Posted on by Reid Spencer

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Welcome back, Kyle Larson.

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion held off a desperate charge from fellow playoff driver Tyler Reddick at sold-out Darlington Raceway to claim victory in Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 and earn an automatic berth in the Round of 12.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Darlington

Larson entered the playoff opener with an undistinguished average finish of 17.5 in his previous six races, but he weathered a transmission momentary stuck in neutral and a disconcerting brush with the wall to register his third victory of the season, the 22nd of his career and his first at the famed ‘Lady in Black.’

“Yeah, finally from start to finish,” Larson said of his ability to put together a complete race. “Eighteenth to third in the first stage, I didn’t think that was possible. Our race car was really good when the sun was out. Just had to work on it.

“I messed up once and it got hung in neutral, and I slid and hit the wall, and I think bent the toe link a little bit, so it was kind of a struggle from there. Definitely had to fight it more than I was earlier, but we kept our heads in the game. That was really important. This race is all about keeping your head in it…

“What a great way to start the playoffs, and hopefully we can keep it going.”

Larson took the lead for the first time during a quick pit stop on Lap 313 and held it for the final 55 circuits. Reddick rolled off pit road second but couldn’t find a way past the race winner.

“Kyle and I were pretty close the majority of the day, honestly, and he just got ahead of us there on pit road, but all in all, this is the day that we needed to have,” said Reddick, who led 90 laps and crossed the finish line 0.447 seconds behind Larson.

“Really just thankful for the hard work from my pit crew, from the team, everyone at the shop. Days like this, with a car like this, we haven’t been able to get a second-place finish out of it, so really glad we were able to do that, and it was a really good points day on top of that, as well.”

Chris Buescher ran a mistake-free race and finished third, followed by William Byron, who charged forward from his 23rd starting position. Ross Chastain ran fifth with Brad Keselowski and Bubba Wallace behind him as playoff drivers claimed the top seven positions.

While Larson leaves Darlington with guaranteed admission to the Round of 12, Byron, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, leads the playoff standings by one point — over Larson. Reddick is 15 points behind Byron, followed by Buescher and Denny Hamlin, who trail by 18 points.

SHOP: Find all your favorite NASCAR merchandise here

Catastrophes proved the undoing of several playoff drivers who showed excellent speed but succumbed to a variety of pit-road mistakes and errors in judgment.

Hamlin led 177 laps, swept the first and second stages and dominated the race — until he made an extra green-flag pit stop on Lap 274, believing he had a loose wheel. Hamlin lost a lap and any chance he had of starting the playoffs with a victory. Hamlin’s night got worse when he was collected in a five-car wreck on Lap 331. He finished 25th, one lap down.

After Hamlin’s demise, Kevin Harvick was chasing Reddick for the lead. Harvick steered his car toward pit road on Lap 310, causing Reddick to check up in front of Ryan Newman in an attempt to duplicate Harvick’s maneuver. Newman spun in Turn 4, causing the sixth caution, and the red light indicating a closed pit road caught Harvick just before he reached the entry line. The resulting penalty sent Harvick to the back of the field for a restart on Lap 317, with no time to recover past 19th place.

A driver with no margin for error entering the Round of 16, Michael McDowell didn’t have the speed to stay on the lead lap, but his Waterloo came in the same Lap 331 wreck that involved Hamlin and fellow playoff driver and pole winner Christopher Bell. McDowell’s No. 34 Ford was too badly hurt to continue, and he fell out of the race in 32nd place.

McDowell heads to next Sunday’s playoff race at Kansas Speedway in 16th place in the playoff standings, 19 points behind Bell in 12th.

MORE: Playoff Pulse: Who’s hot, who’s not after Darlington

Late in the first stage, Bell slammed the outside wall and damaged the suspension on his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, ruining any chances of victory.

“I just got in the marbles and fenced it hard,” Bell radioed to his team.

After the stage break, Bell dropped precipitously through the field and was soon lapped by then-leader Hamlin.

“The toe is messed up — I’m having to turn the wheel a lot,” Bell radioed to crew chief Adam Stevens.

Bell, who finished a lap down in 23rd, wasn’t the only playoff driver who fell victim to mistakes in the first stage, which ran under the green flag from start to finish. Joey Logano scraped the wall at the apex of Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 86.

