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.”
NASCAR Research & Archives Center | Getty Images
‘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.”
Robert Laberge | Getty Images
‘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.”
If there’s ever a venue poised to bring its A-game action following last Saturday evening’s race at Martinsville Speedway, the NASCAR Xfinity Series should be in good shape with Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 (3 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Darlington Raceway.
The venerable 1.366-mile track has a fantastic history of high drama and important races.
Reigning Xfinity Series champion, driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, Justin Allgaier shows up at Darlington with the championship lead by 41 points over Haas Factory Team driver Sam Mayer in second and 47 points over Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill in third, who collected his second win of the season at Martinsville and joins Allgaier as the only other driver to win multiple races this season.
Sixth in the championship is 18-year-old Connor Zilisch, driver of the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet, who announced Thursday he will make his second Cup Series start for Trackhouse Racing in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Memorial Day weekend.
Five different drivers have won the last five Darlington Xfinity Series races. Allgaier is the defending spring race winner and his three trophies at the “Track Too Tough to Tame” are the most among full-timers. He is on an eight-race streak of top-10 finishes at Darlington — one away from matching Hall of Famer Mark Martin’s record.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones is the only other full-time series driver with a Darlington victory in 2020. Last year, Allgaier beat Hill to the checkered flag by a full 3.4 seconds. Mayer finished fourth. RCR has never won an Xfinity Series race at Darlington but has five runner-up finishes — two from Hill.
Of note, the Stage 1 winner has gone on to win four of the last five races at the track.
The series is coming off an emotionally charged short-track event at Martinsville, where Hill led only the last lap to claim the win — surging forward after aggressive contact between race leaders JGR’s Taylor Gray and JRM’s Sammy Smith derailed their days.
Both Gray and Smith were subsequently penalized this week for actions at Martinsville — after the race (Gray) and for contact during the race (Smith).
A handful of Cup Series drivers will be on the Xfinity Series grid this week, including Chase Elliott, Ross Chastain and Christopher Bell, who won last year’s Xfinity Series race at Darlington in the fall from the pole position.
Practice is scheduled for 10:05 a.m. ET on Saturday morning followed immediately by qualifying at 11:10 a.m. ET. The CW App will air both sessions.
First and foremost, Sunday belonged to Denny Hamlin, who drove to Victory Lane at Martinsville Speedway for the first time in a decade to claim his first win of 2025 — and set his course toward capturing that elusive first career championship.
But it was a great day for Hamlin’s allies, too. While his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell finished second (albeit a distant 4.62 seconds back), Bubba Wallace, who drives for the 23XI Racing team Hamlin co-owns, came home third to complete a Toyota lock-out on the podium.
For Wallace, the Martinsville run was more than just a solid day at the track. It continued a stretch of early performances this season that have him looking as strong as he ever has in his Cup career. Though he is still looking for his first win since Kansas in 2022 — 86 races ago — there are plenty of signs Bubba’s drought could end soon … perhaps even this weekend.
