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Joe Gibbs Racing driver currently second in point standings

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DARLINGTON, S.C. — Matt Kenseth understands and appreciates the history behind the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
 
Its significance, he said, made last year’s victory here that much more enjoyable.
 
"I always feel like the Southern 500 is one of the biggest races of the year — certainly it was right up there towards the top of my list of track I wanted to win at that I had never won before last year," Kenseth said Thursday.

A three-time NASCAR Nationwide Series winner on the oddly shaped 1.366-mile track located in the Sandhills of South Carolina, Kenseth won seven times in the Sprint Cup Series last year. In addition to his Darlington victory, his other wins came at Las Vegas, Kansas, Kentucky, Bristol, Chicago and Loudon. He finished second in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, his best result since 2006, in what was his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing.
 
"It was a really big win," the 42-year-old said of the Darlington experience. "It was exciting and it didn’t look like we were going to win and Kyle (Busch) had that problem late and we were able to sneak by him there with 10 (laps) to go or something like that.
 
"It was a big week for us and it was really, really cool to be able to finally win the Southern 500."
 
The track is one of the oldest on the Cup series’ schedule — NASCAR has competed here annually since 1950 — and one of the most difficult. The abrasive surface makes tire management a critical factor while variations in the two ends of the speedway make finding a comfortable, and fast, setup a challenge.
 
"It was always on the top of my list to try to win the 500 on Labor Day back before they paved (the track), when it was so slick and the race was so long and the conditions were always horrible," Kenseth said. "It was always just really, really hot. To be able to win here in any kind of race, any kind of car, any conditions and certainly the Southern 500 is I think special. I think you could ask anybody and that’s one that they would tell you that.
 
"In my mind that’s one of the biggest races of the year and you always want to come here and try to run good."
 
Kenseth enters Saturday night’s race second in the standings, trailing leader Jeff Gordon by four points. Both he and Gordon, a seven-time winner at Darlington, are still searching for their first Cup win of the season.
 
Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and Busch are third through fifth, respectively, and three of this year’s seven race winners.
 
Kenseth will also compete in Friday night’s VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 at Darlington. Running in Nationwide Series events, he said, is more beneficial at tracks where the Cup series only runs once each season.
 
"I always find it nice to be able to get the extra track time," he said. "You’re on the same tire and can kind of see the changes that the track will go through racing at night; learn a little bit about the tire combination and what it’s going to do in the longer run and that type of thing. I don’t think it hurts."

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Regan Smith sits two points behind JRM teammate Chase Elliott

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DARLINGTON, S.C. – Regan Smith says he isn’t surprised by his team’s fast start to the season, or the overall strength of the JR Motorsports organization in 2014. 

Smith, who led the points after each of the first five NASCAR Nationwide Series races of the year, heads into Friday night’s VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway second in the standings, trailing teammate and Texas race winner Chase Elliott by two points.

"I think as a company we are doing what we anticipated we’d be capable of doing, coming off last year," Smith said Thursday prior to the first of two practice sessions at Darlington. "I don’t know that it’s surprising us, we expected it of ourselves. We expected the company to run this good."

Smith won the season-opening DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona International Speedway, and has finished no worse than 10th in the five subsequent races. 

Elliott, a rookie, finished ninth or higher in four consecutive starts before scoring his first career win last weekend. 

"I feel like we’ve got a little bit of catching up to do still," Smith said of his No. 7 team, which is led by crew chief Ryan Pemberton. "It’s a new bunch, a new group of guys. We’re still lacking a little bit of where we want to be week in and week out."

His seventh-place finish at Texas was "one of our more solid races of the year," he said.

"Barring a three-wide restart at the end, we probably could have ended up fourth or fifth. As a whole, the company is really taking steps forward. There is still more we can do. We can still learn more, we can still get better."

A former Southern 500 winner – he won the Sprint Cup Series race in 2011 while driving for Furniture Row Racing – Smith will be making his 12th career national series start on the 1.366-mile track. Elliott will be making his Darlington debut. 

"I haven’t talked to Chase since I saw him in Victory Lane last weekend," Smith said. "I saw him on pit road, made it a point to go congratulate him and all those guys … a lot of whom I worked with last season. That was cool for them, cool for Chase."

Smith was 10th and 12th in Thursday’s two sessions while Elliott was 13th in the opening run and fifth in the final practice. 

Elliott’s father, Bill, won the 1988 premier series title and is a five-time Darlington winner, a fact that didn’t escape Smith. 

"His dad was one of the best at this race track so I don’t think he’ll have too many questions for me this week," he said.

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Hurricane, near-death experience turned Childers to racing

Judging by his background, there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about Rodney Childers’ career path in NASCAR.

The crew chief for Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 team raced go-karts as a youngster, progressed up the ranks through late model stock cars and even had one start in what’s now the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

When he moved up to Cup in 2003, it was to work as a crewman instead of a driver. Through the years, he worked for a handful of teams in several different capacities: interior, front-end mechanic, car chief.

His first crew chief role came in 2005 with MB2/MBV Motorsports and driver Scott Riggs. In 2009, he earned his first win atop the pit box, with David Reutimann and Michael Waltrip Racing in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He and Reutimann won again the following year at Chicago, then at New Hampshire while paired with Brian Vickers in 2013.

Childers and Harvick scored their first win together in just their second outing when Harvick captured The Profit on CNBC 500 at Phoenix International Raceway earlier this year.

