DARLINGTON, S.C. — Justin Allgaier’s third-place finish in Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington was not one without adversity, but with it, he continues a streak of top-five finishes that spans five races with two victories slotted in the middle.
On top of the current run of top fives, the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet also ties Hall of Famer Mark Martin for the most consecutive top-10 finishes at the “Lady in Black” with nine.
It is a run of finishes that Allgaier solely attributes to the grit and determination of his No. 7 crew.
“Listen, this team, everybody at JR Motorsports, everybody on our Brandt Chevrolet has given me the opportunity to do that,” Allgaier said after the race. These cars are fun to drive. They do an amazing job, you know?”
But as aforementioned, the result was not achieved without a battle. What started as a day in a great position to potentially grab win No. 3 for the Chevrolet organization quickly went south after winning Stage 2 as a pit-stop error mired the No. 7 car back in mid-pack.
“Listen, we win as a team, we lose as a team,” Allgaier continued. “You know, the pit-road deal. It’s hard when you have those moments, but when you watch the guys rally, it’s because they understand, and they want to be successful, just like this race team is. We want those top fives. You want those wins. And, you know, I think that the best example I can give you is last year in Phoenix. You know, we were down, but we were never out, and we came back and we rallied.”
In that Phoenix race mentioned by Allgaier, he came from nearly two laps down to win the Xfinity Series title, a race that netted him the first driver’s championship of his career.
It was that race and the adversity that came along with it that JRM co-owner and Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. attributes to the early success for Allgaier in 2025. The pressure is off the 38-year-old, allowing him to go out each week and chase victories.
“I mean, that’s classic Justin Allgaier,” Earnhardt said post-race at Darlington. “He’s always going to give you everything, you know, everything you can, every lap. That’s what he did today, and we got the best result we could get.
“He’s got a lot of pressure off since he won his championship, so he can really just kind of focus on winning races and not really the whole big picture of the season, like he’s had to. You know obviously, he knows his chances of winning a championship are whittling away, and so to be able to get that done now, he could just go back to focusing on week after week, race after race, and you can see he’s just not making the mistakes we typically see him make in high-pressure situations. Because he’s not, you know, he’s not trying as hard. He’s kind of dialed it back. He’s racing smarter, being smoother, not feeling like he’s got to, you know, make it happen every single lap.”
It’s that mentality and focus that keeps the Springfield, Illinois native proud of the effort and resilience put in by his team despite falling short on Saturday.
“I’m proud of the effort that we’re putting in,” Allgaier said. “If I’d have come out of here 10th or 15th, yeah, I’d have probably been a little more upset. But to come out of here third and lead as many laps as we did, the points day that we had. I mean, just a great day. Yes, you want to win, but it’s hard to be sad with third and a great points day.”
Track: Darlington Raceway Location: Darlington, South Carolina Track length: 1.366 miles When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 293 laps | 400.2 miles Stages: 90 | 185 | 293 Defending winner:Brad Keselowski, May 2024 Starting lineup:William Byron seals Busch Light Pole
Time for 2-for-2 for Hamlin?
Denny Hamlin has some momentum on his side, and the forward progress is well-timed. On the heels of his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season last weekend, this week’s stop at Darlington Raceway provides another welcome opportunity.
Hamlin possesses plenty of positive indicators heading into Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at venerable Darlington, where he’s a four-time Cup Series winner. The 44-year-old dominated like the days of old last Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, leading 274 of the 400 laps and collecting his sixth grandfather clock trophy. This week’s venue is another stronghold for the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran, and he’s predicted to be near the top in Racing Insights’ full-field projections.
“I think last week was a great week for the team, no doubt about it,” Hamlin said. “To get a win early, just to start to get some playoff bonus points, that’s always a great thing. When we come here, absolutely. I know what I need out of the car. I’ll know within the first few laps of practice whether it’s got the ‘it’ that it needs to be good and if not, we’ll go to work on it. But the confidence I have is knowing exactly what I need at this track. I know how to enter the corner; I know how to exit it. I know how much gas and brake to apply to make good speed here. It’s just a matter of whether the car’s working directly on that day and if it isn’t, we can get it pretty close usually.”