If it feels like the No. 23 has been a fixture up front all season, it’s not your imagination. Despite leading zero laps Sunday, Wallace joined Hamlin, Bell and Kyle Larson as the only drivers to spend 100% of the race running in the top 15. This came on the heels of the previous week’s race at Homestead, where Bubba spent 94% of his laps running in the top 15. Overall, he’s run 72.2% of all possible laps this season in the top 15, which ranks fifth among regular drivers — trailing Tyler Reddick (88.1%), Kyle Larson (83.6%), William Byron (78.8%) and Ryan Blaney (73.2%):
This tracks with plenty of other numbers indicating a career year for Wallace in 2025, his fifth season at 23XI and ninth in the Cup Series. I wrote a few years ago that Wallace was already an above-average driver, according to metrics such as average finish, Adjusted Points+ index (where average is always set to 100) and Driver Rating (where average is around 70.0). But he’s only gotten better since then. Despite the ongoing winless streak, Wallace is currently on pace for career-best marks in:
Average start (10.7; previous best was 12.4 in 2023)
Average running position (11.1; previous best was 14.9 in 2024)
Share of possible laps led (5.4%; previous best was 3.1% in 2023)
Share of possible laps in top 15 (72.2%; previous best was 61.2% in 2023)
Standings rank (8th; previous best was 10th in 2023)
Adjusted Points+ index (127; previous best was 121 in 2024)
Average Driver Rating (87.9; previous best was 79.6 in 2023)
Speaking of Driver Rating, it tells us something else important about Wallace’s evolution as a driver. If we dig deeper, we see that he hasn’t just improved his overall performance level this season, but he’s also improved within each category of track type relative to earlier phases of his career. Here are the Driver Rating splits by track type for Bubba in three different eras of his time in Cup — the Richard Petty Motorsports era (2017-20) when he first broke in, his early years at 23XI (2021-24) and his run in 2025:
Granted, we only have a sample size of one race on a short track this season — but as we already noted, it was a good one for Wallace this past weekend. Meanwhile, he’s also hit his usual solid marks at superspeedways (I’m counting Atlanta in that group), and a very strong run at Homestead — a season-high 118.7 Driver Rating while finishing third — offset a few tougher outings at Phoenix and Las Vegas among the ovals. Plus, Bubba even drove to a solidly mid-pack day (his average running position was 18th) at COTA, which isn’t bad by his standards at a road course, his weakest track type by far.
All of this speaks to Wallace becoming a more well-rounded and consistent contender week-to-week, across the wide variety of tracks drivers encounter in the schedule. That’s especially true early in the season — with the schedule landing on more non-ovals than ovals. Traditionally, Bubba has been a slow starter before finding more pace in the second half of the season, but he had a 136 Adjusted Points+ index in the first quarter of the schedule last year and he’s off to a comparable start this year.
The only thing missing is a return trip to Victory Lane for Wallace, who has the highest average Driver Rating of any active Cup driver without a win since the start of 2023. And that would seem to be just a matter of time, as metrics like average running position (where Bubba ranks third this season behind Byron and Reddick) and Driver Rating are highly predictive of future finishes. To try to estimate when his best chance may be, I ran each remaining race through my track-scouting projection system — which uses performance at a particular track, and all of its similar tracks, to predict Driver Rating in any given upcoming race. Here are Bubba’s week-by-week projections over the rest of the 2025 season:
By a stroke of coincidence, one of Wallace’s best projected tracks happens to be coming up immediately at Darlington. While he’s never won there, Bubba has finished 16th or better in each of his past five races at “The Track Too Tough To Tame,” including top 10s in four of them. Additionally, he has posted Driver Ratings in the 90s in each of his past four Darlington starts. And Homestead — one of Darlington’s other two somewhat similar tracks — has been Bubba’s best track by average Driver Rating (95.5) in the Next Gen era. (That’s less the case for Dover, Darlington’s other similar track, where Bubba’s rating is just 68.4, but Darlington is also a fairly unique track in general.)
All of this points to the potential for a Bubba breakthrough in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), which would validate all of those laps he’s put in at the front of the field this season. And if it doesn’t happen at Darlington, he’ll have plenty more chances soon — with a run of favorable ovals and superspeedways on the horizon before the next road course appears on the calendar. Either way, this season is shaping up to be a career year for Wallace.
1. Is Brad Keselowski the next driver to score on Father Time?
The RFK Racing driver/co-owner is enjoying watching the success of his fellow teammates but has lagged so far to start 2025, with the 2012 champ currently sitting 30th in the standings after seven races. Is a turnaround coming for the 41-year-old?
After witnessing 44-year-old Denny Hamlin turn back the clock and turn in a vintage masterpiece at Martinsville Speedway, could there be another driver set to climb victory mountain — or is he just over the hill?
Brad Keselowski’s 2025 season has thus far been one of frustration and unmet expectations, seeing both of his teammates — and, as their team co-owner, employees — look strong early on while he’s barely holding onto a top-30 position in the Cup Series standings. With the series heading to Darlington Raceway for Sunday’s Goodyear 400, however, the veteran driver may find himself on the brink of a breakthrough.
In an era so focused on younger talent emerging sooner and sooner (hello, Connor Zilisch), Hamlin reminded the racing world on Sunday that age and experience can still triumph in a sport increasingly dominated by wunderkinder.