His story is familiar; he was just another former racer who worked on his own equipment and gained a tremendous amount of knowledge while doing so.

But then Childers mentions the hurricane, and you realize his story isn’t quite like the others after all.

• • •

"I probably had no business with a chainsaw," Childers said.

It was days after Hurricane Hugo had made its way up the East Coast in 1989. Although downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit Charlotte, Hugo packed plenty of punch as it roared across the region on Sept. 22. Reports say the storm did $1 billion in damage to Charlotte and surrounding areas.

Schools were closed. Trees and power lines were down. Buildings were damaged.

"We were actually stuck at our house for about six days, I think," Childers said. "It was bad."

Clean-up efforts eventually began and Childers, who was 13 at the time, was offered the opportunity to make a little spending money. A friend of the family needed help clearing debris from her yard.

"So my mom took me down there and dropped me off; she was going to run some errands and come back," Childers said. "When she got back I was sitting there waiting because I needed to jack the limb up to get the chainsaw out."

The saw had gotten stuck in a tree limb. Childers knew he could use the jack from the car to lift the limb and free the blade of his saw, and that’s just what he did once his mom returned.

But while walking across the yard to return the jack, a limb from one of two huge oak trees in the front yard fell, just as Childers was passing underneath. The limb struck him squarely on top of his head.

"It knocked me out; I wasn’t breathing or anything," he said. "My mom started doing CPR on me, got me breathing. I stayed unconscious until the ambulance got there."

Before the emergency workers could depart, Childers took a turn for the worse.

"I started having what they call grand mal seizures," he said. "They actually jerked me back out of the ambulance and put me back on the road right there and tried to get me to breath. My dad said I turned black; he said it wasn’t 20 seconds and I was completely black."

Two days later, Childers woke up in a hospital bed. And that, he said, was when he got scared.

"They come in there and tell me everything that’s going on and what happened," he said. "They’re sitting there explaining seizures to a 13-year-old. I don’t know what they’re talking about."

Later that day, a doctor showed up and gave Childers two options. He could write Childers a prescription for medication he would have to take the rest of his life and he wouldn’t be able to get his driver’s license when he turned 16, or he could release him from the hospital, "pray you never have another (seizure), and you can get your license when you’re 16 just like everybody else," Childers said. "For somebody that’s 13 years old that had been driving since they were 7, getting your license was a big deal."

Childers chose the latter.

• • •

It was after the hurricane, after the accident and shortly after leaving the hospital that Childers first broached the subject of racing to his parents.

Even today, he said, he has no idea why.

"We were driving down the interstate, had just left the hospital when out of the blue … I said ‘I want a racing go-kart for Christmas,’ "he said. "My mom and dad were like ‘Where did you come up with this?’ "

Three months later, Rodney Childers got a racing go-kart for Christmas.

Was Childers, who grew up in Mooresville, N.C., destined to work in the sport, growing up in an area already teeming with NASCAR teams and other racing-related industries?

Or did those other outside factors shape his future?

Childers admits he isn’t sure.

He only knows one thing — the hurricane was when it all began.

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Jeff Green will lead off qualifying Friday at 4:10 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 2

Friday’s qualifying is scheduled to begin at 4:10 p.m. ET (FOX Sports 2)

Entry No. Driver Sponsor
1 91 * Jeff Green TriStar Motorsports Toyota
2 4 Jeffrey Earnhardt teamjdmotorsports.com Chevrolet
3 11 Elliott Sadler Sport Clips Toyota
4 23 Carlos Contreras Voli Voli Voli Chevrolet
5 31 Dylan Kwasniewski # Rockstar Chevrolet
6 33 * Cale Conley(i) OKUMA Chevrolet
7 40 * Josh Wise(i) Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet
8 19 Mike Bliss TriStar Motorsports Toyota
9 60 Chris Buescher # Mustang 50 Years Ford
10 55 Todd Bodine(i) Chevrolet
11 9 Chase Elliott # NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet
12 99 James Buescher Ruud Toyota
13 70 * Derrike Cope Youtheory Chevrolet
14 39 Ryan Sieg # RSS Racing Chevrolet
15 43 Dakoda Armstrong # WinField Ford
16 54 Kyle Busch(i) Monster Energy Toyota
17 10 * Blake Koch SupportMilitary.org Toyota
18 51 Jeremy Clements RepairableVehicles.com Chevrolet
19 13 * Matt Carter Headrush Toyota
20 2 Brian Scott Shore Lodge Chevrolet
21 46 * Matt Dibenedetto Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet
22 16 Ryan Reed # ADA Drive to Stop Diabetes Ford
23 28 JJ Yeley Dodge
24 6 Trevor Bayne AdvoCare Ford
25 3 Ty Dillon # Yuengling Light Lager Chevrolet
26 14 Eric McClure Hefty Ultimate / Reynolds Wrap Toyota
27 87 Kevin Lepage teamjdmotorsports.com Chevrolet
28 5 Kevin Harvick(i) Armour Vienna Sausages Chevrolet
29 20 Matt Kenseth(i) GameStop Toyota
30 76 * Tommy Joe Martins Dodge
31 62 Brendan Gaughan South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet
32 01 Landon Cassill teamjdmotorsports.com Chevrolet
33 22 Joey Logano(i) Snap-on Ford
34 17 * Tanner Berryhill # bwp Bats Dodge
35 52 Joey Gase Chevrolet
36 42 Kyle Larson(i) Cartwheel Chevrolet
37 74 * Mike Harmon Dodge
38 7 Regan Smith TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet
39 44 David Starr Striping Technologies Toyota
40 93 Mike Wallace Dodge

*Required to qualify on time, (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series, "#" signifies a Nationwide Series rookie

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Gordon, Kenseth, Johnson, Hamlin among veterans seeking first win

Editor’s note: The following drivers are ranked according to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. Driver Reports includes the top 16 in the points standings and drivers currently in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field.

