Posted on September 2, 2023 by Staff Report

Toyota Mod Classic 150

Oswego Speedway

Practice results

Pos.	Car No.	Driver	Sponsor	Best Time	Best Speed	In Lap	Laps	Diff.
1	51	Justin Bonsignore	Phoenix Communications Inc.	17.726	126.932	54	70	—
2	64	Austin Beers	Dell Electric/Lumiere Electrical/Andrew James Interiors	17.765	126.654	47	47	0.039
3	14	Bobby Santos III	Advantage Trucks/Anastasi Trucking	17.824	126.234	30	30	0.098
4	54	Tommy Catalano	FX Caprera	17.837	126.142	8	9	0.111
5	32	Tyler Rypkema	Northeast Driling/MUSCO Lighting	17.864	125.952	43	47	0.138
6	16	Ron Silk	Blue Mountain Machine & Future Homes	17.896	125.726	47	47	0.17
7	22	Kyle Bonsignore	Chalew Performance/MTT/Munns Auto	17.939	125.425	11	33	0.213
8	77	Jon McKennedy	Curb Records/Mowhawk Northeast	17.996	125.028	40	42	0.27
9	82	Craig Lutz	Horton Avenue Materials	18.01	124.931	26	29	0.284
10	3	Bryan Narducci*	Florida Connection	18.012	124.917	35	45	0.286
11	19	Anthony Sesely	Wanick Construction Inc.	18.039	124.73	14	41	0.313
12	84	Tyler Catalano	Catalano Motorsports	18.148	123.981	51	52	0.422
13	59	Andy Jankowiak	BNP Machine	18.38	122.416	18	29	0.654
14	4	Tim Connolly	Connolly Companies LLC	18.401	122.276	16	26	0.675
15	71	Jimmy Zacharias	Danny’s Cesspool Service, Inc.	18.409	122.223	21	24	0.683
16	18	Ken Heagy	Buoy One Seafood Market & Restaurant	18.472	121.806	19	19	0.746
17	26	Gary McDonald	Lakeland Ave Landscape Supply/L.I. Wood Heat	19.761	113.861	4	8	2.035
18	01	Melissa Fifield	Pine Knoll Auto Sales	20.234	111.199	7	24	2.508

Posted on September 2, 2023September 2, 2023 by Staff Report

Christopher Bell won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs opener at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) with a 169.193 mph hot lap. It’s his third pole of 2023 and seventh in his Cup career.

RELATED: Sunday’s starting lineup | NASCAR Playoffs 101

After earning four poles in 2022, the debut year of NASCAR’s Next Gen Cup car, Bell turned in performances in time trials he considered subpar in the first half of 2023.

“After we got through the first probably five to eight races this year, we were wondering what happened,” Bell said, “because last year we made the final round [of qualifying] a lot, the majority of the time, and at the beginning of this year, we were really struggling.

“My team, (crew chief) Adam Stevens, my engineers have put a lot of emphasis on qualifying the last couple of months, and it’s really showed. We’ve been able to be in the hunt a lot more, make that final round, and it really helps out on Sundays when you get a good pit stall selection.

“At certain racetracks, qualifying’s a really big deal, and this is one of them.”

It was a unique qualifying session that featured seven Fords, three Toyotas and no Chevrolets in the final 10. For the first time since the 1982 Southern 500, no Chevrolet drivers will take the green flag in the top 10 (though in fairness, five General Motors products — Buicks and Pontiacs — started in the top 10 for that race).

Nine drivers from the Round of 16, the opening stanza of the postseason, will take the green flag from inside the top 10 on Sunday night.

Bell’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin (169.042 mph) will join him on the front row. Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski completed the top five. Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher, Michael McDowell and Aric Almirola rounded out the top 10 in Cup qualifying.

Playoff drivers will be spread throughout the field when the Southern 500 begins. Kyle Busch just missed out on the pole round and will roll off 11th. Kyle Larson, the 2021 Cup champion, will start 18th while playoff debutant Bubba Wallace will start 19th. William Byron (23rd), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (25th), Ross Chastain (27th) and Regular Season Champion Martin Truex Jr. (31st) will all have significant work to do to get to the front. Truex’s start toward the rear of the field occurred after his car got loose in Turns 1 and 2 during his qualifying lap.

PRACTICE

Bell put down the quickest lap in Saturday’s practice session with a 168.428 mph circuit around Darlington. McDowell, Stenhouse, Byron and Wallace made up the top five. Logano was slowest of the 16-driver playoff field in 26th with a 164.661 mph lap.

Blaney topped the chart in 10-consecutive-lap average among playoff drivers with a JGR trio of Hamlin, Truex Jr. and Bell just behind Blaney in the top five.