Keselowski’s struggles this season have been well-documented. Through seven races, the 2012 Cup champion has yet to record a top-10 finish or lead a single lap, both unprecedented lows for the perennial contender. His average finish of 25.1 is on track to be easily the worst of his career. The No. 6 team’s lack of speed has been glaring, with Keselowski’s average starting position of 25.0 ranking among the lowest in the field, and he’s exactly 25th in speed for the season per NASCAR Insights.
Yet, Darlington offers Keselowski a prime opportunity to turn his season around.
RFK has proven formidable at the “Lady in Black” of late and No. 6 enters, believe it or not, as the defending winner of the race, having snapped a cold streak of 111 winless races last spring. Keselowski’s 11.05 average finish at Darlington, one of NASCAR’s most notoriously difficult tracks, is the sixth-best … ever. Naturally, he enters Sunday amid yet another drought, with that victory standing as his lone win since 2021.
This is not to say that I’m calling Kes’ shot for him and predicting that a driver who hasn’t sniffed a solid run will, out-of-nowhere, win one of the sport’s hardest races (though I sure wouldn’t rule it out), but more so that it feels like the spot where he’ll turn the corner and start putting the pieces together, with more strong tracks ahead for him.
After Darlington, the series heads to Bristol Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, where Keselowski’s win count between the two is nearly in double-digits at nine total. This stretch mirrors the part of last season when he hit his stride, with a P3 at Bristol and runner-up at Talladega (and Texas! and then Charlotte!) hopping on alongside his Darlington win.
History suggests that veteran drivers often find ways to shine at this point in the schedule; nine drivers have snapped winless streaks of 50 or more races at Darlington alone, and his isn’t quite that long this time around. Hamlin’s win at Martinsville ended a 31-race drought of his own and proved that even in their 40s, NASCAR’s elder statesmen can still deliver when it matters most. The question now is whether he can follow Hamlin’s lead.
Everyone knows that Father Time is undefeated in the long run — but that doesn’t mean he can’t be scored upon, and we just saw Hamlin put points on the board.
They each know he’ll come for them eventually, but Keselowski may be poised to remind everyone that sometimes, just sometimes, Father Time can be made to wait just a little longer.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
2. Darlington set to bring the drama in retro classic
As NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway gears up for Throwback Weekend, chaos, redemption and unpredictable finishes await at the “Lady in Black,” where nine different winners in nine races have proven no driver can fully corral the track “Too Tough to Tame.”
Few tracks embody the spirit of NASCAR quite like Darlington Raceway.
This historic venue has been the stage for some of NASCAR’s most memorable moments, spanning decades of racing down in South Carolina at what was once considered a behemoth by track-size standards.
As the Cup Series heads to Darlington for the eighth race of the 2025 season, the Goodyear 400 feels like a slam dunk to deliver yet another dramatic chapter in the track’s storied legacy after a roaring start to the year and the track’s twice-annual degree of unpredictability set to ratchet up the stakes even further into the spring.
The numbers behind Darlington’s chaos are staggering. In four of the last five races, the driver who led the most laps finished 25th or worse, a trend that illustrates how quickly fortunes can change at this egg-shaped oval. Even stage winners have struggled to convert their dominance into victories; eight of the 12 stage winners in the Next Gen era have also finished outside the top 25. Last year’s Southern 500 featured 26 lead changes, the most at Darlington since 2008, and it’s not too difficult to see that trend continuing.
Adding to Darlington’s mystique is its knack for snapping winless streaks. Nine drivers have broken droughts of 50 or more races at this track, including both winners last year — Keselowski as mentioned above, but also regular-season finale winner Chase Briscoe. Darlington offers a chance for any driver who stumbled out of the gate but is willing to get their elbows dirty to reset their season and capitalize on a history of delivering redemption. Kyle Busch, enduring his career-long winless streak of 64 races, obviously, comes to mind immediately here.
All that said, the track does still seem to favor the sport’s superstars, and it’ll be hard to top, for starters, Martinsville winner Hamlin, the driver to beat at Darlington. No. 11 has ridden to four Victory Lane dances with “The Lady,” compiling an all-time best 8.2 average finish there.