1. Jeff Gordon (No. 24)

Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet 

Standing: Gordon leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings with 259 points.
Past five races: 2nd at Texas, 12th at Martinsville, 13th at Auto Club, 7th at Bristol, 9th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 3 top-fives, 5 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Gordon’s average finish is 7.4 and his average running position is 8.1 over the past nine years. In 33 career starts at Darlington, he has seven wins, 19 top-fives, 22 top-10s and three poles.
Quick hit: Gordon’s third-place finish last year broke an un-Gordon-like stretch of consecutive finishes outside of the top 10 at ‘The Lady in Black.’ From 2004-2010, Gordon had seven consecutive top-fives, five of which were finishes of third or better. This year could be the start of another such streak.

2. Matt Kenseth (No. 20)

Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota 

Standing: Kenseth is second in the standings with 255 points.
Past five races: 7th at Texas, 6th at Martinsville, 4th at Auto Club, 13th at Bristol, 10th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 top-five, 5 top-10s, 1 pole.
Track history: At Darlington, Kenseth’s average finish is 10.8 and his average running position is 14.3 over the past nine years. In 20 career starts at Darlington, he has one win, two top-fives, nine top-10s and one pole.
Quick hit: Kenseth’s Darlington breakthrough came last year, when the veteran led 17 laps — including the final 13 — to claim his third win in the first 11 races of the year. The only other time Kenseth recorded a top-five at Darlington was 2006, and he followed that with top-10s the next two years.

3. Carl Edwards (No. 99)

Roush Fenway Racing, Ford 

Standing: Edwards is third in the standings with 247 points.
Past five races: 14th at Texas, 13th at Martinsville, 10th at Auto Club, 1st at Bristol, 5th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 2 top-fives, 4 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Edwards’ average finish is 13.1 and his average running position is 12.8 over the past nine years. In 10 career starts at Darlington, he has three top-fives and seven top-10s.
Quick hit: Among all drivers without a Darlington win, Edwards is the best bet for his first visit to Victory Lane. His loop data over the past nine years is solid — take away the two races in which he had car problems, and his average finish over that same time period goes from 13.1 to 9.4.

4. Joey Logano (No. 22)

Penske Racing, Ford 

Standing: Logano is fourth in the standings with 235 points.
Past five races: 1st at Texas, 4th at Martinsville, 39th at Auto Club, 20th at Bristol, 4th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 4 top-fives, 4 top-10s, 1 pole.
Track history: At Darlington, Logano’s average finish is 20.6 and his average running position is 17.8 over the past nine years. In five career starts at Darlington, he has two top-10s.
Quick hit: Logano’s lone single-digit finish here (ninth place) came in 2009 during his first race at the track. It has since been among Logano’s worst tracks on the Sprint Cup tour, although Logano has performed like an elite driver so far this season.

5. Kyle Busch (No. 18)

Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota 

Standing: Busch is fifth in the standings with 231 points.
Past five races: 3rd at Texas, 14th at Martinsville, 1st at Auto Club, 29th at Bristol, 11th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 2 top-fives, 3 top-10s, 1 pole.
Track history: At Darlington, Busch’s average finish is 14.4 and his average running position is 9.0 over the past nine years. In nine career starts at Darlington, he has one win, two top-fives and five top-10s.
Quick hit: Busch’s history here gives an accurate look at Darlington’s intricacies. He has five top-10s (and an 11th-place finish) in nine career starts. His other finishes are 23rd, 34th and 37th. He could break through for his third top-five at the track — he’s led 387 laps in the last three races, which is 35 percent of the total number of laps run during that span.

6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88)

Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet

Standing: Earnhardt is sixth in the standings with 228 points.
Past five races: 43rd at Texas, 3rd at Martinsville, 12th at Auto Club, 24th at Bristol, 2nd at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 4 top-fives, 4 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Earnhardt’s average finish is 12.2 and his average running position is 12.2 over the past nine years. In 19 career starts at Darlington, he has three top-fives and eight top-10s.
Quick hit: Junior’s ninth-place finish last year was his first top-10 showing at the track since 2008. As one of the circuit’s veterans, he has more starts here than most of his contemporaries — something extra beneficial considering the track’s complexity.

7. Jimmie Johnson (No. 48)

Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet

Standing: Johnson is seventh in the standings with 228 points.
Past five races: 25th at Texas, 2nd at Martinsville, 24th at Auto Club, 19th at Bristol, 6th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 2 top-fives, 4 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Johnson’s average finish is 9.4 and his average running position is 9.9 over the past nine years. In 15 career starts at Darlington, he has three wins, eight top-fives and 11 top-10s.
Quick hit: On Darlington’s quirky egg-shaped layout, Johnson is among the best in NASCAR, along with Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. Six-Time has qualified second the past two years and finished first and fourth. His three career wins at the track ranks second among active drivers to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon.