MORE: Practice results

Contributing: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service

Posted on September 2, 2023September 2, 2023 by Zack Albert

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Ryan Preece said he’d had a recent conversation with mixed martial arts fighter Miesha Tate, apparently wanting to compare notes on the effects of facial bruising and how to handle it after his dramatic flip at Daytona International Speedway. When he briefly removed his sunglasses during a media availability Saturday outside his team’s hauler, the 32-year-old driver had the look of a pugilist who had gone multiple rounds in a heavyweight bout.

Bloodshot, black and blue but otherwise fit, Preece was back in the NASCAR Cup Series garage at Darlington Raceway on Saturday morning, one week after a Daytona barrel roll that sent the Stewart-Haas Racing driver to a local hospital for evaluation. He announced Friday morning that he was cleared to return to competition, and he’s set to return to the cockpit of SHR’s No. 41 Ford in Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) at the historic Darlington track.

“They aren’t bad,” Preece said when asked about his eyes, darkened by the rush of blood from the force of the flip. But in showing the aftermath, he said he wanted to address any concerns up front, saying that neither his vision nor overall feeling had been compromised.

“I wanted to clear that up as quick as possible, because I felt fine,” Preece said. “I didn’t want to feel like there was an optics issue of me showing up here to race this weekend and doing my job and fulfilling my commitment as a race car driver to my team, but as well as my guys in here because that means a lot to me.”

Preece was collected in a late-race crash in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, the regular-season finale at Daytona. His No. 41 Mustang veered out of line on the backstretch and slid toward the infield grass, flipping rapidly after it went airborne.

Preece said he was anxious to leave the hospital just as the clock neared midnight Saturday, not long after the checkered flag of the Daytona race, but stayed until early the next morning as a precaution. He said that the bruising and appearance of his eyes was common among sprint-car drivers, whose cars flip with more regularity, but that he reported no soreness in the days after the wreck.

“My wife even joked with me on Monday morning and said, ‘You got out of bed quicker than me,’ ” Preece said. “So, me as a person, my father raised me to be the way I am, how tough I am and how I want to be as a person, so it’s OK to be that way.”

Preece also said that he reported no signs of a concussion, which he said would have kept him from pressing forward to resume his racing schedule if he posed a danger to himself or others. With a clean bill of health, sitting out Sunday’s race, he said, was not a consideration.

“As a racer, why?” Preece said. “You go talk to a guy that’s racing a 410 (sprint car) or a modified, we love to race, and I feel completely fine. So why stop? You know what I mean? I get what you’re saying. It’s OK to not race, but it’s OK to race, and I think that’s what really needs to be said here.”

Preece’s No. 41 car was taken to the NASCAR Research & Development Center for further evaluation, and NASCAR officials indicated that initial findings showed that the driver’s compartment remained intact with limited intrusion. The investigation continues, officials said, with further details expected to be shared in the coming weeks.

“As drivers, we want to be very involved in the process,” said Preece, who added that he had not seen the car since emerging from it last weekend. “Moving forward, I’d like to go see the car. I’d like to explain to them what I went through and then as well as figuring out a way to help keep the car on the ground. I mean, we’ve come so far from the early ’90s, right, with the roof flaps and all that stuff.”

MORE: Cup Series schedule | Meet the playoff field

Aric Almirola, one of Preece’s fellow drivers at Stewart-Haas, was among those saying he was buoyed by the early details.

“Obviously, it being one of my teammates, we want to make sure that everything that we’re doing as an organization inside the race car with the way we mount our seats and steering brackets and all the things internally inside the car held up and they did,” Almirola said. “They held up really well. So really encouraged about that, the way that cocoon around him in the driver’s compartment stayed intact and didn’t get really too beat up. So really, really happy with the way everybody — obviously in NASCAR, but particularly at Stewart-Haas Racing — all the attention to detail they put in to making sure that they build the race car as safe as they can, they did an awesome job.”

Preece is more than two-thirds of the way through his first Cup Series season with Stewart-Haas Racing, and his fourth full-time campaign overall. He did not qualify for the playoffs, which open this weekend at Darlington, but claimed his first Cup Series pole position earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway.

Preece may be relatively new to SHR’s four-driver Cup Series roster, but he is acclaimed as a veteran from the highly competitive Modified Tour circuit. The Cup Series has its own fierce brand of competition, but he said that the community has also provided support in the wake of his Daytona crash.

“We race against each other, and there’s times where we definitely want to wring each other’s heads off, but we all care,” he said. “We don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Holly Cain

In what looks to be a seamless and well-suited transition, Darlington Raceway has named its Vice President of Business Operations Josh Harris to be the next president of the historic race track. Harris will officially assume the role when current president Kerry Tharp retires at the end of the 2023 season.