Hamlin will start third in the 38-car field after putting his No. 11 Toyota on the second row in Saturday’s Busch Light Pole Qualifying. He’ll start behind polesitter William Byron, a Darlington winner in the spring of 2023, and a resurgent Ryan Preece, who continues to make the most of his first campaign with RFK Racing. Joe Gibbs Racing has already had one driver go on a tear this year, with Christopher Bell reeling off three consecutive wins spanning Atlanta, Circuit of The Americas and Phoenix. Hamlin could be the next with back-to-back success.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Hamlin has led laps in 19 of his 25 career Cup Series starts at Darlington, including a string of the last 10, and he’s been a top-five finisher here 52% of the time with an all-time best average finish of 8.2. Three of his Darlington wins — including his most recent in 2021 — were in the longer 500-mile classic, the Southern 500, but he’s not selling this weekend’s 400-miler short in terms of its punishing nature.
“Even though this is a 400, it’s still grueling,” Hamlin says. “I think Darlington is by far one of the most grueling race tracks that you go to simply because it’s going to be a warm one this weekend. It’s going to be mentally taxing knowing that you have to hit your marks just perfect at this track and then, just knowing the mental side of it, you have 35 other guys out there that don’t want to let you win.”
What do crew chiefs and pit crews have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Pit-stop strategy for teams at Darlington doesn’t lend itself to experimentation or alternate gambits. With the tendency for rapid tire wear on the gritty 1.366-mile track, the call for crew chiefs is virtually always for fresh Goodyear rubber at all four corners of the car.
Sunday’s springtime edition at Darlington is 100 miles shorter than the 500-mile Labor Day classic, and the stages are split into near-even thirds. The timing of the pit stops may be a variable, but the type of pit-crew service should be a constant.
“You know when you pit here, you’re going to come down and get four tires, every opportunity you get,” Randall Burnett, crew chief of Richard Childress Racing’s No. 8 Chevrolet for Kyle Busch, told NASCAR.com. “Last year was real unique. You had a couple back-to-back cautions there in the fall race where it was only a lap or two on tires. Some guys stayed out, but that lap or two made a difference. We came and pitted and put some tires on and were able to make up some spots just by a couple-lap different gain on tires there. So, yeah, tires are such a crucial thing here. It’s gonna be really hot tomorrow, which is gonna make them even more valuable. So, yeah, you just do four tires here.
“How you break up the stages is a little unique. A lot of guys will short-pit and then try to run the second half of a stage longer. Some guys will run it to halfway and split it perfectly, so you’ve got the same amount of laps on your tires and try to use your tires equally. So there’s a lot of different bearing strategies. It kind of depends on your pace and your fall-off and all that.”
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
When drivers do come to pit, the track’s demanding “Too Tough to Tame” reputation also extends beyond the hard-edged racing surface down to a particularly tricky pit road. Pit entry is a difficult task, with drivers needing to slow their cars’ momentum and navigate the wide apron to reach pit lane. It’s a gritty area of the track, and pit road also has those same slick, sandy characteristics — especially as the weather turns warmer during the heat of the afternoon.
So while there might not be much guesswork with four-tire stops being the norm, the premium on precision in trying to change all four quickly is high.
“I think for us, it’s always a big race for the pit crews, obviously, because you know what you’ve got in front of you — you’re going to do four tires,” says Chris Burkey, Joe Gibbs Racing athletic director and a former pit-crew coach. “There’s really no strategy. Very rarely are you going to do the two-tire or fuel only. You’re going to come down here and it’s a man’s race, not only on the track, but for us. And we really look forward to races like this, because you’re going to do seven to eight pit stops this weekend. It’s 100 miles shorter than the one in the fall when you’re going to do 10 to 15 pit stops, right? But you know what you’ve got this week, and we really focus in on just doing four-tire pit stops.
“Man, if you can come out of here feeling good about what you did on pit road, you probably finished pretty well on the track, but we always look forward to Darlington. We always circle Darlington because it’s really a man’s race for us.”
Pit-stall selection — the reward for a solid qualifying lap — stands out as another key. Burkey said choosing a stall closer to the exit in Turn 1 is preferable, but that the spots to avoid are further toward the entrance at Turn 4. A section of six stalls in that area have a slight curvature to the wall, plus another barrier that juts out before teams make their way down the rest of pit road.