8. Brad Keselowski (No. 2)

Penske Racing, Ford 

Standing: Keselowski is eighth in the standings with 218 points.
Past five races: 15th at Texas, 38th at Martinsville, 26th at Auto Club, 14th at Bristol, 1st at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 3 top-fives, 3 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Keselowski’s average finish is 13.8 and his average running position is 17.3 over the past nine years. In five career starts at Darlington, he has one top-five and two top-10s.
Quick hit: The thing to watch for Keselowski this week is qualifying. He’s been on the front row for five of six races that used the new knockout format, but his average start at Darlington is 18.2. A big improvement there could result in his second top-five at the track.

9. Brian Vickers (No. 55)

Michael Waltrip Racing, Toyota 

 

Standing: Vickers is ninth in the standings with 205 points.
Past five races: 4th at Texas, 16th at Martinsville, 7th at Auto Club, 9th at Bristol, 13th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 top-five, 3 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Vickers’ average finish is 28.6 and his average running position is 24.5 over the past nine years. In nine career starts at Darlington, he has one top-10.
Quick hit: Due to his previous part-time schedule, Vickers hasn’t raced at Darlington the past two years. That was a hindrance for Texas, too, but he rallied for a fourth-place finish. It may be more difficult to do that in South Carolina, given he’s finished 25th or worse in three of his past four races there.

10. Paul Menard (No. 27)

Richard Childress Racing, Chevrolet 

Standing: Menard is 10th in the standings with 203 points.
Past five races: 9th at Texas, 10th at Martinsville, 9th at Auto Club, 21st at Bristol, 3rd at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 top-five, 4 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Menard’s average finish is 23.7 and his average running position is 24.7 over the past nine years. In seven career starts at Darlington, his best finish was 13th in 2012.
Quick hit: Darlington is one of four non-road course tracks in which Menard does not have a top-10 (the other three are Homestead, Kentucky and New Hampshire) and a Richard Childress Racing program has not won here in 20 years. The flip side is that Menard is one of two drivers to come into the race with three consecutive top-10s.

11. Ryan Newman (No. 31)

Richard Childress Racing, Chevrolet 

Standing: Newman is 11th in the standings with 202 points.
Past five races: 16th at Texas, 20th at Martinsville, 20th at Auto Club, 16th at Bristol, 7th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 2 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Newman’s average finish is 11.4 and his average running position is 11.6 over the past nine years. In 15 career starts at Darlington, he has seven top-fives, 10 top-10s and one pole.
Quick hit: Even more impressive than Newman’s average finish at Darlington is his average starting spot. His number of 8.8 is among the best in the Sprint Cup Series and shows a level of sophistication at this track not seen in most drivers.

12. Austin Dillon (No. 3)

Richard Childress Racing, Chevrolet  

Standing: Dillon is 12th in the standings with 202 points.
Past five races: 21st at Texas, 15th at Martinsville, 11th at Auto Club, 11th at Bristol, 16th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 top-10, 1 pole.
Track history: Dillon has zero Sprint Cup Series starts at Darlington. In two Nationwide Series starts, he had one top-five and one top-10.
Quick hit: Dillon’s best-case scenario may be exactly what Joey Logano did during his rookie season: qualify well and earn a top-10 finish. Perhaps even more important than his finishing position, it will be key for the Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender to learn Saturday and gather information for future events.

13. Denny Hamlin (No. 11)

Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota 

Standing: Hamlin is 13th in the standings with 197 points.
Past five races: 13th at Texas, 19th at Martinsville, DNS at Auto Club, 6th at Bristol, 12th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 top-five, 2 top-10s, 1 pole.
Track history: At Darlington, Hamlin’s average finish is 5.4 and his average running position is 8.6 over the past nine years. In eight career starts at Darlington, he has one win, four top-fives and seven top-10s.
Quick hit: Hamlin’s four-year stretch at Darlington is the best in the sport. Since 2010, he’s finished first, sixth, second and second. His average start during that span is 4.3. He has to be considered one of the favorites again in 2014, despite his recent struggles.

14. Tony Stewart (No. 14)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet  

Standing: Stewart is 14th in the standings with 189 points.
Past five races: 10th at Texas, 17th at Martinsville, 5th at Auto Club, 4th at Bristol, 33rd at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 2 top-fives, 3 top-10s, 1 pole.
Track history: At Darlington, Stewart’s average finish is 11.1 and his average running position is 13.9 over the past nine years. In 21 career starts at Darlington, he has four top-fives and 11 top-10s.
Quick hit: Stewart has put together three solid runs in the past four races, and his recent Darlington history makes him a dark horse to win. Two of his four career top-fives have come since 2009, giving him the best five-year Darlington stretch of his career.

15. Kyle Larson (No. 42)

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Chevrolet  

Standing: Larson is 15th in the standings with 187 points.
Past five races: 5th at Texas, 27th at Martinsville, 2nd at Auto Club, 10th at Bristol, 19th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 2 top-fives, 3 top-10s.
Track history: Larson has zero Sprint Cup Series starts at Darlington. In one Nationwide Series start, he finished sixth.
Quick hit: With two top-fives and three top-10s in his past four races, Larson appears to be the most dynamic rookie in this year’s class. Despite his lack of experience at Darlington, would another top-10 really be surprising?