As NASCAR celebrates its history with retro paint schemes this weekend, it feels like a weekend ahead where more history will be made. Whether it’s another first-time winner or a veteran snapping a long drought, drama will surely be delivered.
Brad Keselowski shares his excitement after winning the Goodyear 400 and talks about the battle between Tyler Reddick and Chris Buescher.
4. Denny doesn’t make his crew chiefs wait long
The honeymoon stage is often a fruitful one for Denny Hamlin and his crew chiefs, whenever a new one has been installed. He’s nevernotwon in his first season with a new shot caller, and, more often than not, wins almost immediately. (Credit: Racing Insights)
CrewChief
Starts
Wins
Race No. of first win
Chris Gabehart
209
22
2
Mike Ford
223
17
21
Darian Grubb
97
7
2
Mike Wheeler
112
5
7
Dave Rogers
36
2
6
Sam McAulay
8
2
5
Chris Gayle
7
1
7
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
CONCORD, N.C. — After a few days to debrief, Ross Chastain took time Wednesday afternoon to address Joey Logano’s post-race comments after the defending Cup champ felt the No. 1 driver was the primary factor that led to his spin from sixth place during the final stage of last Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway.
The Team Penske driver had blamed Chastain for blocking Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe out of the entrance of Turn 3, resulting in his No. 19 Toyota bumping the back of the No. 1 Chevrolet, but Briscoe caught the inside curbing in doing so to send him into the side of Logano’s Ford. The three-time Cup champion unloaded on Chastain in post-race interviews, saying, “He just races like a jackass every week, and I keep paying the price. I’m sick of paying the price.”
Chastain was asked about the comments from his fellow NASCAR Cup Series veteran during his afternoon media availability at NASCAR’s Production Facility.
“I am confused by what he said. I don’t believe that the 19 [Briscoe] was trying to get to me,” said Chastain, currently 13th in points. “When I got down in front of the 22 the first time, there was a gap. Other guys had done that to me. That’s a very common move to get down in line. He took that opportunity to, I think, hit me harder than he needed to.
“I just couldn’t believe what they were saying and what they were telling me what he said. I would hope that he looked at it and had a little clearer mind. I mean, he’s a three-time champ. He can say what he wants. But those words have a lot of weight and to just get out and spew that, call me those names, is not appreciated, not warranted and honestly pretty disappointing that he would do that. To take feelings he had from COTA and other races and then take Martinsville, get out and just blast.”
Chastain believes Logano was carrying frustration from other races and particularly on-track actions from the Cup Series’ third race of the season at Circuit of The Americas. Logano felt Chastain forced another car into making contact with the No. 22 Ford late in that race as well. The Trackhouse Racing driver owned up to what he did then, but felt the Martinsville situation was completely different.
“COTA is kind of like, a lot of running into people, and to blame a car two cars back, OK. He can do it and I took it. He can have that,” Chastain said. “Then here [Martinsville], I wrecked him from in front of him? It’s like he’s hearing footsteps when I’m not there.
“He said on his interview he didn’t want to talk to me, and I’m not going to call him. I don’t need to call him. The whole calling, texting, clearing, it’s tiring at times. So, pretty disappointed to hear a guy like that, his caliber, his experience, just blast that stuff out there. Personally, I don’t feel that I need to defend myself or like I’m not going to get on and make a response.”
The two drivers have generally had a quiet on-track relationship, and Chastain even admitted that aside from a few aggressive blocks and a lengthy pit-road conversation at Kansas Speedway back in 2021, he and Logano have raced each other great. However, Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) will be a good indication if there are any lingering feelings from last week and how the two might race each other going forward this season.
CONCORD, N.C. — Kyle Larson unveiled the looks of his NASCAR Cup Series No. 5 car and No. 17 NTT IndyCar Series ride Wednesday for his second attempt at completing the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 double on Memorial Day weekend.
Larson was joined by Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman Jeff Gordon at the NASCAR Productions Facility to reveal the paint schemes for his respective vehicles for what the team has dubbed the #Hendrick1100 presented by Prime Video.
On May 25, Larson will attempt to compete in the 200-lap, 500-mile Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the open-wheel No. 17 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet before flying from Indiana to North Carolina, where he then plans to drive the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the 400-lap, 600-mile Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway that same evening.
