{"id":47859,"date":"2024-08-29T13:52:53","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=47859"},"modified":"2024-08-30T14:56:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T19:56:22","slug":"nascar-weekend-preview-darlington-raceway-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/29\/nascar-weekend-preview-darlington-raceway-5\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Weekend Preview: Darlington Raceway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Regular-season title, final NASCAR Cup Playoff berths on the line at Darlington<\/strong><\/p>\n

It could happen again.<\/p>\n

Harrison Burton\u2019s unlikely victory in last Saturday\u2019s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway caused consternation around the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff bubble.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Darlington Raceway, Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The same thing could happen in the \u201clast-chance qualifier\u201d for the Cup Playoffs\u2014Sunday\u2019s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Thirteen drivers\u2014Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman and Burton\u2014already have secured Playoff spots by winning at least one regular-season race.<\/p>\n

That leaves three berths currently available on points, and Martin Truex Jr. is the odds-on favorite to secure one of them. Truex comes to Darlington 58 points above the current Playoff cut line, needing just 19 points (an 18th-place finish without stage points) to advance to the postseason.<\/p>\n

But Truex knows all too well that\u2019s no guarantee. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge is that it\u2019s a long race, a lot of pit stops and a lot of chances for things to go wrong,\u201d said the driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, who announced he will retire from full-time racing at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrack position is obviously really important. To go through 13 sets of tires or whatever it is, and track position and what it means there, and to keep track position, it\u2019s tough to stay up front and be consistently really strong. It\u2019s tough to do there, and we hope we can do that on Sunday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, Truex\u2019s teammate, Ty Gibbs can clinch a berth on points by scoring 38 points in the grueling race.<\/p>\n

Chris Buescher currently is the last driver in a Playoff-eligible position, 21 points above the cut line. Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain are on the wrong side of the bubble, 21 and 27 points below the cutoff, respectively.<\/p>\n

A victory by another currently winless driver\u2014perhaps Kyle Busch or two-time Southern 500 winner Erik Jones\u2014could spell the end of the Playoff hopes of all three of those bubble drivers.<\/p>\n

Chastain nevertheless approaches the race with optimism. On May 10, he won a NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at the Lady in Black.<\/p>\n

The driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet first gained national recognition with a breakout Xfinity Series performance at Darlington in 2018, when he won the pole and the first two stages and led 90 laps in Chip Ganassi\u2019s No. 42 Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

“We need to gather a lot of points Sunday night and win,\u201d Chastain said. \u201cThe math is the math. If we have a fast car, that will obviously increase our chances. I love Darlington, so I can’t think of a better place to be going this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll all know Sunday night if I’m in the Playoffs or not. No matter what, though, we’re going to keep working hard and going for wins the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the other end of the spectrum, Sunday\u2019s race will settle a three-driver battle for the NASCAR Cup Series\u2019 Regular Season Championship and the bonus of 15 Playoff points that goes with it.<\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick leads Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott by 17 and 18 points, respectively. Reddick can lock Larson and Elliott out of the title by scoring 44 points on Sunday, which would require him to collect a minimum of nine stage points if he doesn\u2019t win the race (four stage points if he does).<\/p>\n

Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup champion, is the defending winner of the Crown Jewel race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love racing at Darlington, and it was cool to get that first (Cup) win there last year in the Southern 500,\u201d Larson said. \u201cWe\u2019re 17 points down, but we\u2019re going to race hard for stage points and hopefully be able to battle for the Regular Season Championship at the end of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of uncertainty in race for NASCAR Xfinity Playoff spots<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cutoff race for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs won\u2019t take place until Friday, Sept. 20 at Bristol Motor Speedway, leaving plenty of time for drivers to jockey for position on the Playoff grid.<\/p>\n

That said, for practical purposes, the race to qualify for the Playoffs on points features a small field. Ryan Sieg leads Sammy Smith by 15 points for the final Playoff-eligible position entering Saturday\u2019s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway (3:30 p.m. on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Among winless drivers in the series, Parker Kligerman leads Smith by 44 points, Sheldon Creed holds a 93-point edge, and AJ Allmendinger enjoys a 113-point cushion with four races left in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Drivers below Smith in the standings are almost certainly in a win-or-bust position. Brandon Jones in 14th place trails Sieg for the last spot in the 12-driver Playoff field by 108 points.<\/p>\n

Xfinity drivers hoping to advance to the Playoffs by winning a race, however, will face several substantial obstacles at Darlington. Full-time NASCAR Cup Series drivers Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain and Noah Gragson are running both races this weekend.<\/p>\n

At the top of the Xfinity standings, Justin Allgaier has seized control of the Regular Season Championship race on the strength of seven straight top-10 finishes, including an Aug. 17 win at Michigan.<\/p>\n

Allgaier holds a 33-point lead over reigning series champion Cole Custer, who finished 30th at Michigan and 32nd last Friday at Daytona. Custer, however, has finished in the top-four in five of his six Xfinity starts at Darlington, including a win in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, we just need to leave the bad luck behind us,\u201d Custer said. \u201cMichigan and Daytona were just miserable. In such a good season, we were forced to park our car early in incidents outside of our own doing. Those days are tough as a driver. You replay what you could\u2019ve done differently in your head, but you can\u2019t dwell on it too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stretch here is so weird, with so many superspeedway races in a month-and-a-half. We\u2019ve got one of my best tracks with Darlington, though, and I\u2019m planning to use that to my advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost the points lead last weekend, which is hard. We still have a shot to fight for it, though. We just need to get back to where we were. Luckily, we\u2019re locked into the Playoffs, but I\u2019m hoping to find our way back to the top of the leaderboard again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Technically, Custer isn\u2019t locked into the Playoffs quite yet. With one victory to his credit this season, he will clinch a Playoff berth if he wins on Saturday or if another driver who already has a victory wins again.<\/p>\n

The same scenario also applies to single-race winners Riley Herbst and Jesse Love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Regular-season title, final NASCAR Cup Playoff berths on the line at Darlington It could happen again. Harrison Burton\u2019s unlikely victory in last Saturday\u2019s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway caused consternation around the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff bubble. The same thing could happen in the \u201clast-chance qualifier\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":45882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[651,16],"class_list":["post-47859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-darlington-raceway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-2152634327-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1678&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-crV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47862,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47859\/revisions\/47862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}