Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

After 26 races, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs are officially here.

The postseason kicks off with the Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The event starts the Round of 16, which consists of three races before the first elimination from championship contention.

Prepare for the playoff opener with all the info you need here:

RELATED: Weekend schedule | Cup Series standings

TAMING THE TRACK TOO TOUGH TO TAME

Teams will have limited time to dial their cars in for a grueling 500 miles around the 1.366-mile Darlington Raceway. Competitors will have roughly 20 minutes to practice on Saturday (12:05 p.m. ET, NBC Sports App, 12:30 p.m. USA Network) with teams broken into Groups A and B. After each group practices, single-car, single-lap qualifying will begin to set the starting lineup (12:50 p.m. ET).

With the postseason set to begin, playoff drivers and teams will be ordered by their previous race metrics and assigned to Group A or B by the usual odd/even metric procedures. Playoff teams will be the final cars to qualify in their respective groups.

The five fastest overall drivers from each group will advance to the final round of qualifying, where those 10 drivers will each set one more timed lap to fight for the Busch Light Pole Award.

MORE: Paint Scheme Preview | Qualifying order

DARLINGTON STORY LINES

— Sixteen different drivers won through 26 races, tied for the record through 26 races set in 1961 and 2003.

— Denny Hamlin’s average finish of 7.75 at Darlington is his best on an oval and his best of all tracks with more than two starts.

— The eventual race winner at Darlington scored stage points in each stage in every race.

— The pass for the win came in the final 10 laps in 15 of the 26 races in 2022.

— Twelve of the last 14 Darlington winners all had at least 24 career wins entering the race.

— Sixty-three percent of the races at Darlington were won by drivers who won a Cup Series championship.

— Hendrick Motorsports’ last of a Cup-record 14 Darlington wins was in May 2012 when Jimmie Johnson got the team it’s 200th Cup win. (Hendrick was runner-up both races there last year.)

— Four of the last 11 races at Darlington were won from pit stall 35; two of the last eight were won from stall 10 and only three of the last 13 were won from stall 1.

Source: Racing Insights

GOODYEAR TIRES

Darlington Raceway is known for devouring tires with its rough, abrasive surface and narrow racing groove. Teams will have 13 sets available to use throughout the course of the event, meaning they’ll have one set available per every 28.2 laps.

“This race is one of the biggest challenges for both teams and tires on the whole schedule,” Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, said in a release. “Running 500 miles on such a narrow track is tough, but then teams have to deal with the abrasive track surface that wears tires like none other. We expect to see more than two seconds of fall-off a lap over the course of a fuel run, so drivers who manage their tires will benefit on long runs. With 13 sets for the race, pit road will be a very busy and important place as teams take four tires every chance they get.”

DARLINGTON HISTORY

— Darlington, also known as “The Track Too Tough to Tame” and “The Lady in Black,” is NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway.

— The track’s first race was on Sept. 4, 1950, the 21st race in Cup Series history and 13th of the 1950 season.

— Darlington has hosted a NASCAR Cup Series race every year since.

— Darlington native Harold Brasington quit racing in the late 1940s to concentrate on peanut farming and his construction business. He got the idea for a speedway after he noticed the huge crowds at the Indianapolis 500. In 1949 he leased cotton and peanut farmland on the west side of town from his poker playing buddy Sherman Ramsey. He created an egg-shaped oval with one corner tighter, narrower, and more steeply banked because he promised Ramsey that the new track wouldn’t disturb his minnow pond at the west end.

— The first NASCAR race held on an oval track more than 1-mile long and the first on a paved track took place on the 1.25 mile speedway before 25,000 fans on Sept. 4, 1950. Qualifying for the first race was held ‘Indianapolis style’ over 15 days from Aug. 19th-Sept. 2nd. The five fastest cars each day qualified for the race. Curtis Turner was the fastest on the first day and won the pole. The fastest qualifier was Wally Campbell. Many competitors drove their race cars to the track.