In so many ways, this position seems a natural fit for Harris, a Mississippi native whose earliest NASCAR connections came as a young fan attending events at Talladega Superspeedway before eventually working as an executive for the sanctioning body at the local and national levels. His love of the sport and his 12-year tenure learning the ropes as a NASCAR executive working at Talladega, Daytona and now Darlington have given him a strong foundation as he prepares to step into his new role with the company.

“Josh is an incredible human and filling Kerry’s shoes will be hard, but I don’t think he’s coming in thinking like that,” said NASCAR’s Senior Vice President, Chief Track Properties Officer Chip Wile, himself a former Darlington Raceway president (2013-16). “He’s going to continue to build on what Kerry has built here. I’ve had the opportunity to work with Josh directly for the past eight years. He is very, very strategic and smart and thoughtful. He is all about the team. He just has an incredible style about him.

“When you’re thinking about what Darlington needs and this community, building on what we’ve been able to do here over the last 10 years, you need to pick the right person and I can’t think of a better person than Josh Harris.”

Tharp, one of the most respected executives in the sport, also had nothing but praise for his successor.

“Josh Harris is the right person to lead Darlington Raceway,’’ Tharp said. “This is one of the most historic race tracks in motorsports and I am certain it will be in great hands. Josh has already proven himself as a tremendous leader in NASCAR. He is tireless, passionate, strategic and ready to lead the track ‘Too Tough to Tame’ into its next era of success.”

It’s exactly the kind of faith and goodwill that Harris has earned through more than a decade of working in the industry. He came to NASCAR 12 years ago after earning his undergraduate degree at Mississippi State University and then a Master’s Degree in Sports Administration from the University of Miami.

After holding an executive role working for IMG Tickets in South Florida, Harris took a job as Director of Ticketing at Talladega Superspeedway in 2012 – a return of sorts to the place his lifelong love of NASCAR really began. One of his fondest memories from Talladega is watching Dale Earnhardt’s legendary final career victory in the 2000 Winston 500, when the late NASCAR Hall of Famer passed 17 cars in the final five laps to claim his last trophy. It is where Harris’ appreciation of the NASCAR industry was born and blossomed.

“I came across this [open] position at Talladega and thought, ‘That would be so cool to go back and have an impact on a place that I got to go as a kid and have great memories of.’ ” Harris recalled.

After a successful tenure at Talladega, Harris went on to hold positions as NASCAR’s Southeast Region Vice President of Ticketing & Guest Services and eventually the company’s Southeast Region Vice President of Client & Event Experience. It all helped prepare the 41-year-old for his role leading one of the sport’s most iconic venues.

This background in ticket sales, client and guest services working at the sport’s marquee tracks such as Daytona International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, and for the last nine months working with Tharp at Darlington Raceway, has certainly provided Harris with vast experiences sure to benefit him in his new role.

“My background has primarily been on the customer side of our business, in ticketing, guest services, event experience, and I really think just understanding our fans over the course of the last 12 years puts me in a unique position,’’ Harris said. “I think I’ll bring a unique perspective.

“First and foremost, the competition on the track will take care of itself, but I think we can control a lot of things around the fan experience here, the camping experience and really making each weekend unique in its own right, but also giving fans a reason to want to be here and to not miss out on being here at Darlington Raceway.’’

The expectations of leading one of NASCAR’s premier facilities are high and not only does Harris look forward to the job, he has support throughout the sport.

“Josh has gotten comfortable with the team and gotten comfortable in the community and obviously has the respect of so many people within our organization,’’ Wile said. “I’m very confident he’s going to continue to push this incredibly important facility forward for us. It is one of our most important properties for a number of reasons. Obviously, the history that sits inside these four walls, you could write hundreds of books on. We don’t have another Darlington Raceway. It’s one of the oldest facilities but also so iconic, that Wrigley Field-esque facility. It has to be led by the right people that continue to foster it and move it forward.

“He has the right experience, he has the right style, he’s willing to roll his sleeves up and do whatever it takes and quite honestly, over the last 10 years has been prepping for this job,’’ Wile continued, adding, “You have a lot of really important events that are important not just to the race track but to the sport that you have to lead. And I certainly think he’s going to do that.”

Posted on September 1, 2023September 2, 2023 by Brandon White

TIMMONSVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA – Sam Yarbrough was not happy with his No. 95 Aaron’s Sales & Lease Ford prior to qualifying for the inaugural Marty Ward Memorial Locked In 150 at Florence Motor Speedway.