“Those are the more challenging ones,” says Burkey, who describes those half-dozen stalls as “an island.” “Obviously, we want our guys to qualify well, so we can get up toward the front and be on that frontstretch there. It’s pretty straightforward if you’re down there, but if you’re down on that Turn 4 exit there, they can be challenging.”
Expect a veteran presence up front. According to Racing Insights, every Darlington winner since 2006 has had a minimum of 100 career Cup Series starts. That was the case with both of last year’s Darlington victors — Brad Keselowski, who turned his 534th Cup Series start into his 36th win, and Chase Briscoe, who prevailed in the Southern 500 in Cup start No. 134 for his second premier-series victory.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
ERIK JONES. The Legacy Motor Club driver currently sits 29th in the early Cup Series standings, but his racing acumen at Darlington is among the circuit’s best. Two of Jones’ three Cup Series wins have come at Darlington (2019, 2022), and the track ranks tied for his best in top fives and top 10s and second-best in average finish (12.8). The 28-year-old driver has gone 86 starts since his last win, but Darlington has traditionally been one of his strong suits.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
Like Martinsville last week, Darlington is among the toughest tracks for building the best fantasy lineup because of the changing track conditions throughout practice. However, a few cars stood out, particularly Ryan Blaney who had the fastest car on 20-, 25- and 30-lap averages by nearly a tenth of a second on fellow competitors that made an extended run. Ryan Preece and Kyle Busch also performed well over the long haul, which Darlington is known for having. My only lineup changes this week are dropping Chris Buescher in favor of Busch and flipping William Byron to outrun Denny Hamlin in the featured matchups.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles. • Darlington Stripe’s history: The track’s outside-wall toughness, a 75-year tradition | Read more
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s Goodyear 400 | Read more
• Turning Point to Darlington: Keselowski the next veteran in line? | Read more
• Scenes and snapshots: Best photos from Darlington’s Throwback Weekend | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from the Darlington archives | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: All the vintage designs ready to hit the track | View gallery
DARLINGTON, S.C. — After diligently working through a 98-race winless streak over the last three NASCAR Xfinity Series seasons, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones reminded his competitors — and his fans — Saturday that he’s still a race winner and a title contender.
The well-liked 28-year-old Atlanta native took the lead on a restart with 12 laps remaining in Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 at the historic Darlington Raceway — beating 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott to the finish line by a healthy 1.105-second margin to hoist his first trophy since the Martinsville spring race on April, 8, 2022 — a span of 98 races.
The 1.366-mile Darlington track may be nicknamed “Too Tough to Tame,” but it certainly presented a tamer race than the series produced a week ago on the typically wild Martinsville half-miler. This weekend featured 14 lead changes among nine drivers — none of the changes up front a result of overly aggressive driving.
Instead, strategy, a fast car and unwavering belief in himself and his team made the difference for Jones.
“It’s nice for my confidence, right, but it’s also to prove to the haters and people that said I was incapable of doing it, wrong again,” said Jones, whose No. 20 JGR Toyota led 24 of the race’s 137 laps.
“This place is freaking awesome man, I love coming to Darlington,” he added, “Second win and just huge momentum. I knew we were on a high, just didn’t know when it was going to happen.”
Justin Allgaier, who led the most laps (56) on the afternoon and won Stage 2, finished third in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, followed by teammates Ross Chastain and rookie Carson Kvapil. The team, co-owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller, had all five of its Chevys in the top 10, with rookie Connor Zilisch finishing sixth and Sammy Smith ninth.
Rookies punctuated the top 10 despite it being the first time most of them had ever raced at the famously challenging venue. In addition to Kvapil and Zilisch, rookies Christian Eckes and Nick Sanchez claimed seventh and eighth place, with Smith and veteran Sheldon Creed rounding out the top 10.
Harrison Burton’s AM Racing team won the opening stage, and JGR’s Taylor Gray was credited with the Xfinity Fastest Lap (160.706 mph) of the day.
“I am proud of Brandon Jones, I know how hard the kid has worked, he’s done a good job and I’m happy to see him get to Victory Lane” said the reigning series champion Allgaier, who has now tied Hall of Famer Mark Martin with nine consecutive top 10s in Xfinity Series races at Darlington.
It’s been that kind of year for Allgaier. He’s finished top 10 in six of the last seven races of 2025, including back-to-back victories at Las Vegas and Homestead-Miami in March and a runner-up finish at Atlanta in February.