16. Greg Biffle (No. 16)

Roush Fenway Racing, Ford

Standing: Biffle is 16th in the standings with 187 points.
Past five races: 6th at Texas, 18th at Martinsville, 40th at Auto Club, 12th at Bristol, 22nd at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 2 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Biffle’s average finish is 13.5 and his average running position is 12.3 over the past nine years. In 20 career starts at Darlington, he has two wins, eight top-fives, 12 top-10s and one pole.
Quick hit: Mile-and-a-half tracks have been a boon to Biffle over the years. His Texas performance got him back on track following five consecutive finishes outside the top 10. Darlington is not a true 1.5-miler, but perhaps it’ll serve as another venue for Biffle to keep climbing.

25. Kurt Busch (No. 41)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet

Standing: Busch is 25th in the standings with 151 points.
Past five races: 39th at Texas, 1st at Martinsville, 3rd at Auto Club, 35th at Bristol, 26th at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 2 top-fives, 2 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Busch’s average finish is 17.9 and his average running position is 15.9 over the past nine years. In 17 career starts at Darlington, he has two top-fives, five top-10s and two poles.
Quick hit: In his past five races, Busch has either finished outside the top 25 or in the top three. That recent inconsistency does not relate well to his Darlington history — one top-10 in the past nine races.

26. Kevin Harvick (No. 4)

Stewart-Haas Racing, Chevrolet 

Standing: Harvick is 26th in the standings with 138 points.
Past five races: 42nd at Texas, 7th at Martinsville, 36th at Auto Club, 39th at Bristol, 41st at Las Vegas.
Season stats: 1 win, 1 top-five, 2 top-10s.
Track history: At Darlington, Harvick’s average finish is 18.0 and his average running position is 16.2 over the past nine years. In 17 career starts at Darlington, he has three top-fives and six top-10s.
Quick hit: The comfort of winning the second race of the 2014 season has given way to massive frustrations to the No. 4 team. With some of the best cars in the garage, they’ve finished outside the top 35 in four of the past five races. At that rate, a top-15 would be welcome this weekend.

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Will Darlington bring an eighth different winner to start the season?

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Given how much race victories mean under this revised Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format, perhaps a simple sticker over the driver’s side window opening isn’t quite enough to commemorate the occasion. Perhaps this select yet expanding winner’s club deserves something a bit more exclusive, like a secret lounge accessible only by a secret handshake, a place where members wear special blazers and sip cognac and laugh about all those poor suckers who haven’t won — yet.

That last word being the most operative, of course, because winners are coming at us from all directions, like cars on a green-white-checkered restart at Fontana. Joey Logano‘s victory in Texas made it seven different winners in as many different weeks to start the season, a trend that looms especially large given how paramount race victories are in qualifying for this revamped Chase. We’re barely into April, and already we’re down to just nine of those theoretical grid spots remaining available. Since the points leader also qualifies if he doesn’t have a race victory — and Jeff Gordon indeed fits that description at the moment — half of those 16 playoff spots appear effectively spoken for.

As much as anything, this winner’s streak has come to define the early stages of the 2014 season, which to this point speaks well of a Chase format a lot of folks were skeptical of when it was first unveiled. Every Sprint Cup Series weekend is dominated by the same series of questions — how many winners do we have, who could win this week, and how high can we go before somebody makes a repeat trip to Victory Lane? Nothing, it seems, puts more of a focus on winning more than the unknowns surrounding who might win that particular week. It’s all about who’s in that secret club sipping cognac, and who’s still banging on the door trying to get in.

Eventually, of course, somebody is going to repeat. We’re not going to have 26 different winners, as much fun as it would be to watch such a scenario unfold. And yet, there’s every indication that this current streak could linger on a little while longer before it comes to an end. Saturday night brings Darlington Raceway and one of the longest and most arduous events on the calendar, and of the first seven winners this season, only one — Kyle Busch — has previously tamed the Lady in Black.

Now, that’s not to say any of the other winners to date are incapable of prevailing on Harold Brasington’s egg-shaped wonder — Kurt Busch famously lost there by an eyelash to Ricky Craven in 2003 — but clearly, the opportunity is there for someone else to add a sticker above the window opening of his race car.

Matt Kenseth won at Darlington last season with a substitute crew chief, one of a league-best seven victories the championship runner-up notched a year ago, and he’s still zero-for-2014. Gordon leads all active drivers with seven wins at Darlington, and thus far he’s displaying a degree of consistency reminiscent of his blockbuster 2007 campaign, but as of yet has no victories to show for it.

Then there’s a certain six-time series champion named Jimmie Johnson who delivered the 200th victory for Hendrick Motorsports at Darlington in 2012, and still carries the head-scratchingest of goose eggs in the victory column this season. Denny Hamlin won at Darlington in 2010, and Greg Biffle notched back-to-back victories in 2005 and 2006, and both drivers are still searching.

How good are the odds that one of those guys will break through again this season? Consider that only six current full-time Sprint Cup drivers — Kenseth, Johnson, Hamlin, Gordon, Biffle and Kyle Busch — have race wins at Darlington, a nod to both the track’s difficulty as well as the youth movement taking place at the sport’s top level.

And as previously mentioned, only one of those guys has won already this season, certainly increasing the odds of another member being indoctrinated into the winner’s club this Saturday night. After that? Well, as we certainly saw last September, any kind of havoc is capable of unfolding at Richmond. And then there’s Talladega, a roulette wheel that’s 2.66 miles in circumference. It’s completely reasonable to think that NASCAR could carry a streak of 10 different winners in 10 races into Kansas — the kind of intermediate track where no one is going to bet against the Penske boys, given what Brad Keselowski and Logano have shown on 1.5-milers so far this season.

