Ryan Blaney was involved in a multicar collision exiting Turn 2 on Sunday afternoon at Darlington Raceway, ending his race.
Blaney restarted sixth at Lap 129 of Sunday’s Goodyear 400 but was trapped on the outside of a three-wide scenario with Martin Truex Jr. and William Byron. In the bottom lane, Byron slid high into Truex, squeezing Blaney into the wall right-rear first.
The right-rear toe link of Blaney’s No. 12 Ford Dark Horse Mustang was damaged, as was the front of Truex’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace made door contact while trying to avoid the melee, while Chris Buescher and Denny Hamlin also received minor damage in the incident.
Blaney showed his displeasure to Byron, taking a swerve at the No. 24 before heading back to pit road.
No. 12’s Team Penske crew attempted to repair the car but exceeded the allotted seven minutes on the Damaged Vehicle Policy clock, resulting in Blaney’s retirement from the event. The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion was credited with a 36th-place finish, last on the day and his first DNF since the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I was just mad I ended up in the fence and wrecked,” Blaney told FOX Sports. “He (Byron) shoved it three-wide under us and just got tight off of (Turn) 2 and I got tagged and ended up getting wrecked. … He used up a little more race track than I thought, so I kind of have every right to be mad. And he gets away scot-free.
“Just unfortunate. I thought we got pretty good. We finally got up to sixth and really made good ground up in the first stage. Had a good pit stop and the Maytag/Menards Ford Mustang was, I thought, we had something to work with and I was excited to start the second half of the race. Just didn’t get that chance.”
After finishing sixth, Byron told reporters he believed he was ahead of Blaney and Truex by corner exit.
“I felt like I was ahead of them,” Byron said. “The exit is really narrow right there. I hate if I did come up a little bit. I was surprised I was even in that spot. I felt like I would never get to the bottom of a three-wide there, but the lane was there into (Turn) 1 and my car turned really good. I got almost clear of Martin, and then yeah, I hate that it happened. I don’t want to crash, especially that early in the race, so I didn’t really expect that to happen. I probably could have given a little more room. It just gets really, really tight right there.”
Once again, Racing Insights favors Larson in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio), but there have been some changes to the projected order after Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions.
After Larson in the projected order comes Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin (unchanged), but Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron has jumped up to third place from sixth. Next comes pole winner Tyler Reddick from 23XI Racing in fourth and JGR’s Martin Truex Jr. to complete the top five.
RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski jumps up two spots to sixth, and Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch round out the top 10.
But back to Larson’s Darlington dominance where he won the Southern 500 last September. At Darlington, Larson’s 9.4 average finish ranks third-best all time among drivers with more than two starts. In his six starts with Hendrick Motorsports at Darlington, Larson has posted three top-two finishes and led 270 laps.
His 8.5 average running position overall in 2024 (second) and 10.83 average finish (third) are good indicators of why the metrics continue to favor him. With two wins on the season, it’s not hard to think Larson could soon match Denny Hamlin and William Byron in win totals with three.
After a wild finish at Kansas, who knows what thrills will be in store for a throwback weekend at Darlington?
OTHER DRIVERS TO WATCH
WILLIAM BYRON: Byron hasn’t had a top-10 finish since Talladega, but expect him to find his stride at Darlington. Byron’s 898 laps run in the top five and 1,083 laps in the top 10 both rank first in the Next Gen era. What’s more impressive is that with those good runs, he found ways to finish races at the track “Too Tough to Tame.” His 6.5 average finish at Darlington is also a series-best in the Next Gen era.
TYLER REDDICK: Reddick has become a crafty superspeedway racer with a Duel win at Daytona and a victory at Talladega, but what about a 1.33-mile track? In the Next Gen era at Darlington, Reddick has the second-best average running position (7.84) and second-best average finish (7.25).
CHASE ELLIOTT: The 2020 champ has found some familiar ground so far this year. Over Elliott’s last six races, he’s tallied a win and five top-five finishes. In addition, Elliott owns the best average finish in the Next Gen era with 12.26. Not to mention, Hendrick Motorsports has won the last two races at Darlington.
BRAD KESELOWSKI: Keselowski currently has a streak of three top-10 finishes at Darlington. Plus, his career 11.4 average finish there is the eighth-best all-time among drivers with more than two starts. Keselowski was in contention for the win at Talladega a few weeks ago and could very well be in the mix this weekend.