“Disappointed,” Allgaier conceded of his Darlington day, however, noting his Chevy’s speed was good and the team overcame an early race pit-road miscue.
“We were able to get the track position back, at least for the most part. But clean air was too important today. When we were up front, we had it. But I really needed the long runs and just didn’t have that at the end of the race today. Proud of everybody on our Brandt Chemical Chevrolet. We’re on a heckuva run with top fives right now.”
The series’ popular Dash 4 Cash incentive program returns with next Saturday’s SciAps 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway (5 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The highest finisher among Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill, Haas Factory Team’s Creed, Allgaier and Alpha Prime Racing’s Brennan Poole will win the Dash 4 Cash $100,000 bonus check from Xfinity, having earned eligibility based on their results at Martinsville last week.
Next week marks the first spring race at Bristol since 2019. Christopher Bell was the race winner.
NOTE: Post-race inspection was completed without issue in the Xfinity Series garage, confirming Brandon Jones as the race winner. The No. 20 Toyota had one lug nut not safe and secure, which will result in a monetary fine. The Nos. 00, 7 and 19 will be returned to the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, for teardown.
DARLINGTON, S.C. — NASCAR officials met with the entire field of Xfinity Series drivers early Friday morning before any on-track activity at Darlington Raceway — a meeting triggered by an incredibly aggressive showing for the series at the Martinsville Speedway short track a week ago — a race so chaotic that Chase Elliott — a former Xfinity Series and Cup Series champ — called it “embarrassing” for the sport.
Although aggressive moves characterized much of the second half of the race, a big wreck on the final lap started up front with the then-leaders — Joe Gibbs Racing’s Taylor Gray and JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith — precipitated angry confrontations post-race. Gray (off track) and Smith (on track) were both penalized for their actions.
Veteran Austin Hill was the big beneficiary of the on-track situation between the two, driving through the melee up front to claim his second win of the year — credited with only leading that last lap. Hill shared that the meeting went well and that he expects his fellow drivers to be more mindful of the way they race going forward, calling NASCAR very “firm” in its morning message.
“I think it’s going to calm down a lot more than you think today,” Hill said ahead of Saturday afternoon’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 at Darlington. “We’ll have to wait and see, but I think we’re all going to still be aggressive and trying to win the race, but it’s going to be a very respectful race.”
The next trip to Martinsville in late October determines which four playoff drivers advance to the Championship 4 with a shot to win the 2025 Xfinity Series title.
“NASCAR made it very clear they don’t want to be in the ball-and-strike business, they don’t want to be making all these calls, so they said for us to help them with that,” Hill said. “They [NASCAR] also said if they have to step in and start making calls and black-flagging people and parking people and all those things, they’ll do it. I agree with where NASCAR stands with that, but I also think we in the Xfinity Series need to do a better job going forward and not putting it in NASCAR’s hands.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — The last spring weekend Brad Keselowski spent in Darlington, he left South Carolina with a big trophy. It was the first victory the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion had earned as co-team owner at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. As importantly, it marked a highlight in a challenging new role as owner and driver.
Darlington, in particular, has been a recent highlight reel for Keselowski, whose average finish (6.4) in the last five races is best in the field. He has plenty of reason to be optimistic about this spring run of races — at Darlington, Bristol Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway — all venues where he is a multi-time winner.
He comes to South Carolina without a single lap led in 2025 and is still looking to claim his first top 10 of the season. His best showing in the No. 6 RFK Ford is 11th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He’s finished 26th in the two races (at Homestead-Miami and Martinsville) leading into Darlington.
“I feel like we’re doing all the right things and get to where we need to be, we just haven’t gotten the results,” said Keselowski, who qualified 20th for Sunday’s race. “We haven’t qualified as well as we liked to have.
“In the race, we haven’t been able to put together for a number of reasons, some of it in our control, a lot of it not in our control, so it’s been frustrating. But kind of have the feeling we’re getting the bad luck out of the way early in the season. That’s kind of the overwhelming sentiment and if we stay the course, it will come back to us.”
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Since the 2015 season, NASCAR’s premier series has honored the legends that have paved the way in the Cup Series with Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway.