And even when one driver finally does roll into Victory Lane for the second time this season, who’s to say the fun will stop there? If anything, the pool of potential winners seems as deep as it’s been in some time — not only are there traditional powers like Johnson and Tony Stewart waiting to break through, but the likes of Brian Vickers and Paul Menard have been lurking week after week, rookies Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon have certainly shown potential, and Marcos Ambrose is making the most of a contract year. Go down the list, and there are probably 25 or 26 drivers who could legitimately win given the right conditions — and how many weeks are there in the regular season again?

OK, OK, enough pipe dreams. Everyone is waiting to see how this new Chase format plays out when the serious money is on the table, and we begin kicking drivers out of the party rather than welcoming them in. But for the time being, this win-to-get-in stuff has created quite the roller coaster ride. Having covered the 2001 season when there were 19 different winners, and the 2003 campaign when nine different guys won the first nine events, yours truly can unquestionably attest that those years didn’t feel nearly as unpredictable as this one, simply because all those race wins really didn’t translate beyond Victory Lane.

Now, they do. The application of that winner’s sticker is a tangible validation that the driver will carry beyond one fleeting moment in the sun. If there was one real issue with previous versions of the Chase, it was that the week-to-week victories — which, to be honest, are ultimately what drivers strive for and spectators pay to see — were constantly overshadowed by jockeying for playoff position. Now, one is fundamentally a part of the other. The system requires it. The grind of a NASCAR season demands that any celebration be a relatively brief one, but those smaller triumphs on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons have become the building blocks of a much larger one in South Florida.

So enjoy those race victories. Show that secret winner’s handshake, have a seat in that secret winner’s lounge, swirl that winner’s cognac and maybe take a puff of a winner’s cigar. You’ve earned it. But with so many other strong candidates for membership, just don’t expect your club to remain very exclusive for very long.

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Dale Jr., Bill Elliott touch on how significant Chase’s win is to both of them

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FORT WORTH, Texas – Less than 48 hours after winning his first NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway — having schooled the likes of Sprint Cup Series regulars Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth — 18-year-old Chase Elliott was back in school himself, his first period high school class in Georgia.

His breakthrough victory Saturday night in only his sixth start, however, proves Elliott is steadily mastering the learning curve in racing, too. And he’s fortunate to be surrounded by two very special teachers in his father, 1988 Cup champ and current NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Bill Elliott, and his team owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., a two-time Daytona 500 winner who also knows a bit about being the son of a racing legend.

After Elliott pulled his No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet into Victory Lane, his beaming father leaned in the window to share the moment.

"I just said, ‘Man you’ve done a heckuva job,’ " Bill Elliott recounted, still grinning ear-to-ear.

As Elliott hoisted his trophy, glad-handed sponsors and posed for photo after photo against a pyrotechnic background of fireworks and shooting flames, his mentors made a point to stand out of the spotlight. Bill Elliott and Earnhardt were happily content to be spectators watching the 18-year-old learn the victory routine that he will surely be repeating over the years.

A couple of times Elliott even had to shout over and cajole his father to join him for a photograph. It was hard to decide who wore the bigger smile.

"Now I know what people feel like when they’re watching a race, because when you’re racing in the car, you don’t think through things," said Bill Elliott, who confessed to being so nervous he watched the race from the JR Motorsports team transporter.

"You’re concentrating so much on your line, the race track, traffic all the stuff going on.

"The funny thing about it, though, all the times I watched Chase and as he continued on in go-karts, Legends cars, … when he stepped into a late model car it’s like the light switch turned on.

"It took him a little bit to figure out what he wanted. But to turn around and watch him and see all that experience he’s done, it’s paid off tonight."

It was the second time (including Elliott’s 2013 Camping World Truck Series win) that father and son had been together in a primetime NASCAR Victory Lane since Bill Elliott’s 2003 Sprint Cup Series win in Rockingham, N.C., when Chase was just 7 years old.

Even then, Bill Elliott said he realized his son was interested in cars, but he said he consciously tried to take the pressure off any large footsteps to follow.

"I remember one guy that was working on the go-kart with him came up and said, ‘He’s not running the right lane, he’s not doing this and he’s not doing that,’ and I told him, ‘Stop, he’s only 9 years old,’ " Elliott recalled.

"I told him, ‘Let him have fun. Don’t worry about that.’

"I always told Chase go at it and have fun. If you don’t want to do it, go do something else. You won’t hurt my feelings. That’s the philosophy he’s tried to use his whole career. And as he went on that helped him understand.

"Just given the opportunity, I knew the kid could do it."

Despite the pedigree and talent, doors didn’t just swing open for the younger Elliott.

He has had some growing pains, including an early taste of controversy when he collected his first NASCAR national series win in the Camping World Truck Series after last-lap contact with Ty Dillon.

Even five months ago, Elliott was unsure if he’d have a full-time NASCAR job this year. But NAPA came on board six weeks before the season started and Earnhardt was able to field a Nationwide Series car — the No. 9 in homage to Bill Elliott — for the highly touted rookie already in the Hendrick Motorsports driver development lineage.

Even that unintentionally tough lesson of uncertainty was something Bill Elliott considers helpful in the big picture. Enduring and prevailing in the tough times, he figures, will help his son enjoy and appreciate nights like Saturday even more.

