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August 31, 2024
By Holly Cain and Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service
Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
DARLINGTON, S.C.— The margin between the last driver currently eligible for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and the first driver out is a mere 21 points.
But that could change as quickly as a Cup car can pick up a “Darlington stripe” in Sunday night’s regular-season finale, the Cook Out Southern 500 at historic Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
At the conclusion of Sunday’s race, 16 drivers will have claimed Playoff spots. Heading into the race, 13 have won positions via victories. Two more — Martin Truex Jr. and Ty Gibbs — hold reasonably safe points positions.
But that 16th and final Playoff points position is still very much up for grabs. Roush Fenway Keselowski driver Chris Buescher holds that 21-point advantage over 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace and is 27 points up on Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain.
Those three drivers have legitimate opportunities to shake up the points standings. Of course, a first-time season winner ranked lower than Chastain in the standings would automatically take a position and perhaps eliminate all three from contention.
Notably, Wallace will start from the pole on Sunday after posting the fastest lap in the final round of qualifying.
Buescher, Wallace and Chastain agree it’s frustrating to be points-chasing in this final week of the regular season instead of having already wrapped up a Playoff position by winning a race.
None of them has ever won a NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington. Chastain is the only one with any Darlington trophy, having claimed the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win at the track this Spring.
“We didn’t expect to be in this position and unfortunately, it’s where we’re at, but I am pretty confident in what we’re able to do at Darlington and what we’ve had as an organization this year at RFK that as long as we do everything we need to, we’re going to be in good shape,” said Buescher, who has four top-10 finishes in 14 Darlington starts.
Chastain, who spent most of the season above the Playoff cutoff line, was equally disappointed to be in his situation. He has three top-five and eight top-10 finishes in the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet with a best showing of fourth place at Las Vegas in March. He’s had two top-10 finishes in 10 Darlington NASCAR Cup Series starts.
“I’d say surprised (to be in this precarious position),’’ said Chastain, who will start 22nd Sunday night. “If you would have had me fill out a bingo card at the start of the season, I wouldn’t have dabbed this block for sure.’’
“I just know the best way that we can ensure it is to win,’’ he added. “We’ve had opportunities to win the Southern 500. We’ve had opportunities to win a couple of races in the spring and fall here in a different series.
“That’s my goal. The math says we can do it either way, but my preparation and my mentality — and it’s been this way in Cup since the very first spring race that I came here in 2021. I left here that weekend and thought we can win a Cup race at Darlington one day, and that thought hasn’t left my mind since.”
As for keeping up with his closest competitors during the race, none of these drivers wanted to be distracted by constant and ever-changing updates.
“I’m not going to ask for silence, but no, I don’t need the updates either if it’s not significant,’’ said Buescher, who will roll off 10th on Sunday. “Ultimately, it’s just a distraction from what we need to do to go race. It’s just a different mindset going into these scenarios as we look at playoffs here.
“When you’re in the car, and I’ll speak for myself, I’m not completely aware of the race scenarios and everything that’s playing out, and I don’t really need to be if it’s not something that I can affect the outcome of,’’ he added. “There will be a time and place for that and maybe that’s towards the end. ”
Erik Jones has a winning history in the Southern 500
LEGACY MOTOR CLUB driver Erik Jones comes to Darlington ranked 26th in the championship standings, yet he is as optimistic about this weekend as he could possibly be to pull off a walk-off home run of sorts and win his championship chance. Two of his three career NASCAR Cup Series victories have come in the Southern 500.
A victory Sunday night would be Jones’ first top-five of the season in the No. 43 Toyota. His best showing is eighth place in the season-opening Daytona 500 — his only top 10 of 2024. He was fastest in Group A practice Saturday but will start the race 28th.
“It’s just been a long year for a lot of different reasons,’’ Jones said. “But I think if you told me I had to pick one track other than a superspeedway I’d probably pick Darlington to go win.
“Definitely some confidence in that. I think any time you come to a place you’ve had success a few times with different groups, you have the notes to dive into and the confidence you know how to get around the place and do what you need to do.
“It’s not going to be easy by any stretch, but I feel like we have a good plan.’’
Kyle Busch could salvage lackluster season with Darlington win
Kyle Busch is another former Darlington winner capable of pulling off a victory that would propel him into Playoff contention. The driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet has scored top-five finishes in the last two races — including a season-best runner-up showing at Daytona last week — but he still sits in 19th place, 106 points below the current Playoff cut line.
A three-race winner last year with RCR, Busch’s team has struggled in 2024 with only four top-five runs. But Darlington has traditionally been a solid venue for him. He won here in 2008 and has a pair of runner-up finishes (2017 and 2020). He’s scored top-10 finishes in more than half his starts (14 times in 25 races) and had a run of 11 top-10 runs in 14 races between 2010-21.