—  Seventy-five drivers started three-abreast in the first ever 500-mile stock car race which lasted six hours and 38 minutes. Crews underestimated how many tires the gritty surface would chew up and went through the infield buying spare tires from fans.

— The inaugural 500-miler was won by Indianapolis 500 driver Johnny Mantz, the slowest qualifier of the field, who chose much harder Indy-style tires. Mantz won $10,100 from the $25,000 purse. His average speed of 73 mph was faster than his qualifying speed.

— The last four Darlington races were won by different drivers.

— Erik Jones in 2019 is the only Darlington winner under the age of 30 in the last 14 races.

— Joey Logano passed William Byron with two laps to go at Darlington in May, the latest the pass for the win was made in the last 20 Darlington races.

Source: Racing Insights

LUCK BE THE LADY IN BLACK SUNDAY NIGHT

Kyle Larson is still searching for his first win at Darlington Raceway, but he enters the Southern 500 as the odds-on favorite at 6-1, according to BetMGM.

Larson hounded Denny Hamlin in the closing quarter lap in last year’s race but wound up finishing P2. In fact, Larson has finished second or third in five of his last seven Darlington starts. Perhaps this is the year he breaks through.

The obvious steal of the week, however, is Kevin Harvick. Harvick is a two-time Southern 500 champion and three-time winner at Darlington overall. The 2014 winner of the Cup title enters listed at 20-1 odds but holds a streak of 13 straight top-nine finishes.

MORE: Complete list of odds for Sunday

FANTASY LIVE

Want to manage a team and race your way to the top of the leaderboards? Check out NASCAR Fantasy Live, which resets for the playoffs. The free-to-play game lets you choose your drivers each week and show off your crew-chief instincts by garaging a driver by the end of Stage 2, and there is a $10,000 prize for the playoff winner.

The 2022 Fantasy Live points leaders are Chase Elliott (933), Joey Logano (802), Martin Truex Jr. (793) and Ryan Blaney (793).

In addition to Fantasy Live, NASCAR.com is offering the Playoffs Grid Challenge presented by Ruoff Mortgage during the playoffs.

How to play: Fantasy Live | Set up a team today!

ALSO ON NASCAR.COM

Get additional camera views by logging on to NASCAR Drive, where each week a select number of in-car cameras will be available — as well as a battle cam and an overhead look.

NASCAR has partnered with LiveLike to add fan engagement in the NASCAR Mobile App. Log in to the mobile app during the race for polls, quizzes, the cheer meter and more — and see instant results from NASCAR fans like you.

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Denny Hamlin is the only active NASCAR Cup Series driver with four career wins at Darlington Raceway.

He’s the only active driver with an average finish better than eighth (7.8) and ranks second in top-five finish rate (55%) and top-10 finish rate (75%).

That’s not enough to be the favorite this weekend.

As of Thursday, Hamlin was +700 in race-winner odds at the BetMGM online sportsbook for the Cook Out Southern 500, just behind Kyle Larson (+600) and just ahead of a quartet of drivers at +800.

It’s a similar position for Hamlin; he was +700 to win the Goodyear 400 in May at Darlington, tied with Martin Truex Jr. and just behind Larson (+500).

However, Hamlin is a more popular pick this weekend than in May. He had approximately 4% of the race-winner handle for the Goodyear 400, but now has more than 12% of the handle for the Cook Out Southern 500.

Hamlin was frustrated upon his arrival at the Goodyear 400; he had four straight finishes outside the top 15 and just one top 10 – a win in the Toyota Owners 400 – in the season’s first 11 races. The 48-time winner on the NASCAR Cup Series likened the issues to a “coyote [that] gets the anvil dropped on its head,” while conceding the frustration has simplified his team’s strategy.

“We go for playoff points only,” Hamlin said. “So when you see the field start splitting because they want stage points or whatever, you know where the 11 stands from this point on. We’re trying to get five points at the end of the race and two for the playoffs during stages.”

Hamlin finished 21st in the Goodyear 400 but earned 27 points, which proved pivotal en route to his 16th career playoff appearance. His 15th appearance began with a win; exactly one year ago, he snapped a 31-race winless drought by winning the 2021 Cook Out Southern 500.