After struggling to find pace in practice, Yarbrough entered the 150-lap feature with a conservative mindset, determined to work through the issues hindering his car while simultaneously keeping it in one piece.

Any frustrations Yarbrough had faded away as the Locked In 150 progressed. The veteran racer conserved his equipment before chasing down and passing Cody Kelley for the victory on Friday night, which gave him the pole for the prestigious South Carolina 400 at Florence in the process.

“I’m much relieved to be honest,” Yarbrough said. “I still don’t know how we ended up here, but we made a couple good changes before qualifying and found some speed there. After making a couple small adjustments at the break, the car was really good during those last 50 laps.”

It’s so nice to have some success after all the struggles we’ve had this year.”

Yarbrough has long been seasoned when it comes to navigating abrasive tracks, as he won six titles at Myrtle Beach Speedway prior to its closure in 2020.

Finding the speed he lacked earlier in the afternoon was only one part of the winning formula for Yarbrough in the Locked In 150. He managed to find a perfect balance between being cautious and aggressive during the opening stage by maintaining track position inside the Top 5 while on a conservative strategy.

Despite executing the plan perfectly, Yarbrough was still unsure if adjustments would help him get around the dominant car of the night in Kelley. Once Kelley’s car began to fade in the closing stages, Yarbrough utilized the bottom groove to take the lead and pull away with the Locked In 150 victory.

“At that break, I thought we had a second-place car,” Yarbrough said. “I figured [Kelley] was kind of going to set sail but he was struggling for drive, and I could roll the bottom of [Turns] 3 and 4 really good. I got some clean track and tried to hit my marks every lap. Everything paid off.”

With his victory, Sam Yarbrough is in a great position to chase his second South Carolina 400 crown. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)

Clean air did not give Yarbrough much comfort with NASCAR Cup Series driver Chase Briscoe consistently recording some of the fastest laps on track.

Driving a car prepared by Chad Bryant Racing, Briscoe saved the most tires of anybody on track by dropping to the rear of the 20-car field during the opening stretch. Briscoe made a spirited charge towards the front after the Lap 97 break but ran out of time to overtake Yarbrough for the lead.

The chemistry Briscoe already shared with Bryant from their time together in the ARCA Menards Series made preparing for the Locked In 150 a calm experience. He cherished the opportunity to race with Bryant again, but was disappointed the venture did not result in a victory.

“I would have loved to have a caution,” Briscoe said. “It would have been hard to pass [Yarbrough] if we did have one because I would have been stuck on the outside [on the restart]. Towards the end, I started running the top in Turns 1 and 2, but in [Turns] 3 and 4, you had to be on the inside wall.

This was something totally different for me, and I really enjoyed it.”

A victory on Friday would have made committing to the South Carolina 400 in November an easy decision for Briscoe. The event takes place after the conclusion of the Cup Series season, but Briscoe plans to talk with his wife Marissa before choosing to chase the Late Model Stock crown jewel.

Briscoe believes he made significant progress at Florence following his debut Late Model Stock race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in May, which resulted in a solid 10^th place finish. While he stopped short of saying he had the discipline figured out, Briscoe is optimistic he can compete for a win in his next Late Model Stock race, whenever that may be.

“There’s a feel you’re supposed to have,” Briscoe said. “All day today, I knew that wasn’t how a car was supposed to feel, but I didn’t really know what it should feel like. Now I have a baseline of what this thing should feel like if I want to compete for a win.”

That’s going to be a big thing if I ever come back and run another one.”

If Briscoe does elect to compete in the South Carolina 400, Yarbrough will be one of the primary obstacles standing in his way of a win.

Yarbrough’s triumph puts him in a perfect position to claim his second South Carolina 400 victory after previously doing so at Myrtle Beach in 2007. A win in November would make him the first driver to win the race at both Myrtle Beach and Florence.

With the South Carolina 400 being an endurance race for Late Model Stocks, Yarbrough said tire conservation is going to be even more pertinent compared to Friday but stressed the importance of also having a fast car through every portion of the feature.

“[The pole] means a lot as long as the car is good,” Yarbrough said. “If the car is not good when you’re starting up front, you’re just going to go backwards. The mindset is the same as every race, which is to work hard, make good adjustments and do the best you can.”

We’re going to get this car better for November and see how it goes.”

Yarbrough has just over two months to make his red No. 95 as fast as possible before pursuing a second victory in one of the southeast’s most cherished Late Model Stock events.

Posted on September 1, 2023September 2, 2023 by Reid Spencer

As the NASCAR Cup Series begins its playoffs with Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, the NASCAR Xfinity Series still has two races left to decide its full postseason field.