“They look great,” Larson told reporters after a Wednesday livestream. “The IndyCar, to me, I love it because I don’t think I’ve seen an IndyCar quite have this much detail to it before. So it looks sweet. And then obviously, the Cup car looks awesome as well. They look fast, and I’m sure they’ll be fast.”
The blue and white colors of HendrickCars.com, Larson’s primary sponsor in NASCAR competition, highlight his Indy 500 ride while Arrow McLaren’s papaya orange dons its nose, along with stripes down the side of the machine. Additionally, Prime Video is featured atop the vehicle’s side pods and its front wings as a presenting sponsor. That evening, the Coca-Cola 600 will be the first Cup race streamed exclusively on Prime Video at 6 p.m. ET (Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Prime Video has also greenlit a feature-length documentary following Larson’s double attempt.
Larson’s Cup car for the Coke 600 will feature its traditional blue nose with HendrickCars.com donned across its hood, and its blue No. 5 will be accented by the papaya orange of Arrow McLaren to bring the IndyCar essence to NASCAR. The orange stripes will also streak across the corners of the car’s nose and doors, while the blue-and-orange No. 5 sits atop a white roof.
“That’s the cool part, is seeing them both together at once,” Gordon said. “I mean, you see the differences of the cars themselves, but to see the paint schemes tied together, I mean, that’s a lot of fun for the marketing folks. They put a lot of effort into how that (came together). And that’s what makes this, I think, really unique, is to be able to have both teams intricately involved, partners from both (teams) intricately involved, paint schemes matching. I mean, it’s a full-blown effort to pull this off.”
This year marks Larson’s second consecutive attempt at the Memorial Day double. The 2021 Cup champion qualified fifth and finished 18th in his inaugural Indy 500 start in 2024, but a weather delay in Indianapolis pushed the race back, causing Larson to arrive late for his NASCAR Cup Series duties. By the time Larson arrived at the No. 5 team’s pit box to replace substitute driver Justin Allgaier, rain had hit Charlotte Motor Speedway and cut the event short before Larson could even strap into his stock car. After starting from the rear, Allgaier wheeled the No. 5 car to a 13th-place finish when the race was called after 249 of a scheduled 400 laps.
Because of the logistical hiccups that derailed the 2024 attempt, Larson said he is just as excited to participate this year because last year’s efforts never came to fruition.
“It was really, really cool to get to run the Indy 500,” Larson said. “And I’m glad that I get to be buried someday knowing that I ran the Indy 500, but I want to do both. That’s why I did it last year was I wanted to do both. I think that’s why I was so bummed last year, also, is that I just didn’t get to do it. I hope that it all works out this year and we can do it and complete all the laps and get to run both races.”
Gordon, a NASCAR Hall-of-Famer and four-time Cup champion, said the original contract with Arrow McLaren was built as a two-year deal with opt-out options and a grace period to consider if indeed there would be a Year 2 of this project. Team took “a month or two” to determine its next steps before ultimately deciding to move forward.
“It just felt unfinished,” Gordon added. “Unfinished business for Kyle, unfinished business for Rick (Hendrick, team owner), for Hendrick, for Arrow McLaren. I mean, if you don’t complete 1,100 (miles), then it’s not over.”
The ongoing documentary process also factored into the team’s decision to chase the double one more time.
“I mean, that definitely played a role,” Gordon said. “We’re investing a lot in time and effort in capturing all this content, it’s not a program without finishing it. We could have told that story, but obviously you want to see it play out differently. And so I think this gives a good opportunity to close the loop on that and really have a full-length documentary.”
In last year’s iteration of the Indy 500, Larson was running sixth with 70 laps to go when green-flag pit stops began. But a pit-road speeding penalty sank Larson down the running order and off the lead lap. As Larson recalls, his brake pedal “bottomed out,” locking up his right-front wheel while coming to pit entry and ultimately derailing a strong debut performance.
A racer of all trades from dirt sprint cars to asphalt Cup cars, open-wheeled machines to IMSA sports cars, Larson felt incredibly well-prepared for last year’s event. With another chance sitting just under two months away, Larson returns with confidence and comfort to the IndyCar paddock.