"The hardest thing about this sport is whatever happens tonight, it’s over," Bill Elliott said. "There’s going to be ups and downs and you have to experience it, but I do hope I taught him enough over the last number of years with all the ups and downs we’ve been through in the late models and all the racing we’ve done, that it’s a part of the sport.

"I think that all builds character. You’re going to have tough races, controversial races, but it’s no different than any other driver has had to go through at one point or another.

"I gave him an example. I was leading a race in 1990 (at Atlanta) and on my last pit stop my right rear tire guy (Mike Rich) gets killed (in a pit road incident with Ricky Rudd).

"I lived with that all winter long. That was the hardest winter of my life. That puts things in perspective. Just to lose a race or wreck a car … having one of your friends get killed on pit road, that’s hard. But it’s about being able to put things in perspective.

"This is a roller coaster sport. And you look at it and there will be ups and downs … this will give him good confidence and put him where he needs to be. … This has come a lot faster than I ever dreamed to be where he’s at right now."

As he spoke Bill Elliott was constantly looking over at his shoulder, genuinely seeming to enjoy the moment as much as his son and exchanging backslaps and smiling head-shakes with Earnhardt.

At one point Saturday night, while Elliott was trading out sponsor’s caps for a series of photographs Earnhardt offered to hold onto his driver’s cowboy hat — a gift the track traditionally gives all its winners. As he looked at the hat — Earnhardt probably remembered that Texas Motor Speedway was the first Victory Lane he ever celebrated in, too — winning his first Nationwide Series race there in 1998 and his first Sprint Cup race there as well in 2000.

As Earnhardt held the hat, he reminded the team’s public relations representative to get a Sharpie and write down the date and place of this win on the inside brim.

He knew how special this night will forever be, explaining to reporters a little later, "I just wish that I could tell Chase how to enjoy the win."

"He’s enjoying it and he’s happy, but you’ll turn around one day and think, you don’t realize how precious that moment was and you’ll think, ‘I wish I would have soaked it all up.’ " Earnhardt said.

"Just like winning the Daytona 500 (for me) in 2004 versus 2014. That was two different people. I knew this year when we won it, you gotta soak it up because you don’t know when it it will happen again.

"He’s got a lot of races that he will have an opportunity to win in the future and he’s going to have a ton of time to celebrate and enjoy himself.

"Enjoy this moment and relive it as much as you can because the rest will be fun, but they won’t be like this one."

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Posted on by Jason Lofing

King (left) heads to victory as Alfalla spins.

In a race at Texas Motor Speedway that saw crashes and tempers take half the field out of contention, Kevin King kept his nose clean just long enough to score his first win of the 2014 NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series Powered by iRacing. King, who had a fifteenth place car by his own admission, made a late gamble on pit road, then took advantage of contact between Ray Alfalla and Chad Laughton to squeeze by into the lead just as the caution flew to end the online race. Michael Conti finished second while Laughton settled for third after his run-in with Alfalla. Trey Eidson led late before fading to fourth and Adam Gilliland rounded-out the top five.

With six laps to go, King was sitting in third just a couple car lengths off Alfalla and Laughton, who were nose-to-tail for the lead. With laps winding down, Laughton decided to go for it and made contact with Alfalla in Turn Three. The contact sent Alfalla’s car up the track, enabling Laughton to take the lead and King to close the gap.

Alfalla regrouped, got a run off Turn Four and closed right to Laughton’s bumper entering Turn One.  As the two dove off into the corner Alfalla tapped Laughton in the left rear, sending Laughton into a slow spin.   Trying to avoid further contact, Alfalla checked-up . . . only to be hit from behind by the closely-following King.  The contact cleared the way for King to take the lead with Conti right behind even as Gilliland hit Alfalla, spinning the two time champion around.  The resulting caution likely saved King as the front end of his car was seriously damaged from the contact with Alfalla.

After running mid-pack much of the race, King used a two tire pit stop under caution with 26 laps remaining to vault from nineteenth to ninth for the ensuing restart. At first, the two tire call looked like a bad one as King was quickly kicked to the outside line on the restart and began dropping back. However, on the very next lap Byron Daley and Brandon Hauck got together on the backstretch, sparking a massive crash that took out more than a dozen cars. King’s position on the high side allowed him to keep his foot in the throttle and drive past the mayhem before the wrecked cars came back up the track.

Ten cautions slowed the field for 39 laps, quite a few for a 1.5 mile track. The carnage started early as the first yellow flew on Lap Four when Kwame Adjei got turned around coming off Turn Two. A pair of yellows also involved defending series champion Tyler Hudson and Nick Ottinger, winner at Auto Club Speedway a fortnight ago.  The first occurred on Lap 72 when Hudson attempted to pass Ottingerdown the backstretch. Ottinger decided to throw a block, Hudson took exception and Ottinger wound-up in the outside wall with damage to the rear end of his race car.

The two were not finished with one another.  They renewed acquaintances on Lap 139 shortly after taking the wave-around when they were caught a lap down in the pits following a caution for Joshua Laughton’s crash. Hudson, who was back on the lead lap, took exception to Ottinger, who was lapped, racing him hard.   Once again contact sent Ottinger for a spin, triggering the caution which saw King make his two tire pit call.