NOAH GRAGSON: While there aren’t many Cup stats to go off of for Gragson, he has cracked the top 10 in each of the last three 2024 races and has started to find his footing at Stewart-Haas Racing. Darlington was a strong track for him in the Xfinity Series and it could click for him again.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE GOODYEAR 400 Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula includes current track, current track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to arrive at a projected winner and full race results.
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Rodney Childers could not help but smile as his team unloaded Josh Berry’s No. 4 Harrison’s Ford for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
Just a few weeks earlier, Berry and Stewart-Haas Racing surprised Childers with a special throwback scheme similar to the No. 54 Late Model Stock Car he piloted to numerous victories around the southeast in 1998, a run that helped kickstart a successful career as a NASCAR crew chief.
Seeing the familiar silver colors on Berry’s car reminded Childers of all the pleasant memories he amassed as a driver, adding that the scheme perfectly encapsulated the significance and spirit of NASCAR’s annual Darlington throwback tradition.
“It was pretty emotional, and I was trying not to cry in front of a bunch of people,” Childers said. “We only got the cover back about three feet and I knew what it was. That scheme has been embedded in my head for a long time, and we were competitive everywhere we went. Having it on our car for throwback weekend is really special.”
Ongoing since the 2015 Southern 500, throwback weekend has seen NASCAR teams across all three top series bring out an assortment of tribute schemes that primarily honor key moments or prominent figures across motorsports history.
For the 2024 edition, teams were encouraged to design cars that honored the grassroots origins of their driver or a crew member. Although NASCAR history remained a focal point at Darlington this year, several programs arrived at the historic track with cars inspired by short-track heritage.
NASCAR Xfinity Series veteran Ryan Sieg carried the same colors he used during his time competing in Super Late Model events across Georgia during the 2000s, while Corey LaJoie’s paint scheme resembled the one from his first ARCA Menards Series East victory at Bowman Gray Stadium in 2012.
Berry’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Chase Briscoe chose to respect his dirt racing heritage for throwback weekend with a white No. 14 that mirrored the sprint car his father Kevin and grandfather Richard made famous during their respective careers.
Briscoe’s car also carries the names of every driver that has competed for his family’s sprint car team since 1976, which includes more than 14 Hall of Famers in the discipline and a picture collage that features Kevin battling alongside Jeff Gordon.
Chase Briscoe’s throwback scheme honors the drivers who have raced with his family’s sprint car program during its existence. (Photo: Yem Sanlaeid/NASCAR Regional)
The historical and personal context behind his racing background is why Briscoe was eager to represent his family at Darlington for the throwback theme this year.
“Throwback weekend is always cool because you get to shed light on some paint schemes NASCAR fans might not have seen before,” Briscoe said. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but I just never had the opportunity to do it. My grandpa is still around, so I wanted to make sure he [saw this scheme].
“That paint scheme is not the most flashy or exciting, but it means a lot to me and my family.”
Modified history was also on display at Darlington throughout the weekend. Berry and Briscoe’s other Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Ryan Preece brought out a car resembling the scheme he used when he won the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship.
Patrick Emerling, another Modified veteran who currently drives the No. 07 part-time for SS Greenlight Racing in the Xfinity Series, honored a fellow discipline standout Jan Leaty with his throwback. Leaty served as Emerling’s Modified crew chief from the early 2010s until 2023.
Throughout his career, Emerling has taken advantage of every opportunity to recognize the history of Modified racing. In 2022, Emerling ran a tribute schemed to Modified legend Richie Evans, which had an air cleaner and bars as part of the wrap and sponsorship from B.R. Dewitt, who owned Evans’ Modified up until his passing in 1985.
The Jan Leaty throwback carries plenty of significance for Emerling. Not only is he honoring one of the best drivers in the history of Modified competition, but also a figure that was instrumental in molding Emerling into the driver he is today.
Patrick Emerling chose to honor fellow Modified driver Jan Leaty at Darlington Raceway this year. Leaty was his crew chief for all of his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour wins. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR Regional)
“[This scheme] really means a lot to me,” Emerling said. “Jan helped me out a lot as a driver, and we’re almost like family now. There was an opportunity with a red, white and blue sponsor in Liberty Brew [Coffee] coming onboard with us. We made this [throwback] happen, and I’m super stoked about it.”