PLAYOFFS: Playoffs hub page | Playoffs Grid Challenge game

That situation should gain considerable clarity in Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at the “Track Too Tough to Tame” (3:30 p.m. ET on USA, NBC Sports App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Currently, however, there is uncertainty at both the top and bottom of the playoff grid.

Last Friday at Daytona International Speedway, Parker Kligerman rode a fourth-place finish into the top 12 in the Xfinity Series standings, displacing Riley Herbst, who was relegated to a 24th-place result by power steering issues and a blown tire.

Kligerman leads Herbst by 20 points for the 12th and final Playoff-eligible position, but Kligerman has posted a best finish of 13th in three Xfinity Series starts at Darlington. Herbst, on the other hand, boasts two top fives in seven starts at the 1.366-mile track, with a best of third in last year’s spring race.

Kligerman, however, continues to overachieve with his No. 48 Big Machine Racing team. He comes to Darlington riding a streak of six straight top-10 results, most recently a third at Watkins Glen and the fourth at Daytona.

“Our incredible run of races as we rumble toward the playoffs has created serious momentum for our team,” Kligerman said. “This is a great way to head to Darlington, one of my favorite tracks, and we had great speed there in the spring (when he finished 13th).

“We have made other improvements from the spring that also give me confidence… I know if we keep doing what we have been the last 11 weeks, we can end this summer on a high note.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the battle for the Xfinity Series Regular Season Championship got more interesting when Justin Allgaier entered the conversation with his victory last Friday at Daytona.

Allgaier vaulted into second place in the standings, 27 points behind series leader Austin Hill. John Hunter Nemechek, who has swapped the series lead with Hill throughout the season, is one point behind Allgaier in third.

Those three drivers are among the eight who already have qualified for the Xfinity Series Playoffs.

“I’m really looking forward to getting to Darlington this weekend,” Allgaier said. “We finished second (to Cup driver Kyle Larson) here in the spring, and I can’t think of a better place to come to off of a win than here.

“We’ve had extremely strong cars the last couple of years here, and I feel very confident that our Hellmann’s Chevrolet will be just as fast again on Saturday. Hopefully, we can go out and execute the way we have been and continue to close that gap on the point lead and the Regular Season Championship.”

Allgaier has two victories and 12 top 10s in 16 career starts at Darlington. He has finished in the top five (including the two wins) in four of his last five races at the “Lady in Black.”

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Zack Albert

CHARLOTTE — Three of the four drivers who reached the championship round of last year’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs are back in the postseason field this year, nine races away from making a return trip to Phoenix Raceway’s finale with a shot at the title. All three had intriguing answers when asked to sum up the regular season that brought them to this point.

“It’s been up and down,” said Joey Logano, the defending Cup Series champ.

“Not ideal,” said Christopher Bell, one of last year’s playoff Cinderellas.

“I don’t know if we have enough tape!” offered Ross Chastain, wondering out loud how long it might take to properly tell the tale.

Logano, Bell and Chastain enter the playoff hunt with one win apiece, an output that’s slotted them squarely and tightly midpack as the postseason opens with Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) at Darlington Raceway. Chase Elliott is the only Championship 4 qualifier from 2022 who did not reach playoff eligibility this season.

MORE: Playoff standings | Weekend schedule: Darlington

Logano was a two-time winner before entering last season’s playoffs, and he carried a degree of swagger into the Phoenix finale, which he won from the pole to secure his second Cup Series crown. This year, he’s tied for 11th place in the standings, just one point above the provisional elimination line among the 16 title-eligible drivers after riding the “up and down” wave he referenced.

“I feel like we’ve been executing fairly good, most of the time,” Logano said during Thursday’s Cup Series Playoffs Media Day. “I don’t think we have as much speed as we need most of the time, so I think that’s kind of why you see where we’re at. Now, we’ve had some races where we didn’t score many points. That’s why we finished where we did in the regular season, but like I say, it was just a really close battle all the way up to fifth or so in points. So obviously, we’re not going in with as many playoff points as I’d like to have, but (we’ve) also been in the same exact position before and believe we won that one, so I feel OK about it.”

That mention called back to his first Cup Series title in 2018, when Logano entered the final race with the fewest wins among the Championship 4 field. His lone victory this year came at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the fifth race of the season, and his eight top fives have been offset by six finishes of 30th or worse.

Now headed to race No. 27 of the 2023 campaign, Logano has a sense that his Team Penske No. 22 Ford will find another gear when it matters most.

“No, I really feel like this team — and all of Team Penske in general — for years, we’ve kind of had that summer slump and then it comes to the end of the year and look out. They find a little something, and so, really hoping that’s the same thing this year,” Logano said. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. Seems like Team Penske, like I said, does a good job of bringing faster cars, but I think the 22 (team) in general does a really good job of handling pressure, and there’s a lot of teams that are out there that don’t handle the pressure the same way and embrace the pressure the way like we do, and I think that’s what gives us a pretty good advantage.”

