy and daughter Isla are all fine after having been onboard when the plane rolled off the runway and caught fire in Tennessee. Now, they’re just trying to get back to everyday normal activities.
“It was a very tough experience to go through,” Dale said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “I try not to really get into that and think about that too much. Things happen for a reason. You just try to learn from it and move on.
“I love my daughter so much and enjoy being around her. I look forward to watching her grow up and experience a lot of things with her going forward. That just made me realize that much more. I’m just thankful and ready to live our lives.”
Isla is just a year old. Dale and Amy have been married for two years. Their life together as a family has just begun.
The crash, which happened at Elizabethton Municipal Airport, was a reminder of that fact.
“There’s a lot of things in your life that you go through that help you order your priorities,” Earnhardt said. “It reminds you sometimes what’s important, what’s not-so-important.”
Easy.
“It’s hard to prioritize anything over your daughter during just a typical day,” Earnhardt said. “A lot of times I’m just sitting with her, talking about balls and slides and her pits and whatever else she’s seeing around her that she wants to play with and do. Me and Amy just spend a lot of time sort of trying to get her education of what’s going around her.”
There were no serious injuries reported after the crash. Dale later tweeted his lower back was bruised, but he has since recovered and been cleared physically. No issues with his concussion history, either.
Dale said he doesn’t have a problem with ever flying again and the best advice he has received is to get back on the horse, so to speak. He’s used to being mentally tough anyway. It’s normal for a former full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver.
“I think that it’s just being in a race car, we go out there on the race track, crash into the wall, flip upside down and the first thing you think of is how good is the backup car, why did that happen and how can we stop the next car from doing that,” Dale said. “I think the repetition of doing that all my life has insulated me from some typical emotional reactions that you might have in situations like that.”
Speaking of being in a race car, Dale will actually partake in Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Darlington – Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 (4 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). This will be his second race since retiring from full-time competition after the 2017 season. The first was at Richmond Raceway last year.
And just like that time, Amy will be present with Isla.
“She’ll never remember that,” Earnhardt said. “She might not remember this race either. But it’s fun having them around, especially when I’m racing.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — August has been very good to Austin Cindric.
Team Penske’s young talent went from being winless in the NASCAR Xfinity Series to earning two victories and having one of the most impressive drives in recent memory at Road America, wheeling his Ford Mustang from 20th to second on a green-white-checkered finish.
But there is one thing missing from the 20-year-old’s resume: A win on an oval.
“I look at it from a couple different directions. I will use Bristol as my example,” Cindric told NASCAR.com. “That’s a place where we have been able to go back to for a second time this year, apply the same setup, come back and talk to my crew chief and say ‘hey, when we were here last time I needed this and this and this out of the car. If you give me this and this, we can run really well.’ And we ran really well.”
Cindric ended the night in Bristol with a fifth-place finish, something he says is more encouraging than his weekend sweep at Mid-Ohio. Why? Because the foundation of the Xfinity Series Playoffs is built on ovals.
“You’re going back to places for a second time in the playoffs,” Cindric said. “Places like Dover (and) Richmond, where we have run really well. Texas where we have run really well and Phoenix where we run well, so places like that we go back to another time … I think that’s going to be huge for us.”
Another thing Cindric has in his favor is a teammate this weekend at Darlington Raceway. Ryan Blaney is driving the Team Penske No. 12 in Saturday’s race (4 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Blaney, a seven-time winner in the Xfinity Series and a two-time winner in the Monster Energy Series, can provide valuable feedback for Cindric with just three races left before the Xfinity Series Playoffs start at Richmond Raceway.
“This is the last race for the 12 car this year, so having Blaney here is great to understand where we can keep improving our cars and how I can continue to improve. It’s a great rabbit to chase,” Cindric said. “For the rest of the year we are a single-car team, learning off of my feedback and what my guys can accomplish. I’m looking forward to that challenge.”
After brushing the wall in first practice, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rebounded to pace Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice on Friday afternoon at Darlington Raceway.
Stenhouse topped the charts at a speed of 168.845 miles per hour around the 1.366-mile track in preparation for Sunday night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing driver helped his team fix the damage to the car after earning his ‘Darlington stripe’ before the beginning of the 50-minute session.
Stenhouse wasn’t the only driver who smacked the wall on Friday, though. The No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing team of Aric Almirola was forced to pull out the backup car after Almirola slammed the outside barrier at the exit of Turn 2. Martin Truex Jr. also kissed the fence in Turns 3 and 4, but he was able to continue in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota without significant damage.
Kyle Larson’s lap of 168.764 mph was good enough for the second-fastest time in the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. William Byron finished third with a lap of 168.480 mph, followed by Kurt Busch (168.261 mph) and Matt DiBenedetto (168.250 mph) to round out the top five.
Busch Pole qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is set for Saturday at 2 p.m. ET (NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Practice 1
Kurt Busch led the way as the official NASCAR Throwback Weekend kicked off with opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Darlington Raceway.