His No. 22 Ford bit the wall again on Lap 115 — the final circuit of Stage 1 — when the No. 23 Toyota of Wallace spun underneath him in Turn 4 and knocked the right rear of Logano’s car into the fence, after Hamlin had taken the green-checkered flag to win the stage and the accompanying playoff point.

After qualifying 31st, Martin Truex Jr. (who finished 18th) lost four spots after brushing the wall late in the stage and ran 18th in the first segment. Truex’s problems multiplied in Stage 2 when he had to make an unscheduled pit stop because of a loose wheel and lost two laps.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (16th) lost a lap serving a pass-through penalty for speeding on pit road during his first green-flag pit stop, as mistakes began to shape the playoffs — as they invariably do.

The race was red-flagged at Lap 188 during the race’s second caution period because lights on the inside of the race track in Turns 3 and 4 had not illuminated as the sun set.

The second race of the Round of 16 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs is set for Kansas Speedway on Sunday, Sept. 10 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Note: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue, confirming Larson as the race winner. The Nos. 42 and 54 cars will be taken back to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on by Zack Albert

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Denny Hamlin had a long talk with crew chief Chris Gabehart beside their Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota on pit road after Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500. The grueling opening race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs had started off with such promise for Hamlin, who seemed intent on adding a fifth Cup victory at Darlington Raceway with trademark dominance.

The opportunity for early advancement on the postseason grid unraveled after night fell on the historic track, with Hamlin dipping to a 25th-place finish in an event where he led large swaths for a race-high 177 of the 367 laps. The stumble came on a night where several contenders on the 16-driver playoff grid encountered problems, and Hamlin was not immune from that sting.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Darlington

“We think we’re going to win every week. There’s not one week where I show up and I don’t think I’m going to win,” Hamlin said when asked if the performance encouraged him for the rest of the playoffs’ opening round. “But you’ve got to play the game, and sometimes when you play the game, it doesn’t work out the way you planned. I am happy about the speed the car had and the restarts that I had. The things I had to work on I felt like I really did well today. It’s part of the process. We move on and if we advance, all we really lost out on is five points for the next round so we’ll see.”

With 94 laps to go, Hamlin was forced to make an extra green-flag pit stop, feeling he had a loose wheel. The unscheduled trip down pit road dropped him to 30th in the 36-car field, one lap down. He was later caught up in a chain-reaction tangle on the frontstretch that triggered the final caution period, halting some of his progress.

Hence, the long conversation with Gabehart, who said the debrief was more reflection on how the night went than pep talk.

“One thing I’ll say about Denny, he’s such a professional that even if he’s gutted inside, he’s not gonna let you see it, and he’s well-rounded enough that he knows as much as it sucks, this is just a part of racing,” Gabehart said. “So no, we were just sharing a moment of man, what a great job, what a great car, what a great drive. And just truthfully, we’re rounding in on our fifth year together and everyone has these stories, but I can tell you, I spend a lot of time looking at the numbers and as many races as we’ve won together — it’s been 19 — I can tell you it could easily be in the 30s, well into the 30s, and this is just another one that we’re gonna have to put into that column, unfortunately.”

Hamlin, fresh from his sixth Darlington win in the Xfinity Series in Saturday’s undercard, started second Sunday and took control midway through the opening stage. Victories in both stages added a pair of playoff points to his total and provided a buffer in the standings for what was to come.

After the first round of pit stops in the final stage, Hamlin brought the No. 11 Toyota back to pit road, feeling something was amiss with the left-rear wheel. After the additional four-tire change knocked Hamlin from contention, Gabehart later radioed Hamlin to note the team could not find an issue.

“Everything we can tell, the wheel looked fine, bud,” Gabehart said.

Hamlin replied: “It was loose. I felt it.”

Hamlin was less certain post-race, but said the feel of his car made the extra stop necessary.

“It’s really tough to tell,” Hamlin said. “It looked like the left-rear was still tightening as we were gone. It’s close enough to where it didn’t matter. What I felt, I was gonna crash if I kept going. I had to bring it in and just turned the day upside down.”

Gabehart said that the issue was not worth risking, considering which wheel was in question. He also put his trust in his driver’s instinct and experience to make the pit-road call.