Emerling has plenty more Modified-centric ideas for potential throwbacks at Darlington and hopes to see them come to fruition over the next several years.
Berry himself is unsure of the longevity of throwback weekend with how many iconic schemes have been utilized during the event’s 10-year run. Despite this, he expressed satisfaction over making everything come together to honor the past achievements of his crew chief and a fellow Late Model Stock alum.
“There’s a lot that goes into these throwbacks, and that’s why you see less and less of them,” Berry said. “A lot [of ideas] have been done already, and it takes a partner like Harrison’s that wants to buy into it and is willing to change their branding. It means a lot to Rodney for us to run that paint scheme again and have his family here. That’s what this is about.”
Childers said the tribute scheme also serves as a reminder of a simple time in Late Model Stock racing, back when he had to work diligently for hours to stay on top against entry lists that regularly exceeded 70 cars.
Having Berry as the one driving the car only makes the weekend more perfect for Childers, given their similar backgrounds. The duo has yet to celebrate a victory together, but Childers is confident Berry’s experience from so many years in short-track racing will gradually make their program better.
The opportunity for Childers and others like him to see their accomplishments honored in a NASCAR race at Darlington is why he believes throwback weekend needs to endure.
“We’re at the best place [for throwback weekend],” Childers said. “There is only one place to do it, and that’s here with the rich history of Darlington [Raceway] and everything that’s happened here over the years. To do the throwback schemes and have a lot of the Hall of Famers come be a part of it makes this perfect.
DARLINGTON, S.C. — “Too Tough to Tame.” “The Lady in Black.”
When a race track has multiple nicknames, you can bet it’s among the toughest for NASCAR drivers to get around.
Darlington Raceway fits the bill for the monikers with its uniqueness as a narrow, asymmetrical 1.366-mile oval.
Rarely, if ever, will you see the outside retaining walls squeaky clean after races as drivers flirt inches away from the wall while searching for speed. Some can make it the full distance without ever touching the wall but most hot rods, searching for speed up top, will don the patented ‘Darlington stripe,’ leaving vibrant paint schemes scuffed and fenders bent.
Brad Keselowski, winner of the 2018 Southern 500, knows all too well the courage it takes just to enter Turn 1 at Darlington.
“It takes guts. I mean, there’s no way around it. You know, this track is very intimidating,” Keselowski said. “You’re going to hit the wall here. At some point, you have to almost accept that. But I mean, you can’t back down from the challenge.”
Both corner entries present varying fits for drivers. While Turns 1 and 3 are narrow, the former requires a slight dive on entry, followed by riding the car up the track before straightening out alongside the wall to carry speed coming off Turn 2.
Turns 3 and 4 are a tad more technical, with more options. Drivers can either try to dive deep into the corner to complete a pass on the inside or master throttle control by staying up by the wall from corner entry to exit before putting the pedal to the metal down to the start/finish line.
Three-time Southern 500 victor Denny Hamlin embraces the risks that the track presents every lap, adding that he doesn’t need a perfect No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to find Victory Lane.
“It’s certainly a fine line and usually the fastest line here at this track is going to be the closest that you can get to the wall,” Hamlin said. “There’s obviously a risk-reward there that you have to play that game, but I love this track because you can move around and change the balance of your car. Your car doesn’t have to be necessarily perfect to win here. The driver plays a huge, huge role at this type of track and so I love it.”
Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images
During Saturday’s Cup Series practice and qualifying sessions, Hamlin’s JGR teammate Martin Truex Jr. found that fine line in his run for the pole as he brushed the wall.
Truex, the 2016 Southern 500 winner, still managed to qualify 10th for Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and explained why it’s more difficult to practice and qualify at Darlington than the race itself.
“You have one lap where you really got to try to make it happen,” Truex said. “I went a little too hard in Round 2 of qualifying trying to go faster from Round 1 and I paid the price. So, in the race, I feel like it’s a little bit easier. The pace slows down. You’re not having to [be] quite committed as much. You can kind of give up a little on entry and make it up in other places, I feel like, but it’s definitely harder here than anywhere, that’s for sure.”