If Hamlin goes on to defend his win at “The Lady in Black,” he must, at minimum, finish ahead of Chase Elliott, whom he faces in a blockbuster featured matchup in NASCAR betting:

Denny Hamlin (-120) vs. Chase Elliott (-110)

Denny Hamlin has more wins at Darlington than Chase Elliott has top-five finishes (three). And Elliott has finished 20th or worse more times in his last five starts (three) at the track than Hamlin has in 20 career starts (two).

However, Elliott is the regular-season points champion with a Cup Series-high four wins and has been a popular pick among bettors all season. And he’s a popular pick this weekend, again; his race-winner ticket share (7.2%) ranks second to only Kevin Harvick (11.1%), and handle share (8.5%) ranks fourth.

Elliott is also dominating featured matchup betting over Hamlin; he has 96% of the handle on 75% of the tickets.

Austin Dillon (-130) vs. Austin Cindric (+100)

After sneaking into the playoffs, Austin Dillon returns to a track where he’s never won and never led a lap in 12 starts but ranks fifth among active drivers in average finish (11.9). And among drivers with at least 10 starts at the track, he’s only behind Chris Buescher and Landon Cassill in start-to-finish improvement (+3.8).

The public isn’t buying Dillon to win – he’s tied for the 16th-highest ticket share (2.5%) and 22nd-highest handle share (1%) – or to finish ahead of Austin Cindric. Dillon has just 7% of the tickets and 5% of the handle in the featured matchup.

Kyle Larson (-140) vs. Kyle Busch (+110)

Kyle Larson is the betting favorite – one year removed from a five-start stretch at Darlington with four top-three finishes – but Kyle Busch is the veteran. This will be his 22nd start at the track, second to only Kevin Harvick (30) among drivers in the field this weekend.

Larson and Busch have a 50-50 ticket split in featured matchup betting, but Larson’s 50% equates to 88% of the handle.

Tyler Reddick (-155) vs. Kevin Harvick (+120)

Tyler Reddick finished second at the Goodyear 400, his first top five in six career Cup Series starts at the track – though he did have third and second-place finishes in the Xfinity Series in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

His Southern 500 featured matchup opponent Kevin Harvick leads in both race-winner ticket share and handle share (17.7%), and has 71% of the handle (on 77% of the tickets) in the matchup.

You can view updated Cook Out Southern 500 odds and more online sports betting, including parlays and live betting, at BetMGM.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

When you look at Darlington Raceway from afar, it may appear to be like other ovals on the NASCAR circuit that are longer than a mile. That impression couldn’t be further from the truth. What other track has a nickname as slick as “The Lady in Black” or has history written on its walls whenever a car brushes off it, leaving the classic ‘Darlington stripe’ to add a bit of flair to even the most iconic paint schemes?

Darlington opens the Cup Series Playoffs for the third consecutive year Sunday (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and it’s one of the greatest — if not the greatest — challenge for drivers to see if they have the mettle to be a champion in NASCAR’s premier series.

RELATED: Playoff standings | Top Darlington moments

Due to its unique egg-like shape, the 1.366-mile track plays out differently in almost every corner and every lap. Turns 1 and 2 are deceptively steep at 25 degrees of banking and force the drivers to make a tough decision to either run a low second lane, where they could be slower coming off Turn 2, or run the preferred line right next to the wall where the slightest of mistakes could send your car into the wall. Turns 3 and 4 become a fight for space in the narrow corners, and if drivers don’t set up their exits perfectly, well, expect the wall to leave a gift on the side of their cars.

Driving to the limit at Darlington is the key to winning at this historic track. And sometimes, it ends up playing out like a short track in crunch time as we’ve seen over the years.

Whether it be two title contenders putting each other in the wall late in the 2020 edition of the Southern 500 or one of NASCAR’s greatest finishes of all tine in 2003, where Kurt Busch and Ricky Craven slammed door-to-door all the way down the frontstretch in a duel for the ages, Darlington has a flair for the dramatic and fans should expect nothing less for Sunday’s Labor Day weekend tradition.