That effort continues a decade later as paint schemes of the past will adorn Next Gen cars for 400 miles of racing action on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
From Earnhardt to Yarborough, the Cup Series garage is lined with colorful schemes and crew shirts alike, paying tribute to drivers and teams who came before them and have been influential in their desire to compete in motorsports — a tradition drivers feel is important to carry on.
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” Ryan Blaney said in his Saturday media availability. “I love to see what people come up with. Every year, there’s so many neat schemes from drivers or teams that have inspired a lot of people to be in the garage today that get to throw it back. And I love just walking through the garage. I really wish we wouldn’t announce it on X, I wish you just show up with it and then people see it in the garage for the first time, because that’d be a huge, neat reveal type situation.
“But you walk around the garage like, ‘Man, I remember that car as a kid,’ or ‘I’ve seen videos from that car from the ’70s or ’80s.’ That’s just really, really neat. So it still is very special, and the teams love doing it, and I hope the fans still enjoy it. I know they do.”
Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford has direct family connections to the 31-year-old this week as they don a throwback scheme to his father, Dave Blaney, and his 2006 Xfinity Series win at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Getty Images
Memories from Blaney’s childhood suddenly get thrust onto the NASCAR Cup Series stage, something that is important to him and carries significant weight to his family.
“I didn’t really know we were doing that,” Blaney said. “That was kind of a Penske surprise to me, so I thought that was pretty neat.
“Just neat that I can have the option to do that. And it meant a lot to my dad, a surprise to him. I remember that race. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there, but I was watching it on TV, and a couple of guys are still walking around the garage. They were part of that team. Trent Owens was the crew chief on that thing. He’s still around. So it means a lot. It’s cool when you can throw back to your family.”
Ryan Blaney is not the only driver competing on Sunday to have personal connections to his throwback paint scheme. Team Penske teammate Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford pays tribute to another three-time Cup champion, Cale Yarborough.
In 2009, when Logano was just a rookie in Cup competition, the now 34-year-old three-time title winner had the opportunity to take laps around Darlington in the passenger seat with Yarborough behind the wheel.
Rusty Jarrett | Getty Images
That memory is one Logano recalls fondly as a young driver looking to make it in the sport, gathering wisdom from one of the most successful drivers to race on Sundays.
“Yeah, Cale and I sat right here at one point,” Logano said at Darlington on Saturday. “It was a really neat experience to ride with him. You get some tips that are still useful today, the laps run around here, and I mean, ultimately, cool factor, though, right? I mean, riding in the passenger seat with Cale Yarborough driving you around as a rookie. The coolest thing. So kind of a full-circle experience here for me, thinking about that moment. Both of us had three championships. It felt like the timing was right to honor him and his family.”
The “cool factor” is an important sentiment to the drivers in the garage, but for Logano, honoring the history of the drivers that made it possible for the drivers we see today is the most important aspect and highlights the success of Throwback Weekend.
“It’s all too important to do,” Logano said. “I think, for me, obviously, this is a cool factor. I think we see that, but I think the part that’s even more meaningful is that in sports, a lot of times when an athlete retires, they kind of ride off into the sunset and unfortunately, get forgotten about fairly quickly.
“I think Throwback Weekend like this brings back those memories. It’s really cool for that driver to see their scheme back on the race track and a way for us to pay honor to the pioneers of our sport and the people who have built our sport. I think that’s what makes this weekend really special.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron won pole position for Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) — yet another supreme performance for his NASCAR Cup Series championship-leading No. 24 team.
Byron’s lap of 170.904 mph around the iconic 1.366-mile oval set a fast lap early in Busch Light Pole Qualifying Saturday afternoon and set up a front row that will also include Ryan Preece in the No. 60 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford, Preece’s best start since winning his only career pole position at Martinsville Speedway in spring 2023.
It’s the 15th pole position of the 27-year-old Byron’s eight-year career, his second of the season (Phoenix in March) and second at the notoriously tough Darlington track.
“I felt good about it today, felt like we had a good plan going into practice and that we are always strong here,’’ said this year’s Daytona 500 winner Byron, who won at Darlington in 2023 and said it may well be his “best track.”
“Tried to find a decent balance there, worked on it and got better and finished practice pretty strong, so I felt like I had some confidence going into practice. Was just nervous going early. Having an earlier draw was not ideal, but it seemed like the track temp was going up so it wasn’t the worst thing. … Proud of our team, we had a really good week of prep.”