Bell led the Cup Series standings for three weeks in the spring, taking that perch after he prevailed in the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt-track race. But Bell’s consistency from that point started to fray, and his next top-five finish arrived 17 races later — third place in the next-to-last event of the regular season at Watkins Glen.

“What is crazy is we finished fourth in the regular-season standings, which is amazing,” Bell said. “If you would have told me from February 1st that you are going to finish fourth in the regular-season standings, I would be like ‘yeah, I’ll take that.’ But after living it, there were so many more opportunities on the table that got left there. That was very disappointing and encouraging at the same time, because I know that we have all of the pieces to not be underrated. Just have to put them all together, and if we do put them all together, I think greatness is ahead of us.”

MORE: Darlington 101

Bell enters the postseason with a new pit crew. Joe Gibbs Racing switched over-the-wall personnel between Bell’s No. 20 team and the No. 54 group for Ty Gibbs, who did not qualify for the playoffs in his rookie season. Bell said he went to pit-stop practice earlier this week to get better acquainted with his new starting five and to “let them know I’m all in.”

He also heads into the final 10-race stretch knowing that his team is capable of clutch performances. In last year’s playoffs, Bell advanced to the Championship 4 by converting two consecutive must-win scenarios in elimination races, a resilience that carried him to Phoenix.

“When we were on the outside looking in, it would have been really easy to say that we are done, we are not going to put our full effort into this car, and they didn’t,” Bell said. “Both times that we needed a win, they brought the best piece and a piece capable of doing it. Just very thankful to be able to drive for such a talented group of people.”

Chastain’s path this year has had plenty of twists and turns. His aggressive on-track style drew its share of scrutiny through the early portions of the regular season, but he also showed strength by leading the Cup Series standings for several weeks before the summer months approached.

A Nashville Superspeedway victory near the end of June solidified his hold on a playoff berth, but that’s Chastain’s lone top-five result in the last 14 starts for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing team. At Media Day, he lifted the cuffs at the wrists of his fire suit to signify that he didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve along the lines of his “Hail Melon” move from Martinsville Speedway in last year’s penultimate race, but Chastain added that he’s absorbed valuable lessons from the journey so far.

“I think there’s a lot of things I could have done better. There’s a lot of things that I’m grateful that went the way they did, and I learned from all of it,’ Chastain said. “So how do I think it went? I think it went exactly how it was supposed to. Now we have a shot for 10 weeks to go fight for this thing.”

Posted on September 1, 2023September 1, 2023 by Staff Report

Ryan Preece has been cleared to race in this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway after his crash at Daytona International Speedway last weekend, Stewart-Haas Racing announced Friday.

Preece barrel-rolled down the back straightaway at Lap 155 of Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona, tumbling 10 times before coming to a rest on his wheels. Preece exited the No. 41 Ford under his own power with assistance from safety workers and was kept overnight at Halifax Medical Center for further evaluation before being released the next morning.

“I’m good. It’s been quite a week, that’s for sure. But definitely, definitely really excited to have been given the OK to race this weekend at Darlington,” Preece told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Friday morning. “Because there’s nothing that I love more than my family and racing race cars. So to be able to go to Darlington this weekend and race with my 41 team, we’re excited and ready to get back out there.”

MORE: Cup schedule | Weekend schedule: Darlington

The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs are set to begin with Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). Preece finished 15th at the 1.366-mile oval earlier this season. Preece did not qualify for the playoffs and enters 26th in the points standings.

“I was ready to go do tests and everything on Sunday, you know, to make sure I was cleared. But we wanted to go through all the steps and we did it twice, just to make sure there were no symptoms that appeared later in the week. And everything’s good. I feel great, no concussion and I’m ready to get out there and go race,” he said. “That just goes to show the amount of work that NASCAR has really been doing to keep improving this race car and obviously having that car at the R&D Center, they’re gonna look over and continue to work to make it even safer. I’m not downplaying the wreck by any means, because it was certainly probably the biggest wreck I’ve ever taken in my career, but I’m sitting here, I’m talking to you guys right now. There’s nothing stopping me from racing this weekend. And I’m really ready to get to Darlington.”

The Connecticut native returned to full-time Cup Series action this season for the first time since 2021. He spent three seasons driving for JTG Daugherty Racing before the organization scaled back to one car for the 2022 season. Preece joined SHR during that offseason and served as the program’s simulation driver until the team opted to put him into the No. 41 Ford this year.