 

The track “Too Tough to Tame” certainly lived up to the moniker in the spring as one-third of the field ended up behind the wall with severe damage or a mechanical problem before Joey Logano took the checkered flag. If you go back to last year’s running of the Southern 500, the playoffs were flipped upside down in its first chapter of 2021 as nine of the 16 playoff drivers finished outside the top 15.

While many have yet to conquer Darlington, there are a few drivers who have becomes favorites of “The Lady in Black.”

Defending Southern 500 winner Denny Hamlin tops that list as he’s won three of the last 10 races on the 1.366-mile oval. Two-time 2022 winner Kevin Harvick is riding a wave of momentum entering the postseason and has seemingly developed a mutual bond with Darlington as he has a ludicrous average finish of 3.9 in the last 10 races at the track. Matter of fact, you have to go back to over a decade ago the last time the 2014 Cup champion finished outside the top 10 on the oval.

RELATED: Spring race recap

Logano is the most recent winner on the egg-shaped oval and tamed the track by ruffling some feathers as he gave the classic bump-and-run to William Byron entering Turn 3 with two laps to go.

Intense drama, pinpoint precision and patience pushed to the limit are always factors when trying to complete 500 miles around Darlington but even if drivers try to do everything right, only “The Lady In Black” gets to choose who she wants to court to Victory Lane on Sunday.

Best Average Finish at Darlington All-time (more than two starts):

Driver Avg. Finish Starts
Denny Hamlin 7.75 20
Kyle Larson 8.89 9
Bill Elliott 9.37 52
Herb Thomas 10.43 7
Nelson Stacy 10.5 6

Source: Racing Insights


Posted on by Staff Report

The wait is over.

USA Network’s new unscripted series “Race for the Championship” premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET, and the first of 10 episodes provides exclusive looks and sounds with multiple NASCAR Cup Series champions as they prepare for the 2022 season.

RELATED: Busch: Series humanizes us | Drivers praise series

Each episode throughout the series will feature multiple drivers and their lives and stories away from the track. Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Daniel Suárez will be the three spotlighted tonight.

In tonight’s episode, you can also expect to see:

• Mic’d up sound from Chase Elliott, Larson and Ryan Blaney from a Next Gen test at Phoenix Raceway before the start of the 2022 season;

• Larson sitting down with Hendrick Motorsports executive and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon to discuss the upcoming season … and Larson’s fandom as a child;

• The difficult decision with which Joey Logano and wife Brittany wrestle, as Brittany is nearing the birth of their third child during the week of the Busch Light Clash;

• A never-before-seen look and analysis of  the inaugural Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles.

—

How to find USA Network | USA Network streaming on the go

Posted on by Sponsored Content

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ENTER THE CONTEST

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Posted on by Reid Spencer

In the debut season of NASCAR’s Next Gen Cup Series car, drivers have noted that certain crash impacts have been particularly jarring.

“I feel like my jaw was like one of those boxers that gets his whole face demolished,” said Denny Hamlin, one of the victims of a 13-car wreck last Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

Rear impacts with the Next Gen car are the primary concern, and NASCAR is looking at a variety of solutions to ameliorate the issue.

MORE NEXT GEN: Explore 3D model

Officials from the sanctioning body met with Cup drivers and teams throughout the design and development process for the Next Gen car. Crash tests were conducted first with simulations and then with physical tests involving parts of cars, half-cars and eventually full vehicles.

“When we discussed it with the drivers and the teams, we essentially said that in right-frontal impacts and right-lateral impacts, right-side impacts and left-side impacts, we expected the experience to be approximately the same as they’ve had in the past (with the Gen 6 car),” said John Patalak, managing director, safety engineering at NASCAR.

“In frontal impacts, the Next Gen [data] shows to perform a little better… In rear impacts, we didn’t have as much space available to us as we did in Gen-6 for crush. We wanted to be sure we were not going to have fires or fuel cell damage during rear impacts. So we were a little bit limited, and we talked to drivers about that in 2021, and also the teams.”