“There was not anything visible to the naked eye, but the left-rear is orders of magnitude the most sensitive tire on the car to being loose because of the way it gets loaded on track,” Gabehart said. “So if you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not real, because it’s so sensitive. And when we finally went back and looked at the footage, which takes time to get, first thing you’re gonna look at is assess the wheels. You can do that right away. It takes you a few minutes to get all of the footage from the pit-crew members to evaluate. And once we looked at the left-rear wheel nut being drawn up, there is a doubt. It’s not for sure, but there is a doubt. …

“I mean, my guy’s won 50 of these. He’s been doing it for nearly 20 years. He knows what he feels. So live on TV, it probably looked uncertain, but I’m certain. Denny knows.”

The stage stockpile of points helped Hamlin offset the subpar finish, which included a scrape with 35 laps remaining. Hamlin opened the postseason as the No. 3 seed, and he slipped two spots to fifth in the Cup Series standings.

The circuit heads next to Kansas Speedway, site of the middle race in the opening Round of 16 next Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App). Hamlin prevailed in the Cup Series’ most recent visit there in May, but the unpredictability factor is expected to remain high. Converting at Darlington would have released that pressure valve.

“Either way, I hate it for the team. I hate it for Denny. I hate it for the pit crew. I mean, God, they had an amazing day. I think by any metric, they’re going to be a top-three team on pit road today, if not the best,” Gabehart said. “But, it’s NASCAR racing, and in today’s world even a fraction of an error is the difference. And today it was, and it hurts a lot. It hurts to keep losing races these ways where we clearly have a car, in this case, the winning car. I mean, Denny had never even shown his whole hand, I’m confident. It’s not enough to be winners in your heart. You gotta get it all right, and man, it is frustrating to keep missing out on opportunities.”

Contributing: Staff reports

Posted on by Dustin Albino

With the Cup Series Playoffs set to get underway Sunday evening at Darlington Raceway, championship-eligible teams came out swinging in practice and qualifying, taking the top nine qualifying positions. For the first time since 1982, Chevrolet didn’t crack the top 10 in qualifying for a Darlington race, and the leading Chevy driver Kyle Busch will have to drop to the rear for a change in practice. The Toyotas looked blistering fast, and it would be hard not to have a few of those drivers eligible in your lineup.

PLAYOFFS: Playoffs hub page | Playoffs Grid Challenge game

Dustin Albino’s race-day lineup:

Starter 1: Denny Hamlin

Starter 2: Kyle Larson

Starter 3: William Byron

Starter 4: Christopher Bell

Starter 5: Martin Truex Jr.

Garage pick: Brad Keselowski

NEXT IN LINE: Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Chris Buescher, Ryan Blaney

RISING: Earlier this week, we covered Blaney’s Darlington woes, but the No. 12 team showed up on Saturday for practice and qualifying. In 13 Darlington starts, Blaney has a pair of top 10s, including a ninth-place finish in May. He also has an average finish of 17.8. But this weekend, he was second in 10-lap averages and qualified fourth.

Michael McDowell enters the Cup Series playoffs playing with house money. The No. 34 team has nothing to lose and a lot to gain should it continue overachieving. That’s exactly what McDowell did on Saturday, as he made the final round of qualifying for the third time in the last four races. I wouldn’t put the No. 34 team in my lineup just yet, but McDowell does have a pair of top 10s in the last three Darlington races.

FALLING: Having a car that is loose on entry and in the center of the corner can be treacherous at Darlington. Truex had a remarkable save in qualifying but dropped to 31st on the scoring chart. With three Toyotas pacing the field in qualifying, the former Southern 500 winner will have the speed to overcome the mishap in qualifying. He’s got 500 miles to get to the front, but it could potentially cost you some stage points in the opening stage.

There were certainly concerns with how Chastain closed the regular season. In the nine races since winning at Nashville, the No. 1 team has just one top-10 effort. At Darlington, a place where Chastain is historically fast, he ranked 27th in qualifying. The No. 1 car wasn’t much better in practice either, sitting 23rd on single-lap speed and 24th on 10-lap averages.

FEATURED MATCHUPS:  

Denny Hamlin vs. Kevin Harvick

Hamlin and Harvick are among the most elite talents to ever strap into a race car at Darlington. Hamlin has four victories at the track to Harvick’s three, though it’s the 2014 Cup Series champion who has shown more consistency in recent years, with 12 top-five finishes in the last 15 races – just one of which was outside the top 10. However, Hamlin’s savvy 7.7 average finish shouldn’t be overlooked. Hamlin looked to have one of the best cars on both the short and long runs, so he’s my pick.