With Darlington’s spring race taking place all in daylight while the Labor Day tradition of the Southern 500 starts in the sun and gives way to darkness, the notebook evolves as the cars change and drivers tend to readapt annually to the track.
One change a handful of Cup drivers noticed is a patch that lays in Turn 2 just before exiting down the backstretch. Keselowski noted that it makes an apparent difference as it has worn out and blended in with the rest of the abrasive racing surface.
“A couple years ago, they repaved the exit of Turn 2 and it was like this grip strip of speed,” Keselowski said. “And then incrementally every year, we’ve seen it almost turn into the rest of the track. I was watching the Truck race and you can’t even see it if you don’t have a trained eye. That’s really changed the track in the last three or four years because when they first repaved it, there was this grip strip and you just flew through there, and now it’s kind of getting harder and harder to go through that section of the race track.
“That’s changed the approach. I think even in the Truck race you saw two or three guys wreck off of Turn 2 where normally that grip strip would have just saved you. So I think that’s one of the key dynamics of how the track has changed in the last few years.”
Chase Elliott has yet to win in 14 starts at Darlington and has had a fair share of misfortune around ‘The Lady in Black,’ most notably a late-race incident with Truex in the 2020 Southern 500, in which the two made contact entering Turn 1 and took synchronized slams into the wall.
The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet gave his breakdown of why Darlington is a complete 180 from other ovals larger than a mile.
“It’s just all about getting in a rhythm and this track is a place that is pretty hard to get in a rhythm because both ends are so different,” Elliott said. “It just adds an element to that that makes it different than some other tracks. Kansas [Turn] 1 versus Kansas 3 is different but not quite so different as what this place is. So that’s the challenge. How bad do you need to pace? Is there pace up there? Can you make pace up there? You just got to figure those things out as you go.”
When 400 miles are completed Sunday afternoon, competitors in NASCAR’s highest level will have checked off another weekend around the sport’s most difficult track.
The only questions that remain are: who will be the one to tame Darlington, and who will leave the track with nothing but a stripe?
Coming off a heartbreaking loss at Kansas Speedway, RFK Racing has brought even more speed to Darlington Raceway this weekend. Chris Buescher looked to have among the best cars in the field on Saturday in practice, while his teammate and co-owner Brad Keselowski earned his first top-10 starting position of the season. The Darlington usuals of Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin are all lineup-worthy, too.
Starter 1: Kyle Larson Starter 2: Tyler Reddick Starter 3: Chris Buescher Starter 4: Martin Truex Jr. Starter 5: William Byron Garage pick: Brad Keselowski
NEXT IN LINE: Denny Hamlin, Ross Chastain, Kyle Busch, Michael McDowell
RISING: When McDowell announced his departure from Front Row Motorsports at the end of the season, he vowed to be committed to the No. 34 team for the remainder of the 2024 season. That promise looked to be true on Saturday, as McDowell’s continuous speed in practice and qualifying transferred to Darlington. He ranked fifth on 10-lap averages in practice, with Ford taking four of the top-five spots.
No matter what series Chastain competes in at Darlington, he always brings speed. He won the Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday evening, taking advantage of an overtime restart. He’s been fast in all four of his starts with Trackhouse here, too, but has just a single top-five finish to show for it. In two of the other three races, he wrecked while battling for the lead. The No. 1 car was sporty in practice and qualified ninth.
FALLING: If Elliott is to extend his streak of top-five finishes to six straight on non-superspeedway tracks, the No. 9 car is going to have to come from 31st. Elliott came from 29th starting position at Dover to finish fifth. He ranked sixth on 10-lap averages in practice. The primary reason for keeping him from my lineup is it will be an uphill battle to earn stage points.
While many of the Ford drivers showed up with competitive speed, Logano ranked middle of the pack on long-run speed. His 14th-place qualifying position matched his 10-lap speed. The No. 22 car is typically a contender at Darlington, but Team Penske has shown moderate speed this season and I’m not optimistic that it will get better during the race.
FEATURED MATCHUPS:
William Byron vs. Denny Hamlin: This is a true tossup entering race day. Byron and Hamlin both made the final round of qualifying and had similar speed in practice. Going into the weekend, Byron was the choice, so I’ll stick with that here, understanding Hamlin is one of the top two fastest cars in the series on average. The sole reason why the No. 11 car isn’t in my lineup is that it has limited uses left.