Although Chevy and Ford split the front row, Toyotas filled out the rest of the top five on the grid. Last week’s Martinsville winner Denny Hamlin — Darlington’s winningest active driver (four wins) — was third-fastest in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. His teammate, Daytona 500 polesitter Chase Briscoe, was fourth quickest in the No. 19 JGR Toyota, followed by 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who will roll off fifth in the No. 23 Toyota that Hamlin co-owns.
Austin Cindric will start sixth in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, followed by 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick (Toyota), Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch (Chevrolet), Penske’s Ryan Blaney (Ford) and Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell (Chevrolet).
Although the Hendrick team is ranked first, second (Kyle Larson), third (Chase Elliott) and fifth (Alex Bowman) in the championship points, his teammates did not fare as well in Saturday’s time trials. Elliott will start 19th. Larson, who won at Darlington in 2023, will start 19th, and Bowman will roll off 33rd.
“It may be tricky strategy-wise and you can get stuck back there, so [qualifying] matters maybe just a tick more than other places,” Byron said, noting his teammates. “These cars are really finicky, so hitting the balance and just hitting the lap the way you want it to be can be really difficult. So I’m not surprised because there’s a lot of parity in the Next Gen era and especially in qualifying so you can be just that little bit off.
“I feel like our team has really good notes from qualifying, though, and that will really help.”
Defending race winner Brad Keselowski, co-owner and driver of Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s No. 6 Ford will start 20th.
Hocevar fastest in practice
Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar topped the leaderboard in practice at 168.054 mph, besting Josh Berry (167.180 mph) and Erik Jones (167.123 mph).
Austin Cindric (166.777 mph) and Justin Haley (166.552 mph) rounded out the top five.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (April 4, 2025) – NASCAR and Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park have postponed this weekend’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event as a forecast for inclement weather impacts the region for the second weekend in a row. The race has been rescheduled for Wednesday, April 16. The start time will be announced at a later date.
The Icebreaker 150 was originally scheduled for March 30, but had been postponed to this Saturday, April 5, due to a poor forecast for last weekend.
The entire second portion of the 51st Icebreaker at Thompson Speedway (originally scheduled for Sunday, March 30) will be postponed again to the new Wednesday, April 16, date.
For updated event information as available, fans may go to nascar.com/regional.
David Pearson and his generation of stock-car racers had a special word for it — “fenderprints,” comparing the bewitching art of hustling a car around Darlington Raceway to finger-painting with a metal body panel. Pearson would know, as a South Carolina native, a NASCAR Hall of Famer and one of the track’s all-time royals with a record 10 Cup Series victories there.
“You could see paint in two places,” Pearson told the Florence Morning News in 1999. “First, when you were driving around the race track in the race car, you’d see different colors of paint on the guard rail. You could also take a stroll in the garage area and look at the right-rear quarterpanels of the car. Sure enough, there would be black marks on the rear quarterpanels.”
The custom of fenderprints has been around ever since Harold Brasington first opened the track’s doors for business in 1950. That tradition has spanned all seven generations of NASCAR stocker, and its name is synonymous with racing on the ragged edge of velocity and bravery. It’s also an initiation into an exclusive society that walks the fine line between derring-do and damage.
It’s now and always known as the “Darlington Stripe.”
Darlington Raceway continues the celebration of its 75th anniversary season this weekend with drivers ready to leave their literal and figurative marks on Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Woe betide the track’s workers, tasked with keeping the outside retaining walls coated with fresh paint after each day of NASCAR’s Throwback Weekend, when the sport’s best christen the barrier with scuff marks in the continual search for speed at one of the circuit’s most difficult layouts. Making fast time around the track labeled “Too Tough to Tame” is like trying to fold a fitted bedsheet: Good luck being meticulous. Expect wrinkles.
“I left a lot of blue paint on that wall,” King Richard Petty reminisced during last month’s unveiling of an anniversary exhibit at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Petty was fortunate and talented enough to be a three-time winner during his long career, one where he gathered his share of Darlington Stripes along the way.
His son, Kyle, has fewer endearing memories of navigating the lopsided oval, and his assessment of Darlington’s dastardly side became the 1995 equivalent of meme-worthy in a post-crash interview.