Tyler Reddick vs. Christopher Bell

These two Toyotas had lights-out speed on Saturday. Bell was quickest of all drivers in practice and paced Group A in qualifying. Reddick was quickest in Group B. It was Bell who had the last laugh, scoring his third pole of the season, edging out Hamlin and Reddick. One would assume that a worn-out track surface would suit Reddick better, as he did finish second and third in the two races last season. But the No. 45 team has continuously failed to execute in 2023, and I think that costs Reddick in this matchup.

Martin Truex Jr. vs. William Byron

Both drivers have recent wins at Darlington, with Byron taking the charge in the spring race. Disappointing is probably the best way to describe their respective qualifying efforts, with Byron turning the 23rd quickest lap and Truex’s struggles dropping him to 31st. According to the speed chart, both will excel on the long run, and though Truex has more track position to overcome, my feelings have switched from earlier in the week after seeing how strong Toyota unloaded.

Brad Keselowski vs. Ryan Blaney

Blaney’s No. 12 team should give itself an A for how well Saturday went. The 1.366-mile oval is a track Blaney hasn’t been able to get a handle on, while Keselowski is a former Southern 500 winner. We’ve seen this song for Blaney before at Darlington, where he can put one solid lap together and fall off in the race. Keselowski is the pick, even though Blaney was second on 10-lap averages. Keselowski wasn’t far off in ninth.

Posted on by Brandon White

OSWEGO, New York – Saturday’s Toyota Mod Classic 150 at Oswego Speedway was close to a perfect evening for Ron Silk.

Not only did Silk move into sole possession of 10th on the all-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour wins list with his 21st career victory, but he also increased his advantage in the series points standings after Justin Bonsignore was collected in a late-race accident.

RELATED: Complete results from the Toyota Mod Classic 150

Silk entered the Toyota Mod Classic 150 with just a one-point lead on Bonsignore in the battle for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champinoship. While he was relieved to build some breathing room between himself and Bonsignore, Silk understands that his fortunes can easily change during the five races of the year.

“It was nice to capitalize with a win, but there’s still quite a bit to go and anything can happen,” Silk said. “We hadn’t had a bad race yet. Hopefully we don’t, but there’s always that chance, so we’ll try to keep [the momentum] going.”

Silk’s points lead was in jeopardy during the opening stages of the Toyota Mod Classic 150, as Bonsignore controlled the field from the pole.

The path to the front from his eighth-place starting position was a grind for Silk. He had to patiently time his moves around Oswego’s unique five-eighths-mile layout to gain crucial track position, but he made gradual progress on Bonsignore as the laps clicked off.

A restart shortly after the halfway point was the opportunity Silk needed to take advantage of Bonsignore’s ill-handling car to take the race lead.

“I really slipped up in qualifying, which got us back to eighth,” Silk said. “I was able to drive to third on that first run. The guys had a great pit stop and we came out second. I was better than [Bonsignore] was at the beginning. He looked tight in the middle and I could cross him over and get the lead.

“My car was phenomenal during the second half of the race.”

Bonsignore was attempting to chase down Silk when disaster struck for the three-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion.

While trying to pass Tommy Catalano for second, Bonsignore collided with the slower car of Gary McDonald on the low side of the track entering Turn 1. All three cars crashed, with Bonsignore and Catalano taking heavy hits into Oswego’s foam barriers.

The damage to Bonsginore’s Modified was significant enough to keep him on the sidelines for the final 20 laps, all while Silk fended off an aggressive charge from Austin Beers to pick up his second career Oswego victory.

Silk knows Bonsignore is going to make a push for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour in the final five races of the year, especially with two of Bonsignore’s best tracks, Riverhead Raceway and Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, still on the schedule.

“It’s always good to win,” Silk said. “We’ve had quite a battle so far and it’s not over yet. You don’t want to see someone have something like that happen to them, but there’s quite a few races to go.”

Following Silk and Beers in third at Oswego was Bobby Santos III, with Anthony Sesely and Kyle Bonsignore completing the top-five. The rest of the top-10 finishers were Jimmy Zacharias, Jon McKennedy, Tyler Rypkema, Tommy Catalano and Tyler Catalano.

A replay of the Toyota Mod Classic 150 at Oswego Speedway will air on CNBC at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 17.