NASCAR maintains a crash database dating to 2011 and has started accumulating data from Next Gen crashes this season. The two most useful statistics involve change in velocity (known as Delta-v, which is not vehicle dependent and also considers the angle of the crash) and peak acceleration (which involves the g-forces at impact).

“Those two things have shown to be good predictors of driver injury risk,” Patalak said. “We’ve correlated those statistically with research from a few years ago, and we continue to look at that and track that, because they’re important to us and because they are good predictors.

“A lot of drivers have said at different times, ‘Hey, that felt like the hardest hit I’ve ever had. What’s going on? That was huge,’” Patalak said. “When we look at the speed and angle into the wall of some of those crashes, which are two things which dictate crash severity, we have indeed seen some big hits this season, and that would be the case regardless of the type of race car.”

The handling behavior of the car is a contributing factor. The impacts from overcorrecting or from breaking loose on corner exit approaching the outside wall tend to be more severe, Patalak said.

“From that perspective, I think the data from the car is matching the driver’s perception of the crash,” he added.

Then again, there are crashes that are less severe than a driver might have anticipated.

“For me, I’ve only crashed the Next Gen car, truthfully, twice where I feel like it was a hard wreck, and they were both at superspeedways,” said Stewart-Haas Racing driver Chase Briscoe. “Both of them were way better than I thought they were going be. The Talladega wreck, for sure, I thought was going to be way worse from a ‘feel’ standpoint, and I felt fine.

“I was sore the next day or two, but I feel like that was kind of typical.  Obviously, I think there’s still stuff we can do to make it better, but I think in the old car there was still stuff we could do to make it better. So I think that’s the hard thing right now with the Next Gen car is, with the old car, we literally probably had thousands of data points that we could look at in crashes, where right now we’re not even probably in the hundreds yet.

“So it’s just hard to kind of pinpoint what we need to do better on this car, and as it runs and as we get through the years, I’m sure we’re going to continue to make progress on it and make it better. But I think it’s always a moving target. You’re never gonna be perfectly safe; I don’t think. You’re a race car driver. You’re driving nearly 200 miles an hour, and anything can happen, but the safer we can make it, the better.”

Right now, the primary target is lessening the severity of the rear impacts. The possible solutions aren’t limited to the structure of the car. Enhancing head-surround foam is another potential safety improvement.

“Can we make that better with newer and different materials, as well as optimizing the current materials?” Patalak said.

All potential improvements are data-driven and fed by simulations.

“We are looking at ways to be creative in creating more deflection for rear impacts,” Patalak said. “It would involve all those parts and pieces—the rear clip, the rear crash structure, the rear bumper, the rear bumper foam. That whole area from behind the driver’s seat has to work as a complete assembly during a crash.”

Posted on by Adam Fenwick

It may be hard to believe, but Matt Hirschman once went nine straight seasons without winning a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event.

That statistic is a bit misleading, of course. From 2009-17 Hirschman, competed in just 38 Tour events, which included one full season in 2011 and two seasons (2010 and 2015) when he didn’t compete in any Tour events at all.

Hirschman has made a living as an outlaw, a driver who doesn’t commit to one particular series, instead bouncing from race to race chasing the biggest possible paychecks. It’s worked out for him, as through the years he has earned the nickname “Big Money Matt” for his ability to take home big paychecks in Modified races up and down the East Coast.

As the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour prepares to compete Saturday at Oswego Speedway, Hirschman has his sites set on taking home another paycheck at a track where he’s enjoyed an incredible amount of success.

RELATED: Oswego entry list | Race preview

Remember that streak of nine straight seasons when Hirschman was winless with the Tour? He snapped that drought in 2018 with a victory at Oswego. The victory was his third career Tour win to go along with two he earned back in 2008.

In 2021, Hirschman struck again at Oswego, leading a race-high 70 laps en route to his fourth career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory. Counting his wins with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and other sanctioning bodies, Hirschman has captured the checkered flag 13 times in Modified competition at the track.

