NASCAR Monday Mash-Up: Darlington puts pressure on championship favorites
Darlington was once again the Track Too Tough to Tame for many NASCAR drivers hoping to win the championship this year. The Xfinity Series and Cup Series gave us some fun races this weekend. With the playoff implications, it produced a great atmosphere for two days at one of the sport’s most historic tracks.
To start the weekend, we had a great Xfinity Series field. In a race that featured Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch, and Ross Chastain – the Xfinity talent really showed out. Considering three of those drivers are on NASCAR’s 75 Greatest list, it is an even more impressive feat from these young drivers.
John Hunter Nemechek once again won the pole award and once again came up short to a Cup driver at Darlington this season.
In a surprisingly clean Xfinity Series race, we had every car finish under its own power. Kyle Larson was last and multiple laps down due to an engine issue, but he was running by the time the checkered flag waved.
This one came down to Hamlin, JHN, and Austin Hill and it didn’t disappoint.
Denny Hamlin won the Sport Clips 200 and was well on his way to taking the win in the Cup Series… but we’re getting too far ahead. Let’s break down what went down in this wild playoff race.
Early frustrations and a ‘lights out’ performance
NASCAR at Darlington has this atmosphere to it. When it is the Southern 500 under the lights in front of a sold-out crowd like last night? It’s just good old-fashioned NASCAR racing. Yes, we need a little more passing, but overall, that was a good race.
Kyle Larson, our eventual winner, was not having a good time to start the race. Starting P18, Larson had to find his way to the front. When he did, he noticed something – lapping cars wasn’t as easy as he thought.
At least, when Larson pulled up to Ross Chastain, he couldn’t get by. For lap after lap, Chastain kept him at bay.
To end Stage 1, there was a mad dash for top-10 spots and one driver, Bubba Wallace, got a little too eager.
Racing Joey Logano very hard on the last lap of Stage 1, Wallace came in too hot. He hit Logano’s right rear and ended up spinning out. No big deal, just some flat spotted tires. And he lost track position. However, it also pissed off Logano who dealt with damage the rest of the night.
A ton of green flag racing gave us a fun show on Sunday night. That was until the lights wouldn’t come on. While the stadium lights above all worked, the flood lights on the bottom of the track, which light up the turns and the wall, didn’t. At least in Turns 3 and 4, they didn’t.
After driving around for a number of laps, the race was brought under caution to fix the issue. Eventually, the race was under a red flag.
Once this race got going again, is when Darlington decided to unleash chaos on this field of NASCAR drivers.
Darlington reminds NASCAR Playoff drivers they are never safe
A number of NASCAR Playoff drivers had a hard time at Darlington. Unfortunately for a handful of playoff drivers in particular, The Lady in Black was not kind. Reminder after reminder of how tough this track is kept popping up right when teams thought they had things figured out.
Even the winner, Kyle Larson had an issue early on. His car got stuck in neutral and he hit the wall a few times. However, 500 miles is a long time. You can get right, or it can all go horribly wrong.
Hamlin had a loose wheel WHILE LEADING and lost it all to make sure he didn’t wreck out of the race. After going a lap down, Hamlin would never recover. Especially after this four-car wreck that included Michael McDowell, Todd Gilliland, and Christopher Bell.
While all of this was pivotal to the finish of the race, nothing was more pivotal than this decision by Kevin Harvick to pit. He went to undercut Tyler Reddick and just as he was about to cross the commitment line, the caution came out.
His team decided to pit anyway and Harvick lost his track position entirely when he had to restart from the rear.
Soon, it was Alex Bowman and Daniel Suárez who brought out the caution flag. The two got into a war of words after the incident and appear to be on shaky ground with one another. Lots of blame to go around it appears for these two drivers.
With a path clear to the lead and an aero advantage over Tyler Reddick and the trailing group of cars, Kyle Larson took control. This was a really nice final 30 laps from the 2021 champion. With a spot in the Round of 12 clinched, Larson is well on his way to making another run at the title.