Next Race: Cook Out Southern 500The Place: Darlington RacewayThe Date: Sunday, September 6The Time: 6 p.m. ETTV: NBCSN, 5:30 p.m. ETRadio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR RadioDistance: 501.3 miles (367 laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 115), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 230), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 367) Playoffs kickoff at the historic Darlington Raceway For the first-time in its 70-year existence (1950-Present), the historic Darlington Raceway will host the opening event for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, the Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Darlington Raceway is the fourth different track to host the first race of the NASCAR Cup Series postseason. New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosted the first race of the Playoffs from 2004–2010, then Chicagoland Speedway held the first race of the Playoffs from 2011–2017 and Las Vegas Motor Speedway hosted the first race of the Playoffs from 2018-2019. Prior to the 2020 season, Darlington Raceway had hosted just one other Playoff race, the penultimate event in the inaugural Playoffs in 2004. The race was won by seven-time series champion and Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson. Darlington Raceway will become just the second track in the NASCAR Cup Series Modern Era (1972-Present) to have the series compete in points-paying races more than twice in a single season; joining Riverside International Raceway in 1981. Darlington hosted its first two events of 2020 on May 17 (won by Kevin Harvick) and May 20 (won by Denny Hamlin). Darlington Raceway has hosted 118 NASCAR Cup Series races producing 51 different pole winners and 51 different race winners. Jimmie Johnson (2004 sweep, 2012), and Denny Hamlin (2010, 2017, 2020) lead all active drivers in victories at Darlington with three wins each. Eight former Darlington Cup winners are entered this weekend – Johnson (three), Hamlin (three), Kevin Harvick (two), Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. (each have one). Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. (2016, 2017, 2019) and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski (2012, 2014, 2018) lead the series in Playoff opener wins with three each. The winner of the opening race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs has gone on to win the title four times. In 2004 (inaugural Cup Playoffs), Kurt Busch won the opening race of the Playoffs at New Hampshire and went on to win the title. In 2011 (race was delayed until Monday due to rain) Tony Stewart won his first race of the season at Chicago to open the Playoffs. Stewart went on to set the record for the most wins in a Playoff run with five victories and the title. In 2012, Brad Keselowski won the Playoff race at Chicago and went on to win the title. And in 2017, Martin Truex Jr.won the Playoff race at Chicago and went on to win his first championship. The worst finish in the opening race of the Playoffs by a driver that went on to win the title was Jimmie Johnson’s 39th-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the 2006 postseason. The worst finish in the opening Playoff race at Chicago for a driver that went on to win the title was Jimmie Johnson’s12th-place finish in 2016. The worst finish in the opening race of the Playoffs at Las Vegas by a driver that went on to win the title was Kyle Busch’s 19th-place finish last season. No non-Playoff driver has ever won the opening race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Since the inception of the elimination-style format of the Playoffs in 2014, entering the Playoffs as the No. 1 seed has been the most successful seeding, producing three championships among two drivers – Kyle Busch (2015, 2019) and Martin Truex Jr. (2017). The deepest seed an eventual champion has started the Playoffs was seventh by Kevin Harvick (2014) and Joey Logano (2018). Next Race: Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200The Place: Darlington RacewayThe Date: Saturday, September 5The Time: 12:30 p.m. ETTV: NBC, 12 p.m. ETRadio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR RadioDistance: 200.1 miles (147 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 45), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 90), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 147) Xfinity Series heads to the “Track Too Tough To Tame” The NASCAR Xfinity Series leads off the weekend at Darlington Raceway with a midday affair on Saturday with the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 at 12:30 p.m. ET (NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). This weekend’s race marks the first time since 2004 that the Xfinity Series