A.J. Allmendinger Enters Playoff Picture With Surprise Bristol Top-10 Finish

Although A.J. Allmendinger famously won an Xfinity race at Bristol in 2021 while crashing across the finish line with Austin Cindric, his Cup Series performances there had never been too strong until Sunday. Allmendinger quietly earned a ninth-place finish at a track where he had only ever earned two top-10s in his previous 25 starts. […]

Crew Chief Change Suggests Ty Gibbs Won't Lead Enough To Be A Strong DFS Option

Ty Gibbs has arguably been 2025's biggest disappointment because normally young drivers on top teams are supposed to rapidly progress while Gibbs has been significantly slower in 2025 since losing his old crew chief Chris Gayle to Denny Hamlin's No. 11. However, Gibbs is starting to turn it around as his Martinsville run was solid […]

Joey Logano's Recent Bristol Runs Have Surprisingly Been Lackluster

Joey Logano has had a pretty baffling season as he ranks third in laps led this year and ninth in points despite only posting a single top-10 finish. He's had numerous unforced errors that usually resulted in finishes just outside the top 10, and he made another one on Saturday in Bristol qualifying, where he […]

Poor 2025 Performance Will Probably Override Brad Keselowski's Recent Bristol Record

Unlike his contemporary Kyle Busch whose speed at Bristol markedly declined after he switched from Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing, Brad Keselowski has retained a lot of his speed there even after switching from Team Penske to RFK Racing. The three-time Bristol winner led 109 laps in the 2022 Bristol Night Race, the […]

Chase Briscoe Qualifies Worse Than Usual At Bristol Despite Faster Car

Although Chase Briscoe qualified 14th at Bristol, which doesn't sound terrible when you compare it to how the 23XI Racing Toyotas qualified, he was by far the slowest of the four Joe Gibbs Racing cars as his three teammates all qualified in the top seven. Briscoe is an agent of chaos who seems almost impossible […]

Kyle Busch Unlikely To Contend At Bristol After Qualifying Spin

Despite spinning out on his second qualifying lap on Saturday, Kyle Busch qualified 15th at Bristol. He is one of the track's all-time greats with eight wins and 2,598 laps led, but he has fallen on hard times since his arrival at Richard Childress Racing. Although Busch still frequently has speed on superspeedways and road […]

Despite Uptick In Speed, Austin Cindric Likely Won't Run Better At Bristol

Despite only ranking 21st in points, Austin Cindric has looked consistently faster in 2025 than any previous season, so it's certainly plausible that he could get an unexpectedly strong result. However, the former road-course specialist has now steadily turned into a superspeedway specialist, and short tracks are not typically his specialty. He also qualified 21st […]

Michael McDowell Should Sustain Bristol Qualifying Performance Better Than Expected

Short tracks have typically been Michael McDowell's Achilles heel throughout his career but he does seem to have figured something out at Bristol recently with the Next Gen chassis. Although he has still never led a lap here, he started 4th and finished 6th in the 2023 Bristol Night Race and ran in the top […]

Justin Haley Will Likely Slide Back From 10th-Place Starting Position

Justin Haley qualified 10th at Bristol alongside his teammate Carson Hocevar, marking his best starting position ever at the track. This shouldn't come as a huge surprise as his Spire Motorsports cars are probably the fastest he has ever had here and Hocevar and Haley's predecessor Corey LaJoie both qualified in the top ten at […]

Erik Jones Continues To Lack Bristol Speed In No. 43 Car

Erik Jones used to be great at Bristol in his early years at Furniture Row Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing, when he earned four top fives and led 260 laps from the pole as a rookie in 2017 before finishing second. However, since moving to the No. 43 car (especially after the team name changed […]

Shane Van Gisbergen Unsurprisingly Struggles In Bristol Qualifying

The Trackhouse Racing cars have had issues with speed on short tracks in recent years, and Saturday's Bristol qualifying session was no exception. Obviously a concrete oval is far out of Supercars veteran Shane van Gisbergen's wheelhouse, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the Kiwi rookie only qualified 36th. What might be more surprising […]

Corey LaJoie Returns To Site Of His Last Spire Motorsports Start Before Being Traded

Corey LaJoie qualified 37th at Bristol and was outqualified by his teammate Cody Ware. This is a mild surprise because for all the criticism he got recently, LaJoie did qualify in the top ten in two of the last three races at Bristol and led 52 laps, but obviously Rick Ware Racing is admittedly going […]

Don't Expect A Repeat For Cody Ware At Bristol

Perhaps surprisingly, Cody Ware has only ever started one race at the paved Bristol oval because carbon monoxide poisoning kept him out of the 2021 Bristol Night Race. Even more surprisingly, Ware got his best career finish on a non-drafting oval of 17th in the 2022 Bristol Night Race and only finished three laps down. […]