Tyler Reddick vs. Joey Logano: Though both drivers were in my lineup to begin the weekend, Reddick is the clear choice entering the 400-mile race. He won his first Busch Light Pole Award since last fall at the Charlotte road course and has three podium finishes in the four Darlington Next Gen races. Sure, Logano won the first Next Gen race here, but the No. 22 team doesn’t have that same speed.
Chase Elliott vs. Ross Chastain: If Elliott avoids early chaos, the No. 9 car will likely make a spirited charge throughout the field during the race. Meanwhile, Chastain has an early track position advantage, with the No. 1 team making the final round of qualifying for just the fourth time this season. I’ll take Chastain because he’s always a factor — for better or worse — at Darlington.
Kyle Busch vs. Christopher Bell: The disparity in Bell’s pace over the short and long run in practice was eye-catching. The No. 20 car ranked fourth after one-lap speed and dropped to 33rd on 10-lap averages. By the slimmest of margins – Busch lost the tiebreaker to Chastain – the No. 8 car missed the final round of qualifying. Busch looked to have a car capable of competing in the back half of the top 10 while it’s hard to gauge how good Bell actually is. Because of that, I’ll take Busch.
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Austin Hill led just six laps in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series matinee, his total a small sum compared to the 119 of 147 headed by race winner Justin Allgaier. Running and finishing on his heels as the race’s runner-up was a tough pill, especially at challenging Darlington Raceway and its history-steeped contours.
“You always want to win at Darlington,” Hill said after exiting his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. “Just something about this place. It’s such a badass race track that we go to.”
Hill finished second in Saturday’s Crown Royal Purple Bag Project 200, on a day where most of the field was fighting for next-best status to Allgaier’s No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. Hill’s challenge burned among the brightest, making him 5-for-5 in the top-10 column in his Xfinity career at Darlington and helping to get him back on the top-five track that characterized his hot start to the 2024 season.
“Awesome job all day. The 7 was just a touch better,” Hill’s radio communications chirped on the post-race cool-down lap, with spotter Derek Kneeland adding: “We’re on the cusp of winning a s—load here.”
Hill agreed, saying that his team shouldn’t be pigeonholed as superspeedway specialists. That strength, he said, is starting to spread.
“I think that we have speed, no matter where we go. We’re not just the superspeedway guys that everyone wants to sit there and talk about all the time, but we can win at all these other race tracks. We can run inside the top five at every different race track we go to, so we’re piecing it together,” Hill said, reiterating his spotter’s hunch. “… We’ve just got to keep grinding. I’ve got to do a better job, and we’ve just got to make the right decisions when I come in and we do pit stops and adjustments. So if we just keep building what we’re building, we can win a lot more. It’s just, it might take a little bit more time, but I’m having fun this year. We’re running up front each and every week so we can get it done no matter where we go.”
Allgaier swept both stages, with Hill slotting in second place at each green-checkered flag that segmented up Saturday’s 200-miler. Hill brushed the outside retaining wall during the middle portions of Stage 2, but the slight contact left his No. 21 Chevy no worse off.
Zack Albert | NASCAR Digital Media
Hill faded slightly during the final stage, but jumped back up into podium contention after pit-stop adjustments from crew chief Andy Street to remedy a tight-handling condition. He dutifully leaped from the second row back up to second place on the final restart.
“Our boy is absolutely wheeling it today,” Kneeland told Street over the radio during a final-stage yellow.
Saturday’s effort resembled the type of result that Hill had made routine when the season started. The 30-year-old Georgia native opened the year with back-to-back victories (Daytona, Atlanta) and made it five in a row for top-five finishes as the calendar hit springtime. The five races that followed registered nary a top five, though he led laps in double-digit quantities the last three weeks.
Saturday put Hill back on that high ground. It also moved him up two spots into the lead in the Xfinity Series standings, with a narrow three-point edge over defending series champion Cole Custer — Saturday’s pole-starter and third-place finisher.