Preece scored his best finish of the year in the July 30 race at Richmond Raceway, where he finished fifth. He also scored a Busch Light Pole Award in the spring race at Martinsville Speedway.

Posted on September 1, 2023September 3, 2023 by Kobe Lambeth

Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

(⏰ Sunday, 6 p.m. ET | 📺 USA, NBC Sports App | 📻 MRN, SiriusXM)

Everything you need to know for Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington, the 27th points-paying race of the 2023 Cup Series campaign.

Weekend schedule | TV schedule | Weather tracker | Darlington playoff race 101

📍 Location: Darlington, South Carolina
📐 Track length: 1.366 miles
🎟️ Buy tickets: Find weekend passes, seats for the race
💰 Cup Series race purse: $8,260,258
📏 Race distance: 367 laps | 501.32 miles
🔢 Stages: 115 | 230 | 367
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📋 Starting lineup: Bell on pole at Darlington
🚗 Pit stall assignments: See where drivers will pit
🏆 Most recent winner: Erik Jones, fall 2022

Key things to watch 🔑

Saturday’s sessions

Christopher Bell kicked off the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs at Darlington Raceway by taking his third pole of 2023. He led a Toyota 1-2-3 qualifying effort as Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick qualified second and third, respectively. Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski completed the top five. Aric Almirola, who qualified 10th, is the only non-playoff driver starting in the top 10. There are no Chevrolets starting inside the top 10. | Read the full practice, qualifying recap

Big story line

Can several playoff contenders start building momentum and consistency at Darlington?
In NASCAR’s previous trip to the “Lady in Black” in May, Ross Chastain and Kyle Larson tangled while fighting for the win in the Goodyear 400. Both drivers have made the postseason, but neither appears to be an early favorite to walk away with the Bill France Cup in November. Larson has not won in the Cup Series since mid-April and only has three top-10 finishes in the last eight races. For Chastain, the Trackhouse Racing driver has been inconsistent since winning at Nashville. If last year’s Championship 4 contender wants to make another deep playoff run, kicking off the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs on a strong note at Darlington is a must. In the last 14 races, Chastain has finished inside the top 10 three times.

Meanwhile, in the first 15 races of the 2023 season, Kyle Busch won three races in his first season with Richard Childress Racing. Toward the end of the summer stretch of races, Busch ran into some inconsistency problems. The two-time Cup Series champion enters the playoffs with two finishes better than 14th place in the last seven races. Now is the time for these drivers to rediscover their early season magic. | Relive Larson and Chastain’s clash in the 2023 Darlington spring race

History tells us…

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. enter Darlington as the favorites.
After missing out on the regular-season title to Truex Jr., Hamlin will reset his focus on trying to win his fourth Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday night. In the last two years, Hamlin has finished first and second in the 367-lap event. To keep this pattern consistent, another trip to Victory Lane in South Carolina would not be a huge surprise — especially considering Hamlin is rolling off second. In his last six Darlington starts, Hamlin has three top fives and, surprisingly, no DNFs in 22 career starts.

With two Southern 500 victories under his belt, Truex Jr. will look for win No. 3 at “The Track Too Tough to Tame.” Despite leading laps in the last 10 of 12 Darlington races, the No. 19 Toyota has finished 24th or worse in the last three races. All three were DNFs, two for crashes and one for an issue with the water pump. Although Truex Jr. has not shown the results during the Next Gen era at Darlington, the odds still list him as a 5-1 shot to win.

He may not be the betting favorite to win, but watch out for…

Chase Elliott. With no more pressure of making the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs to compete for the driver’s title, Elliott and his No. 9 team can zero in on competing for race wins. After missing a total of seven races during the regular season, Elliott fell short of the postseason this year. While his No. 9 Chevrolet remains eligible for the Owner’s Championship, he will be a non-playoff driver this year as his quest for a second Cup title will have to wait until 2024. In 2022, non-playoff drivers won the first four races of the postseason, so maybe Elliott can keep that trend going a year later and spoil the party for 16 drivers looking to win and advance to the Round of 12.

In his last five Darlington starts, Elliott has finished seventh or better three times, including his best career finish of third at the South Carolina track earlier this year in May. Entering Sunday night’s race with an odds of 17-1, the Hendrick Motorsports driver will try to reach Darlington Victory Lane for the first time in his Cup Series career. | Elliott misses playoffs: ‘Gonna be some lessons taken from it’

Talkin’ Trophies 🔍

In this installment of ‘Talkin’ Trophies,’ we explore the origins of Darlington’s Johnny Mantz trophy that it hands out to the winner of the Southern 500.

Familiar favorites ⭐️

Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.