has raced twice in a season at Darlington Raceway. After the stoppage in racing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NASCAR realigned the NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Chicagoland Speedway to Darlington Raceway in May – the first week the sport returned to action. That made the regularly scheduled Labor Day weekend event the second Darlington race of the season for the series. Chase Briscoe won the first event of the season at Darlington in the series’ return to racing for the first time after the two-month halt in action. The win was Briscoe’s second victory of the season after winning at Las Vegas. He then went on to win the second of the two Miami races in a double-header, at Pocono, on the Indianapolis Road Course and, most recently, in the second race of the Dover double-header weekend. Briscoe and Denny Hamlin (five wins) are the only drivers in the field this weekend with wins at Darlington in the Xfinity Series. Three different drivers have swept a season’s races for a total of four times at Darlington (1984 – Ron Bouchard, 1994 – Mark Martin, 2000 – Mark Martin, 2002 – Jeff Burton). Martin is the all-time wins leader at Darlington with eight visits to Victory Lane. Denny Hamlin is second with five wins, while Jeff Burton and Harry Gant have four apiece. Justin Allgaier and Jeremy Clements lead entered drivers with 10 starts apiece at the South Carolina track. Allgaier has three top-five and seven top-10 finishes, including a third-place result here earlier this season. Clements has one top 10 (eighth place in 2016) and finished 12th at Darlington in May. Justin Haley will start on the pole for Saturday afternoon’s race, with Briscoe alongside him on the front row. The pole winner (or first starting position) has won the race at Darlington 15 times – most recently by Denny Hamlin in 2017. Current field’s history at Darlington Earlier this season, Chase Briscoe won the first race back for the Xfinity Series after the stoppage in racing action due to the pandemic. Kyle Busch, who is not entered this weekend, finished second, while Justin Allgaier, Austin Cindric and Noah Gragson rounded out the top five. While it was Allgaier’s 10th visit to the “Track Too Tough To Tame,” it was only the second start at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval for Briscoe and Gragson, while it was the third time Cindric had raced on the circuit. For Briscoe, Cindric and Gragson, it was their first top-five result at Darlington. And while all of those drivers are locked into the Playoffs by virtue of wins this season, several drivers around the bubble will be fighting against their history at the track in order to try to secure a better position in the standings. The good news for some of them is that they recorded one of their better career Darlington finishes in the most recent outing at the track in May. Brandon Brown, who currently occupies the 12th and final slot in the Playoff grid, has made four starts at the track, but only has a best finish of 13th with an average finish of 21.0. However, that best finish just happened to be earlier this year at Darlington, so he hopes to improve upon that to build a larger gap and move out of the bump spot that would eliminate him from the Playoffs should a driver outside the grid win. Ryan Sieg, currently 11th on the grid, has seven starts at the track with an average finish of 18.4 and his best finish of seventh – his only top 10 at the track – came four months ago. Riley Herbst, who is in 10th place on the grid, made his track debut in May, finishing 18th. Meanwhile, Jeremy Clements, who sits in 13th – one spot outside the Playoff grid – finished 12th in his last two outings to Darlington. His career best finish is eighth in 2016 and his average finish is 19.9. Myatt Snider (14th on the grid) also made his track debut earlier this season, finishing 35th in May. Throwback schemes taking to the track In what has become an annual fan favorite tradition at Darlington Raceway, several teams will feature throwback paint schemes to honor the history of the sport. JR Motorsports will run a pair of cars in tribute to Dale Earnhardt Jr. paint schemes as he heads into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Michael Annett’s No. 1 Chevrolet will feature an Oreo scheme reminiscent of the one Earnhardt drove to Victory Lane at Daytona in 2002. His teammate in the No. 7 Brandt Chevrolet, Justin Allgaier, will pay homage to Earnhardt’s 2003 July Daytona Dirty Mo Posse car – the first paint scheme that Earnhardt designed. A third JR Motorsports car will honor the life of the late John Andretti, mimicking paint schemes from the 1995 and 1996 seasons. And the late Mike Stefanik, also to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2021, will