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour returns to action next Saturday night for the Winchester Fair at Monadnock Speedway, which serves as the third and final leg of the Whelen Granite State Short Track Cup. FloRacing has the coverage starting at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Posted on by Staff Report

Toyota Mod Classic 150

Oswego Speedway

  • Race results
Pos Car No. Driver Sponsor Laps Diff
1 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes 152  —
2 64 Austin Beers Dell Electric/Lumiere Electrical/Andrew James Interiors 152 0.252
3 14 Bobby Santos III Advantage Trucks/Anastasi Trucking 152 0.865
4 19 Anthony Sesely Wanick Construction Inc. 152 1.051
5 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto 152 1.23
6 71 Jimmy Zacharias Danny’s Cesspool Service, Inc. 152 1.525
7 77 Jon McKennedy Curb Records/Mowhawk Northeast 152 2.08
8 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting 152 2.284
9 54 Tommy Catalano FX Caprera 152 2.513
10 84 Tyler Catalano Catalano Motorsports 152 2.994
11 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One Seafood Market & Restaurant 152 3.383
12 26 Gary McDonald Lakeland Ave Landscape Supply/L.I. Wood Heat 143 9 Laps
13 59 Andy Jankowiak BNP Machine 138 14 Laps
14 4 Tim Connolly Connolly Companies LLC 137 15 Laps
15 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 129 23 Laps
16 82 Craig Lutz Horton Avenue Materials 117 35 Laps
17 3 Bryan Narducci* Florida Connection 94 58 Laps
18 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 32 120 Laps
Posted on by Zack Albert

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Austin Hill did his best to keep the big-picture goals top of mind Saturday afternoon at Darlington Raceway. He had lined up inside NASCAR Cup Series regular Denny Hamlin for an overtime restart and battled valiantly before coming home 0.657 seconds short at the checkered flag.

“Good fight,” he told his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing team on the radio post-race, before adding with a laugh: “Sucks to be second, though.”

It was a strong second place that Hill took solace in after Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200, and the result helped him keep his lead in the Xfinity Series standings with one race left in the regular season. He held off a dominant John Hunter Nemechek, who was one of his closest competitors in Saturday’s 148-lap preliminary and sticks as his nearest challenger in the standings as well.

RELATED: Race results | Weekend schedule

Hill led seven times for 29 laps and fought pressure from Hamlin and Nemechek throughout the final stage. He took advantage of having the pit stall nearest the pit-road exit but said that his No. 21 RCR crew “was just on it today,” repeatedly gaining him spots with speedy service.

His lament was making the most of restarts, which he said he and the team would review to see where further gains could be made. But he left the historic 1.366-mile track with a 23-point edge in the points standings over Nemechek and a 33-point cushion over third-place Justin Allgaier with next Saturday’s race at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM, Peacock) wrapping up the regular season.

“I mean, coming in here, everybody was just really wanting to make sure that we didn’t lose too much ground to the 20 (Nemechek) and the 7 (Allgaier), I think we only lost a couple of points to them so we’re still looking good going into Kansas,” said Hill, who is in his second season with the Childress team. “I feel really good about Kansas in general. I’ve won there in a truck. I ran really well there in the Xfinity car, so I feel really good there. I think that we have a shot at winning, just like we did today. So we really did what we needed to do today, that was get stage points and finish solidly in the top five. But yeah, I’m definitely gonna sleep on this tonight and be pretty frustrated with myself on these restarts on maybe what I could have done differently going forward to try to win the race next time.”

MORE: At-track photos: Darlington

John Hunter Nemechek exits his No. 20 Toyota after a third-place finish at Darlington Raceway
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios

Nemechek was in prime position to avenge his defeat the last time the Xfinity Series visited Darlington, where he wound up on the short end of a fender-banging, last-lap clash with Kyle Larson. Saturday, he started from the pole position and led a race-best 99 laps, sweeping the stage wins to add a pair of playoff points to his tally.

Nemechek’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led just one lap in the final stage, however, and he was just a car-length behind Hill after the two traded crossover moves in the final lap. His performance was enough to equal a five-point gain on Hill in the standings with Kansas looming.

