Darlington Raceway Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Each week NASCAR Editor David Morgan will break down the top storylines from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. This week, we break down the Bojangles’ Southern 500 from Darlington Raceway. Comeback of the Year? After winning Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Darlington with a last lap pass on Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin headed into Sunday night’s main event looking for the weekend sweep, but despite having one of the fastest cars on track, he almost gave the win away. Hamlin would lead 121Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C. – Denny Hamlin made a huge mistake on Sunday night. Then the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota made an even bigger comeback to win one of NASCAR’s most prestigious races. Running down race leader Martin Truex Jr. from 20 seconds back after missing the entrance to pit road on Lap 313 of 367, Hamlin won the Bojangles’ Southern 500 for the second time, finishing off a sweep of the throwback Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series/NASCAR XFINITY Series weekend atRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Despite suffering a flat right-front tire with two laps to go at Darlington, taking him out of contention for his second straight Southern 500 win, Martin Truex, Jr. will leave the track “Too Tough to Tame” with the consolation prize of the regular season points championship, giving him an all-important 15-point bonus for the playoffs. “It was definitely a bittersweet night for us, to come up just two laps short there, blow a tire at the end after having no issues with tires all nightRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C. – On a throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway, with a move he termed “a throwback to Dale Earnhardt,” Denny Hamlin won his fifth NASCAR XFINITY Series event at the Lady in Black—all from the pole. The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota grabbed the lead from Joey Logano after a restart on Lap 147 of 148—one beyond the scheduled distance—and when Logano got inside position on the final circuit and surged ahead into Turn 3, Hamlin responded with aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Before Furniture Row Racing became the juggernaut it is in 2017, the Colorado based team had to scratch and claw for everything single position on the track, especially in their early years. The team which just started a full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule back in 2008 brought Regan Smith on board starting in 2009 for a part-time schedule before moving back to full-time the next season. Smith came onto the Cup Series scene with Bobby Ginn and Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in 2007, butRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a weekend off to recharge the batteries before making the final 12 race push to finish off the season, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to one of the crown jewels on the circuit, Darlington Raceway, for this weekend’s running of the Bojangles’ Southern 500. Darlington Raceway has been a staple of the Cup Series since opening in 1950 for its annual Labor Day weekend event with the Southern 500 being held on that date until a controversial decision was made to moveRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor With Stewart-Haas Racing making the move over to Ford for the 2017 season, the organization will also be expanding into the NASCAR Xfinity Series for the first time with one full-time car for Cole Custer and now will also have a part-time entry in the series as well. Kevin Harvick, who has run in the Xfinity Series on a part-time basis since moving up to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 16 years ago, will be back behind the wheel in NASCAR’s second tier series forRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor As 2016 comes to a close in just a few days, we’ll take this opportunity to look back at some of the best moments of the NASCAR season. This week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series is on the docket, so without further ado, here are the top five moments that stole the headlines in 2016. Daniel Suarez Captures Xfinity Series Championship at Homestead In the first year of the Chase in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the Championship Four came down to a battle between Joe GibbsRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor The news that the NASCAR community has been waiting for since the offseason began finally came down on Thursday as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was medically cleared to resume his racing career after successfully completing an on-track test to finalize his recovery from a concussion. Earnhardt and his No. 88 team performed the test at Darlington Raceway on Wednesday, where he completed 185 laps during a test session that lasted nearly five hours. Earnhardt was joined at the test by his crew chief Greg Ives asRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Throughout the night in the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington, Kevin Harvick and his No. 4 Chevrolet, sporting a Cale Yarborough throwback paint scheme, was a familiar sight at the front of the field, but a late race pit road miscue ended Harvick’s hopes for a second Darlington win. Starting on pole after qualifying was cancelled due to Tropical Storm Hermine, Harvick took off in the lead like a bullet from a gun when the green flag dropped and was untouchable for the first 93Read More