• At-track photos: See the best images from Darlington playoff weekend | Photos
• Bubble Watch: Stacked playoff field creates minuscule margin of error | See the bubble
• Fantasy Fastlane: It’s postseason time at Darlington | See fantasy tips
• Paint Scheme Preview: See the schemes for Darlington-2 | Pick a favorite
• Power Rankings: Can William Byron kick off playoffs with Darlington sweep? | Latest driver rankings
• Stacking Pennies: Corey LaJoie reacts to getting a top-10 finish at Daytona | Listen to the podcast

💎 NASCAR 75: Learn more about the history of the sport, from pioneers to current stars | Visit NASCAR 75 hub

Get in on the action 💰

Think you know NASCAR? Put your mettle to the test with gaming, fantasy and Fan Rewards.

• Fantasy Live: Participate in interactive gameplay from week to week | Choose your lineup
• Fan Rewards: New in 2023, get rewarded for your participation | Learn more
• NASCAR BetCenter: Don’t miss your chance to make picks each week | Visit the BetCenter
• Going the distance: 2023 Cup Series championship odds | See them here

🔮 Advance to Victory Lane: Racing Insights projects the finishing order

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Staff Report

The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs begin Sunday evening at Darlington Raceway (6 ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). This season marks one of the most stacked 16-driver fields in the current postseason format that began in 2017.

With the fewest playoff points ever scored by the top seeds entering the playoffs and just 25 points separating third to 16th in the standings, the margin of error will be slim to none during arguably the toughest event on the Cup Series calendar. Before the action kicks off this weekend, take a look at some analysis of drivers closest to the Round of 12 elimination line, courtesy of Racing Insights.

✅ DRIVERS ABOVE ELIMINATION LINE

BRAD KESELOWSKI

Points above: 3

Trending: Hit or Miss

Darlington outlook — Warm: “The Lady in Black” has treated Keselowski well in recent years. Even in a down season last year, he managed to score a seventh-place finish in the Southern 500 and owns three finishes of seventh or better in the last four Darlington races overall. Keselowski finished fourth at the South Carolina track in May.

TYLER REDDICK

Points above: 2

Trending: Hit or Miss

Darlington outlook — Hit or Miss: Reddick was phenomenal in both Darlington races in 2022, with a runner-up finish in the spring event and a third-place result in last year’s Southern 500. He finished 22nd at Darlington earlier this year but will need to score big points Sunday night with a lot to prove as he’s been eliminated in the Round of 16 in his first two playoff appearances.

JOEY LOGANO

Points above: 1

Trending: Hit or Miss

Darlington outlook — May Snapped Hot Streak: The defending champion is on pace to match his worst career season since missing the playoffs in 2017. However, the two-time Cup Series titleholder is known for his opportunistic tendencies in the playoffs, and it wouldn’t be surprising if Logano musters a big points day at Darlington despite finishing 18th in the spring after a late-race incident.

RYAN BLANEY

Points above: 1

Trending: Hit or Miss

Darlington outlook — Cold Until May: Darlington is not one of Blaney’s better tracks, but he did score one of just two top-10 results in 13 career starts in May. It appeared that his signature Coke 6oo victory could turn him into a title contender, but that has not been the case as the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford hasn’t scored a top-five finish since.

🚩 DRIVERS BELOW ELIMINATION LINE

MICHAEL MCDOWELL

Points below: 1

Trending: Win or Bust

Darlington outlook — Hit or Miss: Not many are banking on McDowell to advance out of the Round of 16, but the last two Southern 500s have scrambled the playoff field, and the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford benefitted from the wild race to kick off the postseason last season as he finished sixth. If he ends up on the positive side again, McDowell could find himself in a good spot heading to Kansas.

RICKY STENHOUSE JR.

Points below: 3

Trending: Cold

Darlington outlook — Mostly Cold: Just one top-10 finish for Stenhouse in 15 Darlington starts doesn’t trend well for the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team, but like McDowell, Stenhouse needs to bank on a clean day and hit their goal for points.

KEVIN HARVICK

Points below: 4

Trending: Hit or Miss

Darlington outlook — Hot: Outside of Phoenix, Darlington is toward the top of the list of Harvick’s best tracks. It would be fitting for the final Southern 500 for “The Closer” to result in a trip to Victory Lane, but if 14 top 10s in his last 15 trips to Darlington say anything, Sunday should at least be a big points day to get the No. 4 above the elimination line.

BUBBA WALLACE

Points below: 8

Trending: Cold

Darlington outlook — Warming Up: Wallace’s debut in the playoffs has been a long time coming through six full-time seasons. With two intermediate ovals making up the first two trips in the Round of 16, he has an opportunity to make a huge splash as he finished fifth at Darlington in the spring and was the winner of the Kansas playoff race last season.