He will start 17th Sunday.
“This race in the spring we did not run well, but we don’t come in this weekend holding our heads low and thinking that we’re going to not run well again,’’ said Busch, who finished 27th in April. “We put our heads to paper and try to figure out why and said we’re going to go there with the best piece we can and try to kick their butt and get a win.”
Regular-season title contenders can’t afford to concentrate on each other
Though Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott enter Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 in a pitched battel for the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship, the drivers won’t have much time to think about the standings in a race that requires the utmost concentration throughout.
Nor is there much they can do in terms of radical strategy, given the abrupt fall-off in lap times due to tire wear.
Reddick, who leads Larson by 17 points and Elliott by 18 entering the final regular-season race, doesn’t think spend much time worrying about his rivals.
“I feel like at a place like Darlington it’s hard to, because I mean it’s just, you’re kind of racing the track, right?” Reddick said. “There might be an option to mix up the strategy in the stages, but I think we all have a pretty good idea of what the best strategy is going to be.
“It’s tough here. I feel like you go to some of these other tracks — Michigan is a perfect example — where you’re more worried about fuel than tires. I think it’s easier to do it, but here it’s just a race where you’re running against the track all night.
“Certainly, it could go that way, but I feel like if we (all) have solid nights then we’re in a pretty good place unless we just have a disastrous night.”
Larson acknowledges if might be difficult to close the gap at a track where elite drivers tend to dominate.
“As well as both Tyler and I run here, there shouldn’t be too many points exchanged,” said Larson, the defending Southern 500 winner. “It just kind of comes down to making sure you have the cleanest race possible to not hinder yourself in the points position.
“Yeah, it’s a tough track, one that the strategy is very straightforward, and if you have a good car here, you’ll be up front. You’ll probably be taking tires almost every chance you can get, if the caution comes out. Nothing to kind of really get off strategy.”
Kaulig Racing fills NASCAR Xfinity seat with Truck Series contender Christian Eckes
Kaulig Racing announced Friday it has signed NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series standout Christian Eckes to a multi-year deal to drive its No. 16 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series beginning in 2025.
Kaulig Racing President Chris Rice said it was important to the team to stay in the Chevrolet camp and is very optimistic about pairing with Eckes, who will join fellow Truck Series competitor Daniel Dye next year at Kaulig. Rice said a third and final teammate will be announced in the next two weeks.
“The maturity of Christian but also how fast he can go,’’ Rice said of the decision to hire the 23-year-old New-York native Eckes. “Those are the things we need as a company. We need fast race car drivers and fast race cars.’’
Eckes currently leads the Truck Series championship standings driving the No. 19 Chevrolet for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing and has advanced to the series Playoffs the last two seasons.
Harrison Burton exudes optimism after eleventh-hour win at Daytona
There’s light at the end of the tunnel for Harrison Burton, after last Saturday’s dramatic victory at Daytona International Speedway launched him into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Burton won’t return to the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford in 2025, but delivering the 100th win for the venerable racing team has stimulated interest in the 23-year-old driver from other quarters.
Though Burton can’t be specific at this point, he is optimistic about his future.
“I think I’ll be a race-car driver next year, so that’s great,” Burton said Wednesday during a celebration of the victory at the Wood Brothers shop in Mooresville, N.C. “I don’t know where exactly, or what series—I don’t know. I think it’s all fluid.
“I feel like (I’m getting) close to where I feel good about a couple things. I feel like I’m in a place now where the places I’m going to go in the future want me and genuinely want me as a race car driver to go and help them try to win races.”
Burton passed Kyle Busch for the lead on the final lap at Daytona and won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 by 0.047 seconds. He has mixed feelings about watching the video of the final two overtime laps.
“Not a ton, honestly, mostly ‘cause I hate the way my voice sounds on my radio when I scream,” Burton said, when asked how many times he had watched the replay. I don’t know why — it just bothers me …
“(Broadcaster) Leigh Diffey had a pretty awesome call of it. He’s like setting up the Kyle Busch story, ‘He hasn’t won since 2008,’ and then it’s like, ‘Here comes Harrison Burton out of nowhere.’ That was cool.”
In the booth with Diffey was Burton’s father, serving as a race analyst for NBC Sports.
“I did like to listen a few times to see what my dad said, and he was pretty quiet up there, which is typical of my dad in the booth whenever I’m racing,” Harrison Burton said. “He tries very hard to be unbiased.
“Then I see the video of him muting his mic and almost punching Leigh Diffey, fist-pumping.”