Hirschman’s 13 victories is tied with NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour legend Richie Evans at the top of the modern day Modified win list at Oswego. Should Hirschman strike again Saturday night at Oswego during the Toyota – Bud Mod Classic 150, he would surpass Evans.

Odds are certainly in Hirschman’s favor. In the five Tour events he’s competed in at Oswego, he’s finished no worse than second.

Tommy Baldwin Racing continues dominant season

It doesn’t matter who you put in Tommy Baldwin Jr.’s No. 7NY this year. All the team seems to do is win.

That trend continued last Saturday night with Doug Coby going wire-to-wire for Baldwin at Langley Speedway to earn his third victory of the season. Combined with wins by Jimmy Blewett at Wall Stadium Speedway and Mike Christopher Jr. at Jennerstown Speedway, Baldwin’s No. 7NY has won five of the 12 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races held so far this season.

The team has earned 11 top-10 finishes between Coby, Blewett and Christopher and has an average finish of 5.58 through the first 12 races of the year.

That adds up to a 32-point advantage in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour owner standings for Baldwin ahead of Saturday’s 13th race of the season at Oswego Speedway.

Coby will once again be in the seat of the No. 7NY for Baldwin, and based on how strong the pairing has been already this season, odds are good that they’ll be in contention for the victory.

Oswego is a track where Coby has found success in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour competition. He scored his lone Tour win at the track in 2016 by leading a race-high 121 laps.

Jon McKennedy, driver of the #79 Middlesex Interiors Modified in qualifying during the CheckeredFlag.com 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Larry King Law's Langley Speedway on August 27, 2022 in Hampton, Virginia. (Ryan M. Kelly/NASCAR)
Jon McKennedy, driver of the No. 79 Middlesex Interiors Modified, during qualifying for the CheckeredFlag.com 150 for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at Larry King Law’s Langley Speedway on August 27, 2022. (Photo: Ryan M. Kelly/NASCAR)

McKennedy, Silk take championship fight to Oswego

With only four races left in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season, it’s a literal tossup as to who is going to walk away with the season-long driver championship.

Jon McKennedy and Ron Silk are locked in a back-and-forth battle for supremacy, with McKennedy currently on top of the standings by three points ahead of Silk.

Should McKennedy win the championship, it would be his first with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. If Silk were to win the championship, it would be his second with the Tour following his first championship in 2011.

At Oswego, Silk has the advantage on McKennedy in Tour competition.

Silk has one victory at Oswego, which came last season, as well as two top-five and four top-10 finishes in four Tour events at the track. McKennedy, on the other hand, has made three Tour starts and has never finished better than 15th.

Could Silk regain control of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship fight at Oswego, or will McKennedy retain control of the championship battle?

We’ll find out Saturday night.

Notes:

  • Of the active drivers entered in Saturday’s race at Oswego Speedway, Justin Bonsignore, Patrick Emerling and Eric Goodale lead the way with six Tour starts at the New York oval. Of the trio, only Bonsignore has a victory at Oswego.
  • Chuck Hossfeld returns for his second NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start of the season Saturday night at Oswego. In his only other start this season, Hossfeld finished third at Richmond Raceway in April. He’ll once again be piloting the No. 2 for the Bertuccio family.
  • J.B. Fortin will make his 50th NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start Saturday evening. In his 49 previous starts, he has one top-five and six top-10 finishes.
Posted on by Adam Fenwick

Brad Perez doesn’t like to do things the easy way.

Instead, he prefers to jump straight into the deep end.

He did just that when he made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut earlier this year at Circuit of the Americas, and again when he debuted in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 20.

“My entire career is me just tossing myself in the deep end and hopefully something good happens,” Perez said with a laugh.

With that in mind, it makes sense that Perez would jump into the deep end one more time as he prepares to make his Late Model Stock Car debut this Saturday night during one of Hickory Motor Speedway’s most historic events, the Bobby Isaac Memorial.