Busch topped the board with a pace of 171.261 mph around the 1.366-mile South Carolina egg-shaped oval in the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. William Byron laid down the second-fastest time in the 50-minute session at 170.703 mph in the Days of Thunder-inspired No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Aric Almirola finished third at 170.065 mph, followed by Alex Bowman (169.989 mph) and Jimmie Johnson (169.660 mph) to complete the top five as those drivers made mock-qualifying runs late in the session.
See the order that the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series cars will go out in for single-car qualifying on Saturday afternoon at Darlington Raceway (2:05 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Click here for the complete order. You can also see the order by clicking the printer icon button.
DARLINGTON, S.C. – Driving a race car isn’t like riding a bike. Wobbles would lead to crashes. Speeds could never reach triple digits.
But, after a year-long hiatus, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is getting back behind the wheel.
The former full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver who retired at the end of the 2017 season is as ready as can be to race in Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Darlington Raceway (4 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). It’ll mark just his second time back on track since retiring from full-time Cup competition, and he’s feeling the pressure. Unsurprisingly so.
“I was never not nervous about driving race cars,” Earnhardt said Friday. “I’ve raced all my life, but every race you were equally nervous as the last leading into qualifying or practice. It helped to get nervous. It’s a very wild experience being in there.”
Earnhardt last raced in 2018 at Richmond Raceway, where he qualified second, led 96 laps and finished fourth. He was in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet at the time. This weekend he’ll be steering the No. 8 for the same organization that he co-owns and the same manufacturer.
The single-digit number should bring back memories – it’s called NASCAR Throwback Weekend for a reason, right? Earnhardt commanded the No. 8 to 17 Cup wins from 2000-07, sporting the red Budweiser paint scheme.
“What surprised me was I hadn’t raced here since ’99 in an Xfinity car,” Earnhardt said. “I ran a bunch of Cup races here, but these are so different than the Cup cars.
“When Joey Logano ran at Chicago, he said many times during the week he just wasn’t really comfortable until about halfway through the race, when it started to click, because the difference between how the Cup cars and the Xfinity cars drive even this year is very extreme. So, I think it’s going to be halfway through the race before I have any real kind of understanding of what I need to be doing, where I need to be running.”
In the Cup Series, Earnhardt averaged a 14.4 finish at Darlington in 22 starts. His best showing was a second-place run in 2014, and he had four top-five and 10 top-10 performances overall.
Earnhardt was right about his Xfinity Series past – 1999 was his last time at Darlington for that circuit. He did two races that year, finishing 11th and 12th. In his two other starts, both in 1998, he was second and 10th.
“I did come over here a couple month ago and ran about 15 laps when Noah (Gragson) was testing,” Earnhardt said. “That didn’t do anything to help my anxiety. Noah was faster than me, and it just reminded me how hard it is to drive these cars, how good these guys that drive them are and how hot and miserable it is inside there – some of the things you kind of forget about while in the booth and being a broadcaster.”
Right, because TV is Earnhardt’s new reality. He works as an analyst for NBC Sports – normally.
Two weeks ago, at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt was absent from his on-camera gig after he and his family were involved in a private plane crash on their way to the Tennessee track. Everyone is fine and returning to their everyday life, including wife Amy and daughter Isla attending Earnhardt’s race Saturday.
The Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 will go green at 4 p.m. ET. Nerves will run through Earnhardt until then.
“I picked a real hard track to go to,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking picking this place. It’s the throwback weekend. It’s hard not to want to be a part of it.”
With two regular-season races remaining in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, it’s time to keep watch on drivers who can clinch a spot in the NASCAR Playoffs. Of course, the easiest way to clinch is to win this weekend’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway (Sunday, 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
But if that’s not possible, then here are the drivers who have a chance to clinch on points when all the beating and banging — in throwback paint schemes, no less — is done at Darlington.
A repeat winner from this season and being 56 points ahead of the seventh-highest ranked winless driver post-Darlington will clinch a spot on points. If there is a new winner, those drivers 56 points above the sixth-highest ranked winless driver will clinch a spot on points.
The magic number here is 56.
Six drivers could clinch on points at Darlington. Below is how.
Make sure to follow our Lap-by-Lap updates in the race as we give real-time updates on the playoff picture.
• Ryan Blaney: Would clinch on points with 28 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Kyle Larson, William Byron, Aric Almirola, Erik Jones or Ryan Newman), would clinch on points with 16 points.
• Kyle Larson: Would clinch on points with 49 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Aric Almirola, Erik Jones or Ryan Newman), would clinch on points with 37 points.
• William Byron: Would clinch on points with 50 points and a new winner. If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Aric Almirola, Erik Jones or Ryan Newman), would clinch on points with 38 points.
• Aric Almirola: If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Erik Jones or Ryan Newman), would clinch on points with 48 points. Could clinch on points with a new winner and help.
• Erik Jones: If there is a repeat winner (or a win by Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Aric Almirola or Ryan Newman), would clinch on points with 54 points. Could clinch on points with a new winner and help.
• Ryan Newman: Could clinch on points with a repeat winner (or a win by Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, William Byron, Aric Almirola or Erik Jones) and help.