With all the crashes, the series point standings saw a bit of a shakeup. Daytona winner Kenny Humpe still leads the standings over Brandon Kettelle, but several other drivers have closed the gap after both Humpe and Kettelle were involved in crashes and finished outside the top 25 at Texas. The race was especially heartbreaking for Humpe who had one of the strongest cars in the field and led 55 laps before crashing late in the race. Humpe now leads Kettelle by only ten points with King sitting after his win third, 15 back of the lead. Jake Stergios moved up to fourth after an eighth place run, one point back of King while Chad Laughton bookends the top five, two points behind Stergios. The biggest loser in the points this week was Danny Hansen, who fell to seventh after an early crash.

With the chaos of Texas in their rear view mirrors, the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series heads to Richmond International Raceway, a track with a reputation for its fair share of cautions and mad drivers by the night’s end. With the turmoil at Texas likely still fresh in many drivers’ minds, Richmond may see more tempers boiling over. Combine that with a tight points battle, and a crash or poor finish for Humpe or Kettelle could open the door for a new face to top the standings. Who will survive 200 grueling laps of sim-racing at Richmond?

Find out in two weeks when the NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series Powered by iRacing.com returns to action on iRacing Live on Tuesday, April 22 at 9 PM EDT (01:00 GMT).

Posted on by Staff Report

Two-time Michigan winner likes Chase-clinching chances at track

RELATED: Speeds soar above 215 mph at Michigan test

On Wednesday at a Goodyear Tire test at Michigan International Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said the Brooklyn, Mich., facility would be a good place for him to clinch a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with a second win.

Before February’s Daytona 500 win made him a virtual lock to make NASCAR’s new 16-driver playoff, Earnhardt Jr.’s most recent two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories came at Michigan.

"This is a great opportunity for us, I think, because we do so well here," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I think two wins definitely will assure you an opportunity to race in the (NASCAR Sprint Cup Series) championship.

"We’re seeing so many different winners each week that I don’t know if one win guarantees you a spot. Definitely makes it a lot easier, but we may have 14-20 different winners this year. You just don’t know."

Under NASCAR’s new Chase format, race winners in the first 26 races who maintain a top-30 points position should earn one of 16 berths. But with seven winners in the season’s first seven races, drivers may need a second victory to make the postseason.

The last time there were seven different winners in the first seven races was 2003, and the record for different winners to start the season is 10, in 2000. After 26 races in those years, there were 16 and 13 winners respectively.

"We’ve still got great speed, still feel good about being able to run well here," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We just did have some bad luck last year."

While leading the Pure Michigan 400 at the track last June, Earnhardt Jr. blew an engine and finished 37th. In August, he led 20 laps before a tire problem sent him into the wall. He finished 36th.

"This is one of our better tracks, and our fans will probably say the same," Earnhardt Jr. said. "Having the success here over the last four or five years has given us a lot of confidence when we come here, and I think that’s why Goodyear brings us to test.

"I enjoy racing here. It’s a fun track. The asphalt is really aging well and it’s just going to keep getting better and better over the next couple of years."

Earnhardt Jr. was asked how quickly new driver-team combinations can come together and become title contenders. He cited the success of a Michigan native and noted a separate fellow winner in 2014 who could contend for his first Sprint Cup title this year.

"It just depends on the people," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It can happen right away. Brad Keselowski and his team, they got together quite quickly and were able to win within the first couple of years.

"Some teams stay together for several years and don’t really get it done. Like (Kevin) Harvick. He had been with RCR for a long time and got close, got close. Was always in the top five in points but never really could get to that next level. And he may do it in the next year or two with Rodney Childers and the information and chassis and motors from Hendrick that they’ve getting."

Earnhardt Jr., who will turn 40 in October, also talked about his future in the sport.

"The age thing is pretty crazy because it just flies by," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I think I got 10 more years at least to hang around and keep driving, and hopefully I’m that fortunate."

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Posted on by Staff Report

Earnhardt Jr., Biffle, Bowyer help Goodyear wrap two-day session

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Five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams heated up the speed charts Wednesday at Michigan International Speedway, pushing 217 mph and beyond for top speeds in the last of two days for Goodyear tire testing at the 2-mile track.

Reports of gaudy numbers, unofficial because they were not recorded during a race weekend, flew on Twitter shortly after the test began. Five drivers — Trevor Bayne, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Ryan Newman — were on hand for the two-day test.

Earnhardt, a relative Twitter newcomer, was among the first to send out a photo through social media with his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet posting a top speed of 215.2 mph.

"This is one of our better tracks, and our fans will probably say the same," Earnhardt Jr. said in a track release. "Having the success here over the last four or five years has given us a lot of confidence when we come here, and I think that’s why Goodyear brings us to test.

"I enjoy racing here. It’s a fun track. The asphalt is really aging well and it’s just going to keep getting better and better over the next couple of years."

Two of Junior’s 20 career Cup wins have come at Michigan.

From there, Bowyer tweeted out a best speed of 217 mph, a speed that track officials confirmed through their Twitter account. Later, Greg Biffle told ESPN reporter Shannon Spake that he had topped the 220 mph mark on the straightaways.

"That’s white-of-your-eyes-fast," Bowyer said.

Joey Logano set the track qualifying record last August at 203.949 mph in winning the Coors Light Pole Award for the Pure Michigan 400, posting the fastest qualifying lap in NASCAR history at a track other than Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Since the Michigan track was repaved (over a span from fall 2011 to spring 2012), the pole speed has topped 200 mph in three of its four races.

The track will next play host to NASCAR’s premier series June 15 for the Quicken Loans 400.

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