be honored on Brett Moffitt’s No. 02 Our Motorsports Chevrolet. Another car owner, Tony Stewart, will be represented in the paint scheme on the No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford of Chase Briscoe. The scheme will look back to 2011, the year of Stewart’s final NASCAR Cup Series championship season. Jimmie Johnson will be recognized by fellow native Californian Ryan Vargas on the No. 6 JD Motorsports Chevrolet, running a scheme that reflects back on the 2001 NASCAR Xfinity Series car of the retiring seven-time Cup champion. Also, among the tributes, Anthony Alfredo’s No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet will pay tribute to Kevin Harvick’s 2006 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship scheme. In that year, Harvick won nine races en route to the second of five Xfinity Series championships RCR has captured. Next Race: South Carolina Education Lottery 200The Place: Darlington RacewayThe Date: Sunday, September 6The Time: 2 p.m. ETTV: FS1, 1:30 p.m. ETRadio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR RadioDistance: 200.1 miles (147 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 45), Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 90), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 147) Guess who’s back? The NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series returns to Darlington Raceway for the first time since 2011 as the schedule had to be realigned this year following the interruption in competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the original version of the 2020 schedule, the Gander Trucks should have been at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park this weekend. However, restrictions due to the pandemic make it impossible to race north of the border, and the race was realigned to Darlington Raceway to bring all three NASCAR national series to the “Lady in Black.” The Gander Trucks have raced six times before at Darlington Raceway. Once a year from 2001-2004, and then in 2010 and 2011. Bobby Hamilton (2001, 2003) and Kasey Kahne (2004, 2011) are the only multi-time winners at Darlington in a truck. Ted Musgrave (2002) and Todd Bodine (2010) are the only other two individuals to have won a Gander Trucks race at Darlington. There are four drivers entered this weekend with a previous start in the Gander Trucks at Darlington. Matt Crafton leads the group with six starts – competing in all of the series’ races at Darlington – one top five (fourth place in 2011), and four top 10s. His teammate ThorSport Racing teammate Johnny Sauter has a pair of starts there, both resulting in top 10s. He was fourth in 2010 and ninth in 2011. Jennifer Jo Cobb finished 14th in 2010 and Norm Benning raced in 2010 (18th) and 2011 (26th). Brett Moffitt will start on the pole in the Gander Trucks’ return to the 1.366-mile circuit in South Carolina, while Sheldon Creed will be alongside him on the front row. Austin Hill, Zane Smith and Ben Rhodes round out the top-five starting positions. In the six previous races with the series at Darlington, the pole winner has not won the race. Throwback in the truck Trevor Bayne, Greg Biffle and David Ragan are all set to return to the track for the first time this season as they suit up for this weekend’s South Carolina Education Lottery 200 on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Bayne returns for the first time since last competing at Texas in the NASCAR Cup Series in the fall of 2018. He’ll be racing in the No. 40 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet. The 2011 Daytona 500 champion will be making his debut in the Gander Trucks, but he does have some experience at Darlington. He’s run a trio of Cup Series races and has run three Xfinity Series races there with a best finish of ninth in 2014. Biffle returned to the Gander Trucks in 2019 for a single start for Kyle Busch Motorsports, winning the Triple Truck Challenge bonus for the Toyota team at Texas Motor Speedway in the summer. This time he’ll be running the No. 24 Chevrolet for GMS Racing. Although he doesn’t have any Gander Trucks experience at Darlington, Biffle does know his way around the track. In 16 Cup Series starts at the “Track Too Tough To Tame,” he has a pair of wins (2005, 2006) and three top-five and six top-10 results. He also has a win (2004) in 11 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Darlington. And David Ragan will be in the No. 17 DGR-Crosley Ford this weekend at Darlington. He has 29 Gander Trucks starts from 2004-2006, none at Darlington. In 13 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington, Ragan posted a top five in 2008 with a fifth-place finish. And he has a trio of Xfinity Series starts with a best finish of 13th in 2008.