“It’s cool. It’s always nice to have the points lead and it’s nice to hopefully, here at the end, get those extra 15 bonus points,” Hill said, acknowledging the points prize reserved for the regular-season champ. “But nothing else matters except for those last seven races for when the playoffs start. We’re just trying to build a notebook, so when the playoffs do start, we can come out on all cylinders.”
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Justin Allgaier finally beat Murphy’s Law to the checkered flag in Saturday’s Crown Royal Purple Bag Project 200 at Darlington Raceway.
This time, there were no bizarre circumstances to keep the driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet out of Victory lane, like the late cut tire that deprived Allgaier of a near-certain win at Phoenix in the fourth race of the season.
After crossing the finish line 3.407 seconds ahead of runner-up Austin Hill, Allgaier had his first victory of the season, his third at the Lady in Black and the 24th of his career, tying him with his car owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., for 10th-most in NASCAR Xfinity Series history.
Allgaier, 37, also leaves Darlington as the career leader in top-10 finishes in the series with 267, breaking a tie with Kyle Busch in that statistical category.
“I just wanted (spotter) Eddie (D’Hondt) to call ‘White flag,'” said Allgaier, who had led laps in seven of 10 events this season without winning. “We’ve had such a heck of a year. We’ve led a ton of laps, and we haven’t been able to do it…
“I think having a little gray hair today helped me out, though. Those long green-flag runs, and being able to know what’s worked in the past here… I didn’t know if the day would come when I’d be able to match Dale Jr. Not only is he a great boss, but he is a really good mentor.
“To come here and be able to tie him, to be able to take over the all-time top 10s, man, there’s nothing better.”
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Hill, who led six laps to Allgaier’s 119 of 147, blamed himself for not being able to challenge his fellow Chevrolet driver for the victory.
“I just couldn’t get into Turn 1 on restarts like I really needed to all day,” said the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Camaro driver. “It was just me. I’ve just got to figure out what to do differently getting into Turn 1.
“I did really good with my launches. That’s something that I struggled with here where I’d buzz the tires late in the zone. Didn’t do that all day — I felt pretty good about my restarts — but I would get down into (Turn) 1 and I’d get tight…
“More than anything, I’ve just got to do a better job inside the race car. I thought we were just as good as the 7 all day. Congrats to those guys. We were just that little bit off today, and I think most of it was me.”
Polesitter Cole Custer recovered from a disastrous pit stop under an early competition caution to finish third, followed by Sam Mayer and Aric Almirola.
“Every time I get in this car, I plan to win and expect to win,” Almirola said. “Fifth is great, but I want to win — but Justin was so fast.”
Parker Kligerman, Riley Herbst, Sunoco rookie Jesse Love, Sheldon Creed and Brandon Jones completed the top 10. Rookie Shane van Gisbergen finished 15th in his first Darlington start. Carson Kvapil was 19th in his third race in the series and his first at Darlington.
Hill took the series lead by three points over Custer in second.
After a week off, the Xfinity Series returns to action at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 25 (FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
NOTE: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue, confirming Allgaier as the race winner. The Nos. 1, 00, 20 and 21 cars will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.
Tyler Reddick put down a 170.124 mph hot lap around Darlington to claim his seventh career Cup pole and first of 2024. The RFK Racing Fords will start second and third as Brad Keselowski (170.018 mph) and Chris Buescher (169.543 mph) flew around the facility. Ty Gibbs and William Byron completed the top five of Sunday’s starting lineup.
The Fords were fast in single-lap speed and long-run speed during practice as Michael McDowell topped the board at 169.44 mph. Austin Cindric, Buescher, Kyle Larson, Todd Gilliland and McDowell were top five in 10 consecutive lap averages. Ford locked out the top five in 20, 25 and 30 consecutive lap averages with Cindric and Gilliland the top two in all three. | Full Saturday recap
Big story line
More moments to be made in celebration of roots during Darlington throwback race
Last Sunday’s affair at Kansas Speedway saw the closest finish in Cup Series history as Kyle Larson outdueled Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds. The nailbiter topped the 2003 Darlington spring race where Ricky Craven beat Kurt Busch by 0.002 seconds as the two drivers rubbed fenders off Turn 4 all the way down to the start/finish line.
With NASCAR’s return to the 1.366-mile oval, more opportunities await at a track where some of the most thrilling finishes have occurred in all three national series.
