Posted on by Reid Spencer

DARLINGTON, S.C. – It looked like more of the same at Darlington Raceway for driver Denny Hamlin — until post-race inspection happened.

A five-time NASCAR Xfinity Series winner at the 1.366-mile track, Hamlin was first across the finish line in Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200, but the disqualification of Hamlin’s No. 18 Toyota for a ride-height violation made a winner of Cole Custer, who trailed Hamlin by .602 seconds at the finish line.

RELATED: Race results

“It’s a really strange feeling, honestly — obviously,” Custer said after being notified he was the winner. “You don’t want it that way, but it is what it is. We all play by the same rules. Was that the deciding factor? No.

“But it is what it is. We get the points. We get the money. We get the trophy, I guess. It’s a way to win.”

The victory was the first for Custer at the Track Too Tough to Tame and his sixth of the season, tying him with fourth-place finisher Christopher Bell for most in the series this year. Custer now has eight career Xfinity wins.

RELATED: Xfinity Series standings

The disqualification ruined a strong effort from Hamlin, who started 37th in a backup car after slapping the outside wall early in Friday’s opening practice. Hamlin took the lead on Lap 121 of 147 and held it the rest of the way.

And though Hamlin’s efforts became moot with the disqualification, he overcame issues with the handling of the backup No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota through the first two 45-lap stages of the event and was able to withstand a determined closing run by Custer.

“We did not have the best car by any means, but luckily, the techniques I’ve learned over so many years kind of (helped) us there,” Hamlin said before learning of the disqualification. “The guys did a great job getting this car ready.”

Abandoning the NBC Sports broadcast booth for his only race of the year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran fifth as the highest finishing JR Motorsports entry.

Custer hounded Hamlin after a restart with 10 laps left and ran the bottom through Turns 1 and 2 to gain ground. On several occasions over the final five laps, he pulled within a car-length of Hamlin’s bumper but couldn’t quite get to the winner.

“I thought I had him,” Custer said after climbing from his car. “I really wanted it — finishing second here really sucks. You really want to win at one of the marquee places … I couldn’t get a run off of (Turn) 4. I don’t know — it was so close.”

As it turned out, it was close enough.

Series leader Tyler Reddick ran second after leading a race-high 70 laps. Pole winner Ryan Blaney, the only other driver to hold the lead, was third after spending 50 laps at the point. Bell, Earnhardt, Chase Briscoe, Brandon Jones, Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier and Austin Cindric completed the top 10.

Earnhardt was pleased with his performance in the one-off start.

“I love this place,” said Earnhardt, whose No. 8 Chevrolet was sporting a paint scheme commemorating his father’s first start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Charlotte in 1975. “We love Darlington. … You never know how good you are till you come back and try it.

“All these guys are elite. All these guys do this every single week, and they’re very, very talented. To think you can take a year off and come back and be good … you just never know. But we did all right!”

WATCH: Junior finishes fifth, honors father

With two races left before the cutoff for the Xfinity Playoffs at Las Vegas, Reddick holds a 51-point lead over Bell in the race for the regular-season title. Custer is 136 points back in third place.

The disqualification was the fifth this year under the enforcement policy NASCAR adopted this season, all in either the Xfinity or Gander Outdoors Truck Series. Hamlin was the second race winner to suffer a disqualification, the other being Ross Chastain in a Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway.

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch will drop to the rear of the field for the start of Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 after his No. 18 team changed the engine on his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota following a subpar qualifying run.

Busch was slated to start 33rd out of 39 cars after his qualifying lap at Darlington Raceway of 167.351 mph — significantly behind the Busch Pole Award-winning speed of William Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at 172.487 mph.

RELATED: Darlington starting lineup

“Something is wrong,” Busch said after his qualifying run for Sunday’s 6 p.m. ET race (on NBCSN/NBC Sports App). “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m not that slow. That’s a second off of what it should have been. …

“Everything was fine until about halfway down the back. It started to lay down. It started to shake and vibrate. When I got out of the gas in (Turns) 3 and 4 and got back to throttle, it got worse. So, I don’t know. It fired up and ran fine here on idle, but if you plug your computer in order to check it and look at anything, you go to the back (of the field).”

Busch’s previous worst starting slot this season was 31st — at both the August Bristol Motor Speedway race and at the Daytona 500.

NASCAR.com’s Terrin Waack contributed to this report.

Posted on by Zack Albert

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Joey Logano’s throwback No. 22 Ford ranks at or near the top of the creativity chart for the special way the team revealed its 2007 look for this weekend at Darlington Raceway. The process behind how it was made is a story unto itself.

Kevin Harvick was Shell-Pennzoil’s driver that year, when Harvick won the Daytona 500 for Richard Childress Racing. Three years later, a Harvick-Logano rivalry developed after a late-race crash at Pocono, which became a reference point in Logano’s reveal earlier this week.

RELATED: Loganos unveil throwback No. 22 Ford | Darlington schedule

In the short video, Logano’s wife, Brittany, makes a cameo and mentions who “wears the fire suit in the family” — recreating the jab that her husband made toward Harvick years before. Saturday, Logano said his wife plans to attend Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) … wearing said fire suit.

“It was pretty funny,” Logano says, recalling the details of the video shoot. “It was Shell’s idea to run this scheme, obviously. So I said, ‘You guys realize that’s the car that crashed me at Pocono,’ and so the conversation started immediately after about the fire suit, and I said of course.