“Nothing really surprised me,” Larson said. “The restarts and all that are different, but I felt like I got a handle of that after the first couple. I feel confident that I can get up to speed quickly again. I will have to learn the hybrid system, but I hope it’s not too complicated, but we’ll see. We’ll have the open test here in a few weeks and hopefully get up to speed quickly.”
Larson earned his first Cup victory of 2025 on March 23 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the 30th win of his career. He currently sits second in the points standings, 16 markers behind teammate William Byron ahead of Sunday’s race at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NASCAR will gather its Xfinity Series drivers this weekend to review the caution-plagued race at Martinsville Speedway that ended with a retaliatory crash on the last lap.
“Our plans are before we run the event (Saturday) at Darlington is to have a meeting with all the Xfinity Series drivers, just the drivers only,” Xfinity Series managing director Eric Peterson said during an episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast. “We had one of these meetings at Daytona prior to the season starting. I feel like it went pretty well. We’ve had six really good races to start off the Xfinity Series season in 2025. And unfortunately, Martinsville was our seventh and didn’t go quite as good.
“And some of that, obviously, is a product of the short track that is Martinsville Speedway and the beating and banging that goes on there. But there were some other things in the race that were certainly pushing the boundaries of clean, good, hard racing.”
While the actions of Taylor Gray and Sammy Smith (who was docked 50 points and fined $25,000 for wrecking Gray from the lead) drew the most attention, Peterson said there was dubious driving throughout the field. He noted that the longest green-flag run after the first two caution flags was eight laps.
“So that’s obviously not what we’re looking for,” Peterson said. “So we’re certainly going to talk to the drivers and address that and obviously get their feedback on how they feel it went and what we can do going forward to make that better to get back to the good, hard, clean racing Xfinity Series is known for.”
During the podcast, Peterson and NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde also explained NASCAR didn’t penalize Smith immediately after the race because the last-lap timing of the incident made it difficult to gather all of the facts in a timely manner.
“We do have a lot of tools at our disposal between in the tower we’d have some camera angles we can look at, but waiting allows us the time to look at driver and team audio and SMT data and driver interviews to put the whole piece of the puzzle together before making this decision,” Peterson said. “I think the most important thing is that we get the decision right instead of having the decision right now.”
Forde said it would be a “nightmare scenario” if NASCAR made a call that affected the outcome of a race, and evidence later emerged that undermined the decision.
“I think the example of a scenario that could happen is if we took a car back to postrace tech, and that the brake pedal went all the way to the floor (because) the brakes just went out and that’s why that happened, and we DQ’d or black flagged that car and took the win away,” Forde said. “There’s no coming back from that. So in this instance, I think that’s where the decision was made. We looked at it and said, ‘Hey, let’s get the facts first here.’ I think there will be scenarios in the future where we do use the black flag, but we erred on the side of caution on that one.”
Peterson said NASCAR still would issue in-race penalties (such as holding a car for a lap or sending it to the rear) “if the circumstance is obvious. … The high-stakes decisions, especially at the end of the race, we just need to make sure that we have all the facts before we pull the trigger on that decision so that we ensure that we’re making the right decision.”
Forde said NASCAR officials also would talk to Xfinity team owners and principals this weekend about Martinsville.
“I think there are going to be some conversations over the weekend saying, ‘Hey, listen, this is also on you to help fix this problem,’ ” Forde said. “And it’s really the entire garage. I think NASCAR plays a role in trying to fix this. The drivers need to self-police. Spotters need to be involved. Crew chiefs need to be involved, and team principals and owners need to be involved. And I think everyone needs to understand that this is just not on NASCAR to fix this problem.
“Everyone needs to step up and understand that these actions shouldn’t be tolerated. And if it happens again, then you’re going to be battered around from all directions.”
Click on the embed above to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the new “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
Away from the race track, you can find Dean Thompson actively kickboxing, an intense method for his cardio training. From behind the wheel, he’s one of several rookies looking to leave their mark in what is a stout NASCAR Xfinity Series field.