“Solid day,” Nemechek said. “Two stage wins, good points. Just came up short by two spots.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Toyota Mod Classic 150

Oswego Speedway

  • Qualifying results
Pos No. Name Sponsor Best Tm Best Speed
1 51 Justin Bonsignore Phoenix Communications Inc. 17.884 125.811
2 64 Austin Beers Dell Electric/Lumiere Electrical/Andrew James Interiors 17.985 125.104
3 14 Bobby Santos III Advantage Trucks/Anastasi Trucking 18.079 124.454
4 54 Tommy Catalano FX Caprera 18.126 124.131
5 32 Tyler Rypkema Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting 18.175 123.796
6 77 Jon McKennedy Curb Records/Mowhawk Northeast 18.203 123.606
7 22 Kyle Bonsignore Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto 18.315 122.85
8 16 Ron Silk Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes 18.366 122.509
9 82 Craig Lutz Horton Avenue Materials 18.462 121.872
10 84 Tyler Catalano Catalano Motorsports 18.528 121.438
11 59 Andy Jankowiak BNP Machine 18.572 121.15
12 71 Jimmy Zacharias Danny’s Cesspool Service, Inc. 18.711 120.25
13 19 Anthony Sesely Wanick Construction Inc. 18.749 120.006
14 3 Bryan Narducci* Florida Connection 18.901 119.041
15 4 Tim Connolly Connolly Companies LLC 18.902 119.035
16 18 Ken Heagy Buoy One Seafood Market & Restaurant 19.191 117.242
17 01 Melissa Fifield Pine Knoll Auto Sales 20.033 112.315
18 26 Gary McDonald Lakeland Ave Landscape Supply/L.I. Wood Heat 20.505 109.729
Posted on by Reid Spencer

DARLINGTON, S.C. – Denny Hamlin resumed his NASCAR Xfinity Series mastery of Darlington Raceway on Saturday, winning the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 to raise his victory total at the track to six in the series.

Hamlin passed series leader Austin Hill after a Lap 147 restart that pushed the race one circuit into overtime. Parker Kligerman’s consequential spin off Sam Mayer’s bumper on Lap 141 brought out the seventh caution of the race and set up the final two-lap shootout.

RELATED: Race results | Best photos from Darlington

“I really needed some long runs,” said Hamlin, who led 14 laps and didn’t make his move until the final stage. “But I didn’t really want to show everything that we had ’til the very end of the race there.

“We really did a good job of maintaining everything that we had.”

Hamlin, who was running his annual Xfinity Series race for Joe Gibbs Racing, picked up his 18th victory in the series. On Sunday, he starts his quest for the NASCAR Cup Series title in the playoff-opening Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

John Hunter Nemechek ran third after leading 99 laps and sweeping the first two stages. Cole Custer was fourth, followed by Josh Berry and Riley Herbst, who passed Parker Kligerman for the final playoff-eligible position with one race left to decide the postseason field.

Herbst holds a one-point lead over Kligerman, who finished 24th after contact from Mayer’s No. 1 Chevrolet sent him spinning from the 12th position with six laps left in regulation.

MORE: Xfinity Series standings

Kligerman was not pleased with Mayer and said so after the race, especially since the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet had overcome a slow pit stop and a brush with the outside wall to gain on Herbst.

“To come back from that and have to make a bunch of adjustments, then just get flat run over by the 1 car,” Kligerman said. “It’s so disappointing… He’s got to clean it up.”

Mayer, who finished 11th, took responsibility for the incident with the concise admission: “I effed up.”

On multiple occasions, Hill took the lead with quick work on pit road but couldn’t hold it through the restarts. Nevertheless, he leaves Darlington with a 23-point lead over Nemechek in the battle for the Xfinity regular-season championship.

“I just need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what I’m doing wrong on the restarts there, because that was really frustrating all day today,” Hill said. “It didn’t matter where I was restarting, I would buzz the tires really bad and just lose track position every time I’d do it.

“So I got to do a better job of that if I’m going to win a championship. All in all, solid for us. That’s kind of something that we’ve been preaching the last six races that if you can’t be first, be second. If you can’t be second, be third. We were second today, but it still stings a little bit when you want to win.”

The regular-season finale in the Xfinity Series takes place Saturday, Sept. 9 at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Note: Post-race inspection concluded without issue, confirming Hamlin as the official race winner.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on by Staff Report

Kyle Busch will drop to the rear due to unapproved adjustments ahead of the start for Sunday evening’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs race at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

RELATED: Southern 500 starting lineup | Cup playoff standings

The two-time Cup champion qualified 11th for the Southern 500 but had a moment during Saturday’s practice session that saw the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet tap the wall in Turns 3 and 4.

Busch enters the 2023 postseason fifth in the playoff standings and 12 points above the Round of 12 elimination line.