“So I asked Brittany, ‘you’d do that?’ and she goes, ‘Hell, yeah.’ So we thought it was funny. We called Kevin first and made sure that it was OK with him because I didn’t want to stir the pot, as much as Kevin and I get along really well now. He thought it was going to be really funny, and so we did the video to unveil. I will say, the first time Brittany, she beaned those diapers straight at my face. I said, ‘Hey, why don’t you aim for the shoulder, honey, not the face.’ We thought it was kind of funny to do, so she’ll have the fire suit out tomorrow and probably sweating like everybody else in it.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

DARLINGTON, S.C. — With roughly 40 laps left in the Aug. 17 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Matt DiBenedetto held a 1.6-second lead over second-place Denny Hamlin when DiBenedetto caught Ryan Newman’s No. 6 Ford, the last car on the lead lap.

DiBenedetto struggled to overtake Newman, generally regarded as one of the toughest drivers in the series to pass. Contact between the two vehicles tightened the handling of DiBenedetto’s No. 95 Toyota, whose lead had shrunk to .8 seconds by the time he cleared Newman’s Mustang.

RELATED: Was Newman-DiBenedetto contact a turning point?

With 11 laps left, Hamlin caught and passed DiBenedetto for the win, spoiling a Cinderella story for the driver who had been told by Leavine Family Racing earlier in the week that his option wouldn’t be picked up for 2020.

As might be expected, Newman received his share of criticism on social media, even though he was locked in a close battle for a NASCAR Playoff spot and was fighting to stay on the lead lap.

“I think Kyle Busch would tell you the best, there’s always going to be haters,” Newman said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “I did what I needed to do to be competitive. I haven’t seen any replays. I don’t know exactly how he hit me twice in two separate straightaways in the right rear going down the straightaway.

“If I pinched him, or if he didn’t give himself enough room or what, but in the end there was nothing intentional by me. Fans can choose whatever they want — I mean there are thousands of fans that have come to Bristol to see crashes for years, so I’m sorry I let them down.”

Asked whether he felt a need to talk to DiBenedetto about the incident, Newman demurred.

“No, there’s no reason to,” he said.

RELATED: Darlington starting lineup

Posted on by Reid Spencer

DARLINGTON, S.C. – In his sophomore season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series—and his first with veteran crew chief Chad Knaus—William Byron continues to make history.

On Saturday at Darlington Raceway, Byron covered the 1.366-mile distance at the egg-shaped track in 28.510 seconds (172.487 mph), winning the pole position for Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Not only did Byron claim his first Busch Pole Award at Darlington and his fourth of the season, but he also became part of an elite triumvirate. Before his pole-winning run on Saturday, only Fireball Roberts in 1962 and Bill Elliott in 1985 had ever won poles for the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Southern 500 in the same season.

With his fourth career pole, Byron is now a member of that exclusive club.

RELATED: Full lineup | See every car in the lineup

Byron acknowledged that he and Knaus have concentrated on qualifying at the marquee races, but with Darlington being an impound event, there’s a necessary compromise between race and qualifying setups.

“Our race setup (at Darlington) was good in qualifying trim,” Byron said. “It just happened to work out that way that we focused on qualifying, and I’m sure Chad puts his extra little bit into, too, and I kind of put my extra couple cents into it to make sure I hit everything right.

“I felt good driving down here this morning. Only having to make one lap today is pretty easy, so I said, ‘Go on out there and try to not screw up and make a good lap.”

Driving a throwback City Chevrolet paint scheme on his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro—a nod to the movie “Days of Thunder”—Byron did exactly that, edging Ford driver and defending race winner Brad Keselowski (172.088 mph) for the top starting spot by .066 seconds.

The Chip Ganassi Racing duo of Kyle Larson (171.842 mph) and Kurt Busch (171.764 mph) earned the third and fourth starting positions for Sunday’s race. A pair of drivers fighting for the final Playoff positions—Daniel Suarez and Jimmie Johnson—will start fifth and sixth respectively.

Two-time Darlington winner Denny Hamlin qualified ninth in the fastest Toyota.

Ryan Newman, currently 15th in the standings, will start 24th as he tries to hold on to his provisional playoff spot.

“I’m not happy with it because we’re not P1, but I felt like I got everything I could as far as driving out of it,” Newman said. “It’s kind of a crapshoot. We’re wide open from Turn 4 to Turn 3, and however you get through 3 and 4 coming to your green, and then your timed lap is where it’s all at.

“It’s my favorite race track. I’m looking forward to the race. I feel like we’ve got a car that drives fairly good. I just don’t know that we have the speed that it takes to be as good as we need to be.”

The No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Toyota of Matt DiBenedetto failed pre-qualifying inspection twice on Saturday. As a result, NASCAR ejected a crew member (car chief) for Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 and will dock the team 15 minutes of practice time at the next event.

MORE: NASCAR ejects crew member of No. 95 team at Darlington

Posted on by Staff Report

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.

RELATED: Starting lineup | Full Darlington schedule

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.

Posted on by Terrin Waack

DARLINGTON, S.C. — There’s still hope.

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.”

RELATED: Full schedule for Darlington | All of the bubble trouble

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.”

RELATED: Johnson’s driver page | Shop Johnson gear

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.”

Posted on by Zack Albert

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.

RELATED: Full schedule for Darlington

“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.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

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.

MORE: Jayski: DiBenedetto to have Barstool Sports sponsorship

“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.”