Four-time Cup Series victor Ross Chastain has created electrifying moments himself, and as he gets set to make his 200th Cup start Sunday, he said he’s thrilled about the buzz from Kansas.
“That’s what the Cup Series is,” Chastain told NASCAR.com on Wednesday. “That’s why it’s been so successful for so long. You have these moments where two of the best drivers in the sport right now go for the win and put on a heck of a show. I think it was a great race across the board from when I was up there earlier in the race and then we slipped back and other people went forward. It’s really a good time to be watching Cup racing in NASCAR and even better time for me to be in it.”
History tells us…
Ford should be a major player on Sunday. In both Darlington races last year, Ford collected a combined eight top-1o finishes, just one off Chevrolet’s nine for most among manufacturers. However, Ford drivers led just 11 laps in those events.
Chevrolet has won the last three Cup races at Darlington, but Erik Jones, William Byron and Kyle Larson only led a combined 85 laps en route to their respective victories. With Darlington’s abrasiveness and the debut of a new right-side tire at the track, expect another checkered-flag bandit on Sunday.
He may not be the betting favorite to win, but watch out for…
Erik Jones. After a two-week absence due to a back injury, Erik Jones returns behind the wheel of the No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota and there isn’t a better track on the circuit for him to turn laps again. Entering at 40-1 odds for Sunday’s race, the eight-year veteran offers high value as a two-time Southern 500 winner. In four Next Gen races, Jones owns two top 10s and has scored the eighth-most points at the track among active drivers. | Darlington odds
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• Turning Point: Trends from Kansas, arriving in Darlington | Read article
• Milestone achievement: From journeymen to Cup star, Ross Chastain’s ‘incredible’ path to 200 starts| Read article
• New home for McDowell: Michael McDowell set to leave Front Row after ’24, inks multiyear deal with Spire | Read article • Heim time: Corey Heim to pilot No. 50 23XI Toyota at Nashville Superspeedway| Read article
• Retro regalia: A look at throwback schemes from each series appearing this weekend | Photo gallery
• Taking flight: Joey Logano doubles down with 77th Fighter Squadron ‘Gamblers’ | Read article
• Renewed focus: Tyler Reddick ready for Darlington with Tim Richmond throwback| Read article • All-Star voting continues: See current top-10 fan vote-getters so far for next weekend’s All-Star Race | Read article • The Field of 16: Last four in, first four out for Cup Series Playoffs | Latest projections • Through the years at Darlington: Take a trip through legendary moments | Photo gallery • NASCAR Classics: Picks to click from our Darlington video archives | Read article
• 36 for 36: NASCAR survivor pool picks for Darlington | Read article
• To tame or be tamed?: Racing Insights projects Sunday’s race results | Read article
• Fantasy Fastlane: Lineup pointers for Darlington | Sleepers, drivers to avoid
• Paint Scheme Preview: Schemes for South Carolina tripleheader | Pick your favorite
• Power Rankings: Is it possible that 2024’s best driver hasn’t even won yet? | Latest driver rankings
Fast facts ⏩
Race-relevant statistics, brought to you by the experts at Racing Insights.
• Chevrolet won the last three Darlington races. Chevrolet had not won in the 11 prior races.
• The driver who led the most laps in each of the last three Darlington races finished 25th or worse.
• There have been eight or more cautions in seven of the last nine Darlington races.
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Last weekend’s finish at Kansas Speedway was sure to come up. When it did, six days later, Chris Buescher still had the voice of a driver on the short end of an eyelash-thin margin of victory that will go down in the NASCAR Cup Series history books.
“Yeah, I’ve watched it,” Buescher said with a sheepish downturn in his tone Saturday morning at Darlington Raceway. “I’ve replayed it in my head no less than 100 times and that’s probably pretty conservative.”
All the re-airings — in all the post-race highlight reels and in Buescher’s personal viewing — have Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet eking out the slimmest of wins by 0.001 seconds in front of Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Racing Ford. It’s the replays in his head where Buescher has made notes, should a similar late-race scenario resurface.
“I’ve got a list of things I would do different going back and I just need to be in that situation again,” Buescher said. “I’m taking a lot of good things out of it, a couple bad, but ultimately what I look at is that is the most competitive mile-and-a-half that we’ve had, ever in my career with RFK for sure as well. That was a better weekend than we had at Michigan (last year) when we won. I take that as the highlight of how it all went down and it kind of gets you through some of the bitterness of it as well.”