“I’ve said it before, I think they ought to fill this place up with water to the outside retaining wall, dump bass in it and have pro bass tournaments in here and sell seats in the grandstands right there, let people just watch them fish all day long,” Petty told ESPN. “Be fine with me, but I’ll tell you this, as bad as this place is, you could stock this thing with a million fish. Wouldn’t nobody catch one.”
Drivers from the front of the field to the back of the pack have been humbled by the ever-evolving Darlington Stripe for generations. With the track’s diamond-anniversary celebration already in full swing, the tales those imposing walls could tell are worth the retelling.
“I left a lot of paint on that guard rail over the years,” veteran Dave Marcis said, referencing his history of fenderprints in 1999, “but it was not a work of art.”
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‘The greatest test of raw nerve’
When Glen Wood showed up for the 1965 Southern 500, his family-owned team brought a brand-new No. 21 Ford in a deep shade of red that resembled a candied apple. Marvin Panch put the Wood Brothers’ entry on the second row in qualifying, and the team’s prospects that year looked as good as the car.
“It’s the prettiest car we’ve ever had,” Glen Wood said, “but I know the side will get crushed at Darlington.”
Panch’s engine expired before any substantial damage could be done, but such were the team’s expectations for right-side scrapes from what the sport’s pioneers termed “old Darlington.”
In those days, the “Darlington Stripe” more commonly referred to a section of what was then Turn 3. The order of the turns shifted after officials moved the start/finish line to the other side of the track in 1997, so it’s now Turn 1 on the wider-arcing eastern side of the course.
Back then, the track was ringed with curved guard rail, and the groove — hard as it is to imagine — was even more narrow than it is today. Touching the wall and earning a stripe was almost regarded as a performance advantage; skilled drivers would tick, tap or glance off the rail, which was viewed as a necessary trade-off in order to carry the prerequisite amount of speed to be competitive.
“It was a one-groove race track back then and you could pick up speed especially in the old Turns 3 and 4 by hitting the wall and bouncing off,” Pearson said in 1999. “I think all of us would put extra braces on the right-rear of the car because we knew we’d be hitting that railing a few times.”
According to Darlington folklore, Red Byron — the first NASCAR Cup Series champion — was the first to discover the performance merits of acquiring a stripe, bruising his Raymond Parks-owned Cadillac to a third-place finish in the first Southern 500 back in 1950. Amazingly, officials started 75 cars that day, then came back the next year with an 82-car field.
Still, the track’s history books don’t have an official account for where the phrase “Darlington Stripe” originated. One of the first known references in newsprint came in 1963 from raceway publicist Russ Catlin, who told the Columbia Record that “usually when a driver takes the third turn, known to many as the Darlington Stripe, he will sideswipe the rail if he’s going at too high a speed.”
During that era, the starting grid was often dotted by cars with pre-emptive stripes, decorated by drivers who tangled with the barrier in practice or qualifying sessions. While Pearson suggested reinforcing the right side of his cars, Fireball Roberts had a more novel idea: “If I could put roller skates on the side of my car, the turn would be perfect.”
“The third turn at Darlington is the greatest test of raw nerve at any race track, anywhere,” said Bobby Isaac, who eventually became a Hall of Famer but was still an up-and-comer when he spoke with the Greensboro News & Record in 1964. “You have to get the feel of that corner. You have to feel the car slap up against the wall for that brief moment before you know inside yourself that you’re really running hard.”
Press pundits predicted that the Darlington Stripe would cease to exist in 1969 after a repaving and renovation project. When the new asphalt was sealed, officials made a slight increase to the banking and widened the racing surface spanning Turns 3 and 4. The track was remeasured the following year, and the 1 3/8-mile length was adjusted to the 1.366 miles that’s been the listed distance to this day.
Instead of fading away, the Darlington Stripe merely switched corners. As speeds increased through the decades, so did the tendency for cars to rap the barrier at nearly every turn.
“You ask me how I drive Darlington? Well, I’ll tell you,” Richard Petty told The Charlotte News in 1971. “I drive into the first turn and then I hit the wall, and I go down the backstretch and I get through the third turn and then I go into the fourth turn and I hit the wall twice.”
