{"id":60494,"date":"2026-09-05T17:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T22:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=60494"},"modified":"2026-09-06T12:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T17:25:59","slug":"nascar-darlington-saturday-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/05\/nascar-darlington-saturday-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Darlington Saturday Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

BRISCOE AIMS FOR THREE IN A ROW<\/b><\/p>\n

DARLINGTON, S.C. \u2013 Chase Briscoe smiled and conceded he never really had held a specific love for Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, the track nicknamed \u201cToo Tough to Tame.\u201d But a 2020 win in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series capped with back-to-back trips to Victory Lane for winning the last two Southern 500s, certainly solidified the historic track as one of his all-time favorites.<\/p>\n

This Sunday, Briscoe can tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon as the only drivers to win the Southern 500 for three consecutive years. And he\u2019s very aware of what a victory in Sunday\u2019s Cook Out Southern 500 (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) would mean \u2013 for prosperity and for his current championship run.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do that three times in a row would be something really, really special,\u2019\u2019 Briscoe said. \u201cSo definitely it’s on the radar. One of my favorite races of the year, but certainly, also still aware, just of the situation: you can’t wreck trying to win this deal, just with the points and the Chase and everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briscoe led four laps and finished 12th here in the Spring. The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota goes into this opening race of the 16-driver, 10-race 2026 championship run ranked fifth, 45 points behind leader and JGR teammate Denny Hamlin. He is only 20 points behind second place, Team Penske\u2019s Ryan Blaney.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust something about this place has always just kind of fit my driving style, I guess,\u2019\u2019 Briscoe added. \u201cI think the first time I ran here was like 2018 or ’19 in the Xfinity car, and I just remember coming here in my first five laps on the racetrack, thinking man, this place is awesome.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike it just fit how I drive for whatever reason. So, I’ve always just loved this place and yeah, it’s been probably the best track for me statistically in my career, I would say, definitely across the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

REDDICK READY<\/b><\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick put together one of the most impressive season starts in the sport\u2019s recent history \u2013 claiming his first Daytona 500 win and then hoisting trophies at the next two consecutive races. The driver of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota has won five times \u2013 a personal single season high \u2013 and at one point held a 129-point advantage over Denny Hamlin 12 races into the season.<\/p>\n

Among his triumphant early season work was a victory in the Darlington 400-miler \u2013 from pole position.<\/p>\n

But a tough-luck spring-into-summer stretch for the No. 45 team, allowed his team co-owner Hamlin to rally past and claim the regular season title. And he\u2019ll now start with a 35-point advantage over Reddick, who sits third in the championship standings.<\/p>\n

But with four finishes of 11th or better in the last five races, including a pole position and third-place run at Daytona last week, Reddick still enters the Chase portion of the schedule feeling hopeful that he can win his first series title.<\/p>\n

With weather forcing the cancellation of Saturday\u2019s Busch Light Pole Qualifying at Darlington, Reddick will start from pole position for the eighth time this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we need to flip a switch or do anything,\u2019\u2019 Reddick said of overcoming the rough mid-summer stretch. \u201cWe are going to be rolling back into tracks where we have won at, where we have led laps at, where we are extremely fast at.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll things seem to be going the right direction at the right time,\u2019\u2019 he added. \u201cIt would have been great to hang on to the points lead. It would have been great to not fight the things that we did, but as much as the bad finishes were hard on our standing in the points, we learned a lot from it and with this Chase, the gap is gone and we are seeded and we are going to go now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned a lot about ourselves when we weren\u2019t great,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cI sternly believe every team in this Chase is going to face some adversity. \u2026 to stay locked in like we have, if we have situations come up in the Chase, we\u2019re going to be ready for it. We\u2019ll know how to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

PREECE STILL SMILING<\/b><\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s winner in the Daytona International Speedway regular season finale, RFK Racing\u2019s Ryan Preece was still grinning Saturday afternoon in Darlington. The 35-year old Connecticut native rallied from 17th place in the standings before the race to hoisting a trophy in Victory Lane afterward \u2013 making up 31 points in the standings to claim that final championship position.<\/p>\n

This Sunday marks his first ever appearance in the Chase and he likes his chances, especially considering he\u2019s coming off such a big win — the first points-paying victory of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy I have my voice back, well, kind of anyways,\u2019\u2019 said Preece, the driver of the No. 60 RFK Ford Mustang. \u201cI definitely felt like I made it a heck of a week, but it\u2019s business as usual. It\u2019s nice to know the final 10 weeks we\u2019re racing for something. We\u2019ll try to go on a run. We definitely have momentum on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preece has scored top-10 finishes in three of the last five races and led laps both in a ninth place finish at New Hampshire two weeks ago and at Daytona. Even 100 points down to the championship leader Hamlin as the points re-set, he\u2019s going into the weekend feeling as optimistic as he possibly can. As the most recent race winner, no one has more momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow you feel as a race car driver when you show up every week, that is real,\u2019\u2019 Preece said of the momentum. \u201cYou show up and if you\u2019ve had three or four weeks where you\u2019ve wrecked in a row, I mean, the month of June it felt like I couldn\u2019t do anything right and if you think it doesn\u2019t affect you as a driver, you\u2019re lying to yourself. You\u2019re just going into a race thinking, \u2018Man, I just want to finish this one.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for me, being aggressive \u2013 Loudon is the one I\u2019ll look at because we had a strong car there and we were around the top five, top three all day for the most part. So, that\u2019s why when I look at Darlington I think, why not? If we can pick up where we left off last week and have a strong run here, who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

*OF NOTE. \u2026. NASCAR formally recognized NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series driver Jeremy Clements for becoming the series all-time starts leader. In June he eclipsed Kenny Wallace\u2019s mark (547) for most green flags in the series and goes into Saturday night\u2019s race at his home track, Darlington, extending his record to 555 races.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service BRISCOE AIMS FOR THREE IN A ROW DARLINGTON, S.C. \u2013 Chase Briscoe smiled and conceded he never really had held a specific love for Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, the track nicknamed \u201cToo Tough to Tame.\u201d But a 2020 win in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series capped with back-to-back trips to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":57013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[651,16],"class_list":["post-60494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-darlington-raceway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-fJI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2267882639-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60496,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60494\/revisions\/60496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}