The event, held in honor of the late 1970 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is one of Hickory’s longest standing events. It typically draws a strong field of cars and a big crowd.

“At the start of last season, I was really trying to do some Late Model racing,” Perez said. “Obviously I had a lot going on with the NASCAR stuff, and I really wanted to see where that could go. I was not really in a position where I could find much money for anything, and I figured the hardest possible sell was something that’s not on national TV.”

The opportunity to make his Late Model Stock Car debut recently materialized when he was contacted by Danny Johnson, who along with Derek Peebles have partnered with the Findley family to field a Late Model Stock Car.

That opened the door for Perez to make his debut at Hickory.

“He was like, ‘Man, it would be a really good deal if you could come up with some money to do the Bobby Isaac and maybe the Fall Brawl’ and I was like, ‘I’m in,’” Perez said. “I’m a little nervous, but I’m excited either way.”

Perez is a popular face in the NASCAR garage, where he has worked as a tire specialist for a variety of teams. Behind the wheel, Perez has lots of experience on road courses thanks to his time racing a Spec Miata with the Sports Car Club of America.

However, other than a few starts in a Legend Car, Perez has no experience racing on ovals.

He explained that his plan was always to start big by racing road course events in NASCAR before shifting gears to gain experience on ovals in Late Models. His goal is to race on an oval with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series or NASCAR Xfinity Series at some point in the future.

“It actually was the plan almost all along,” Perez said. “I didn’t actually have a concrete plan or an idea of how it was going to happen. To be completely honest, selling sponsorship for the national series’ is easier. The same type of money you can run up front in Late Models with is the same type of money you can take to Xfinity.

“I was trying to be able find the partners to give a bigger sell, too, and in turn use those connections to achieve something in local racing. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It was tough for me to find any type of money to go local racing, and that was the goal all along. Went to do the big thing, got the connections to do the small thing and now we’re going to do the best we can at the small thing, which is kind of a big thing.”

The Bobby Isaac Memorial is the third event in Hickory Motor Speedway’s inaugural playoffs. Landon Huffman enters the event as the championship leader and holds a 15-point edge on Annabeth Barnes Crum with two nights of racing remaining.

The event will be available live on FloRacing this Saturday night beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

Posted on by Team Release

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C.  – Joe Gibbs Racing announced today that Denny Hamlin will not compete in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway as originally planned. In Hamlin’s absence, Christopher Bell will pilot the No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota GR Supra in the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200.

While Hamlin will not participate in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race, he will be behind the wheel of the No. 11 Sport Clips Toyota Camry TRD for the Cup Series playoff opener Sunday evening. The Chesterfield, Virginia native enters the playoffs ranked sixth overall and is the defending winner of the Southern 500.

“I have had some soreness in my neck, back, and hips from the wreck on Sunday,” said Hamlin, who owns nine Darlington wins across NASCAR’s top-two series. “I feel like the right thing for me to do is to sit out the Xfinity Series race and put 100 percent of my focus on getting ready for this weekend’s Cup Series playoff race.”

RELATED: Entry list for Darlington | Paint schemes

Bell, who will also be competing in the Cup Series Playoffs, has made a pair of Xfinity Series starts at the “Track Too Tough to Tame” with a best finish of fourth in Aug. 2019. Since moving to the Cup Series, Bell has posted three top-15 finishes in six starts at Darlington, including a sixth-place finish earlier this year after qualifying third.

This weekend’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway is scheduled for Saturday, September 3, at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, and the NBC Sports App.

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NASCAR announced Wednesday afternoon that a change to the Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) clock will be implemented ahead of Sunday’s Cup Series Playoff opener at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The DVP clock will see a four-minute increase from six to 10 minutes for teams to make repairs to their cars on pit road. This adjustment is in collaboration with teams throughout the season following learnings on repair time with the Next Gen car. The clock resetting after a driver is able to meet minimum speed on track under the DVP will remain in place.

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The DVP was instituted in 2017 and began with a five-minute repair time on pit road that increased to six the following season.