Darlington’s design went without major changes until the 2004 season, when officials installed the Steel And Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier system as a safety measure. The crash-absorbing outer wall was met with some initial criticism from the old guard, wary about how the already narrow racing surface would be reduced nearly 30 inches by the extra buffer.
“The potential is there for a lot more Darlington Stripes,” Ricky Craven told The State in 2004, a year after his legendary victory over Kurt Busch at the track. “It’s going to be challenging. I’m not going to pretend that it’s not. On the flip side, I’m not going to take issue with a change or an effort to make the sport safer. That doesn’t make sense.”
As usual, NASCAR’s top drivers adapted. The current age of stock-car pilots still press the boundaries of tenacity and fender durability with each hot-paced lap around the joint.
The track may have evolved through the years, but the formula for making time there hasn’t. It’s a recipe that’s kept drivers on alert and kept fans coming back for decades, and it’s unlikely to ever change.
“No one would dare touch up the Mona Lisa,” Darrell Waltrip told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. “The track at Darlington shouldn’t be tampered with either.”
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‘Rite of passage’
Chase Briscoe remembers the time he earned his first Darlington Stripe. Late in his first full season of Xfinity Series competition in 2019, he finished a respectable sixth, but not before cresting the edge of control while racing one of the sport’s superstars.
Briscoe’s first Darlington victory came less than a year later after an emotional late-race battle with Kyle Busch. His most recent Darlington triumph was another memorable one, a playoff-clinching win in 2024 that gave Stewart-Haas Racing its final Victory Lane visit in the Cup Series. But his recollection of that first scrape at Darlington still stands out, like a letter of acceptance into a secret society.
“I survived practice and qualifying, didn’t get one,” said Briscoe, who is primed for his first Darlington start with Joe Gibbs Racing this weekend. “In the race, I got one racing with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., and I was like, ‘Man, that’s like a rite of passage right there. Like, I got my first Darlington Stripe racing against Dale Jr.’ But yeah, I remember it being like, OK, it’s not as bad as I thought. I hadn’t really ran at that point anywhere where you ran on the fence other than Homestead, and my one start there, I never got in the wall, so I didn’t really know what it was going to be like to get in the fence. And now, I mean, you use it all the time.”
Other remembrances from current drivers are less fond. AJ Allmendinger has 13 Darlington starts on his Cup Series resume, dating back to 2007 and his debut with Team Red Bull. He’s still looking for his first top-10 finish there, but the hunt for his first Darlington Stripe wasn’t a prolonged search.
“It was the first lap I got out there,” Allmendinger says. “Yeah, I think when I was in the 84 (Red Bull) car, the second lap I hit the wall in practice, and they’re like, ‘Nah, it’s fine. You’re supposed to do that.’ Then the third lap, I really hit it, they’re like, ‘OK, that’s still OK.’ And then the fourth lap, I KO’d it, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, kid, that’s too much,’ and to be quite honest, I still feel that way when I show up to that place. I still don’t really know how to get around it. So it is definitely unique.
“I don’t know if I’ll go the extreme of Kyle Petty filling it up with water and doing a bass fishing tournament out of it. It’s definitely a tough race track that I’m constantly still trying to learn how to drive.”
The modern-day crop of Cup Series drivers is a different breed from their old-school predecessors, but twice a year at Darlington, the new school turns back the clock. Fittingly, those two trips are special dates on the NASCAR calendar — this weekend’s official throwback festivities and the traditional Labor Day weekend Southern 500, one of the sport’s first crown-jewel races and the opener to the Cup Series Playoffs.
Darlington has meant plenty to the foundation of stock car racing, ushering in the speedway boom of the 1960s and the sport’s eventual growth toward larger, more modern facilities in the eras that followed. What hasn’t changed in its 75 years is one of the track’s signature traits — the bodywork creases that separate the contenders from the also-rans, the courageous from the meek, and that delicate balance between heartbreak and sheer hustle.
“When I heard about the Darlington Stripe, I remember people calling the drivers artists on asphalt,” nine-time Darlington winner Dale Earnhardt told the Florence Morning News in 1999. “Well, back then, they may have painted a pretty picture, but today, if you get in the wall, your car is going to look abstract. But that’s just a part of Darlington. The track will never change, and as long as race cars keep trying to tame it, the Darlington Stripe will continue to live.”