Buescher and the rest of the Cup Series field return for another intermediate-sized track at tough, historic Darlington, site of Sunday’s Goodyear 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Top of mind is the razor-thin outcome of last weekend’s Kansas round, with Larson landing his 25th Cup victory and Buescher just shy of his first — and Ford’s first — win of the year.
Larson offered his own replaying of the final-lap showdown before Saturday’s qualifying, saying that Buescher’s choice of racing line for the final set of corners had come as a surprise.
“I was planning to go to the outside no matter what,” Larson said, freshly back in the US after a midweek sojourn to France for a Taylor Swift concert. “I honestly thought that he would just run low and fast; kind of run the shorter distance. So, when he kind of ran the middle, I was like — oh yeah, like wow … here we go! But it wasn’t until l got exited off of the corner, like to the straightaway, that I thought we still had a shot here. Like when I had initially got there, I thought he was going to throttle up and kind of like — not move me up, just like I wasn’t quite there enough, I thought.
“It’s weird. Like when you watch a replay, it looks different than what you see in the helmet. I remember when I kind of throttled up to try to get to his quarter, I thought he was going to be able to throttle up, get clear in front of me and then I would get aero-tight. But then when I stayed there, I still was like – all right, now I’m crashing because I’m just in an awkward spot here with aero and the way that Turn 4 kind of sharpens up on exit. I just thought I was going to run out of space, not even like him doing anything dirty or anything like that. He left me enough room and all that. Yeah, we got off the corner and then it was just about how the run was going to work out, and thankfully it barely worked out.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media
As he noted in his retelling of the finish, Buescher was able to salvage some consolation from the conclusion of Kansas with RFK’s gains in performance. Both he and team co-owner/driver Brad Keselowski have two runner-up finishes each this season. “I guess that is a really good useless stat for everybody in here. No one’s going to talk about that one except us,” Buescher told reporters. “But it is a measure for us to say we’re inching up on it, or we’re right there knocking on the door. It’s just about sealing the deal at this point.”
Keselowski shared the sentiment, with some bullish optimism that his organization would be the one to snap Ford out of its 0-for-12 drought to start the season. The two RFK Dark Horse Mustangs showed proper pace in Saturday’s qualifying sessions, with Keselowski joining pole-starter Tyler Reddick’s Toyota on the front row in second place and Buescher lining up third for Sunday’s 400-miler – with the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the weeks that follow.
“I feel really good about this stretch here,” Keselowski said. “We’ve learned some things about our cars that are finally getting applied. The next month is really exciting for me. We got some really good tracks for us, and the cars are more drivable, shown better speed. I’m really encouraged, and hopeful that we’ll be able to win one of these next few races.”
Darlington has been the site of one of NASCAR’s shortest margins of victory and one of its largest. Ricky Craven famously nipped Kurt Busch by 0.002 seconds at the line here in a memorable 2003 finish, and Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett claimed the 1965 Southern 500 at the 1.366-mile track by a whopping 14 laps over runner-up Buck Baker. The law of averages would slot this Sunday’s result somewhere in between those two extremes.
Last weekend’s outcome marked the latest in a recent run of close finishes in NASCAR’s national tour — Daniel Suárez’s Cup Series triumph in a three-abreast stunner at Atlanta in February, and Sam Mayer’s squeaker in the Xfinity event at Texas in April. Suárez’s perspective on the Larson-Buescher duel as a fellow photo-finish winner was telling.
“Well, we were three-wide. They were only two cars,” Suárez said with deadpan delivery. “So we’re better — by one.”
Having achieved the desired chuckle from the reporters crowded around him, Suárez volunteered a broader view.
“But no, the reality is that the way I see it is the big picture, the racing that NASCAR is delivering today. That’s the way I see it,” Suárez said. “We have had three extremely close finishes between the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series in the last what, two months? That’s pretty remarkable, and hats off to everyone at NASCAR, on everyone that’s building these cars — teams, drivers — to be able to create this kind of racing because if the fans are not entertained, I don’t know why we do it, because it’s pretty amazing. Hopefully we can keep it up and do it more often.”
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