It was nearly all for naught. Thompson began racing quarter midgets at 5 years old with 2023 Xfinity champion Cole Custer. However, he took a break from racing until Joe Custer reached out, inquiring about Thompson being a guest at Auto Club Speedway.
The racing bug bit Thompson again, and he started competing in late models regularly. Before making the transition to NASCAR, he won consecutive championships in 2020 and 2021 at Irwindale Speedway. He moved rapidly to the Craftsman Truck Series in 2022 full time with Niece Motorsports before making the jump to Tricon Garage in 2023.
“I would say that I moved up pretty quickly from late models to ARCA to trucks, but looking back on it, I don’t regret it at all,” Thompson told NASCAR.com of his career trajectory. “I feel like it’s better to get into it sooner rather than later. Just getting into the thick of it and diving into the deep end has helped me.”
Thompson earned a pair of top-five finishes in 2023, finishing 20th in the championship standings. He tallied 11 top-10 finishes through 70 truck starts, but questions arose about his craft, having multiple brouhahas with competitor Hailie Deegan and others.
Regardless, Thompson wanted to transition to Xfinity for 2025. He competed in a pair of races for Sam Hunt Racing last year, hoping to confirm his belief that he was ready for the next step.
“When you’ve been working at Tricon for two years, been with Niece for a year and been in trucks for three years, it was time for a change in scenery,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t working for me. Sam and I build each other’s needs for this year.”
Hunt, amid his fifth full season as a team owner, knew of the rumblings around Thompson. Yet he believed in the 23-year-old as he has shown speed throughout his young career.
“We knew he was fast, we just knew there was going to be a challenge of helping him mature as a race car driver,” Hunt said. “I think that’s something he’s open in talking about now of how it took him so long to see the full picture coming from running 25-lap late model races at Irwindale to 300-mile races now. Just realizing that everybody at this level is fast. It doesn’t make you special if you’re fast once you get to this series. You have to develop that race craft.
“Going into this year, the primary objective was for him to mature and become a complete race car driver. I think now more than ever, I’m seeing him become that guy.”
Thompson is coming off a career-best sixth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway, which featured plenty of madness. He remained clean, despite getting turned multiple times throughout the 250-lap event.
That run bookended a three-week spurt where Thompson cracked the top 15. His spotter, Freddie Kraft, has guided him to success, knowing that speed has never been the issue. It’s more about settling in and cleaning up errors.
“He’s a good race car driver and puts the work in,” Kraft said. “He’s doing whatever it takes to get better, which is what you want to see out of somebody. From my side of it, it’s helping him be in position to succeed and things to look out for, and if we need to sit down to go over something, we can. It’s all about trying to help him understand that he’s got everything to do it right, it’s just a matter of putting it all together on a weekly basis.”
With a strong three-race stretch, Thompson has jumped five spots in the championship standings, slotting 19th heading into Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He’s ahead of fellow Rookie of the Year contenders Christian Eckes (20th) and William Sawalich (22nd), both of whom are on powerhouse Xfinity teams in Kaulig Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, respectively.
“Right now, the focus is getting base hits because if you base-hit them to death, you end up in a pretty good position,” Hunt said. “The joy for me right now is I feel like I’m watching the kid mature and become someone that everyone said he couldn’t become. Not that he’s still not making mistakes; he’s going to continue making small mistakes. He’s beginning to drive more like a veteran race car driver.”
Hunt admitted that the No. 26 team, led by crew chief Kris Bowen, holds each other accountable. Before the 2025 season began, Thompson was told that the only way the pairing would work was if he pulled the rope as hard as the rest of the team did.
So far, so good, as Thompson is a frequent visitor at the race shop.
“He knows that he’s got to make the most out of these next couple of years, or he’s not going to be a race car driver anymore,” Hunt said. “I think that’s showing up with how he’s working right now.”
Thompson is hesitant to put his expectations out to the universe. He refuses to compare himself to his competitors, falling into that trap in the Truck Series. For now, his main focus is continuing to work on himself.
“I don’t have one where I’m trying to shoot for the stars,” Thompson said. “Just try to set goals of running in the top 10, better average finish than average start, finishing in the top 10, being in the middle of the rookie standings consistently. Those are the goals.”