Josh Bilicki Making First 2025 Cup Series Start At Bristol

Josh Bilicki makes his first start of the 2025 season for Carl Long's Garage 66 team on Sunday at Bristol from the 39th and last starting position. He drove the No. 66 entry in last year's Bristol Night Race, where he finished 33 laps down in 34th. In four previous starts at Bristol, he has […]

William Byron's Attempt To Lead From Start To Finish Cost Him Darlington Race

In Sunday's Goodyear 400 at Darlington, pole-sitter William Byron started the race with 243 consecutive laps led, the most since Jeff Burton led every lap in the second Loudon race of 2000. However, Byron's attempt to lead every lap arguably ended up costing him the race, as the race had several green-flag pit cycles, meaning […]

Christopher Bell Struggles At Darlington Until Being Bailed Out By Pit Strategy

Christopher Bell finished third at Darlington on Sunday, but that was more because he was lucky than good. Despite the fact that Denny Hamlin won the race and Bell ended up with a third-place finish, all the Joe Gibbs Racing cars seemed to be very slow on long runs as Bell started 17th but shockingly […]

Kyle Larson Bookends Darlington Race With Crashes

Kyle Larson had a race to forget at Darlington on Sunday. His race finished nearly before it started, as an unforced error caused him to crash into the inside retaining wall on Lap 4. Although he spent over half the race in the garage, he did return to the track. Shortly after Ryan Blaney passed […]

Ross Chastain Recovers From Untimely Pit Stop To Finish Seventh

Ross Chastain has a history of qualifying poorly at Darlington and getting good finishes, and that continued again in Sunday's race as he started 25th before eventually finishing seventh. He had just worked his way into the top 10 for the first time in the middle of Stage 2 when he got trapped a lap […]

Joey Logano's Increased Speed But Worse Results Make Darlington Outcome Unclear

Joey Logano finally got his first top-10 finish of the season last week at Martinsville, the latest a defending champion has posted their first top-10 result. He looks to make that two in a row at Darlington, but his 18th-place starting position is actually his second-worst starting position here, behind only his 23rd starting spot […]

Chase Briscoe Likely To Benefit From Toyota Speed At Darlington

Chase Briscoe improbably delivered Stewart-Haas Racing's last win in last year's Southern 500, the last race at Darlington Raceway. Today he starts fourth in the Goodyear 400 with a much faster Joe Gibbs Racing Team and he is coming off from back-to-back top five finishes at the track, even though he had never earned a […]

Ross Chastain Is One Of The Best DFS Options

Ross Chastain has never won at Darlington, but that does not reflect how well he has run, as he has led 134 laps at the track. Oddly, 119 of those laps led came in two races he crashed out of. More typically, Chastain qualifies poorly and gains numerous positions in the field, as he did […]

Carson Hocevar Still A Work In Progress

Although Carson Hocevar failed to replicate his second-place starting position from last year's Southern 500, his 13th-place starting position on Sunday is still pretty solid, and the speed he had last year suggests there is a chance he will have speed on Sunday, even though he fell off quickly and failed to score any stage […]

Chris Buescher Likely Motivated After Last Year's Darlington Near Miss

Although he couldn't have known it at the time, Chris Buescher's and Tyler Reddick's slight contact while battling for the lead in last year's spring Darlington race arguably knocked Buescher out of the playoffs since he was leading with nine laps left when Reddick cut his tire and was relegated to a 30th-place finish. The […]

Ty Gibbs Returns To Site Of Best Career Finish

Ty Gibbs finally stopped the bleeding somewhat in last week's race at Martinsville as he had his best run and finish in an otherwise disastrous season after his crew chief Chris Gayle was replaced by Tyler Allen. Gibbs did earn the only second-place finish of his career in last year's Darlington event, but that came […]

Michael McDowell Probably Won't Overcome Darlington Mediocrity

Michael McDowell outqualified both of his Spire Motorsports teammates on Saturday and starts 10th for Sunday's race at Darlington. His record is very close to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s in that his only two top-10 finishes came in the two attrition-heavy races in 2022, where his average running positions of 18th and 11th were substantially worse […]

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Likely Needs Attrition To Earn A Good Darlington Result

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s career pretty much lives and dies on his performances on drafting tracks now, as he is never anything more than anonymous anywhere else these days. Don't expect that to change at Darlington, where he only earned a single top-10 finish in the 2022 spring race and has never led a lap. Even […]

Noah Gragson Looks To See if Xfinity Series Success At Darlington Can Carry Over

Noah Gragson has been one of the most invisible drivers in the Cup Series, and the fact that he qualified 26th for Sunday's Darlington race while his Front Row Motorsports teammates Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith start 12th and 16th, respectively, is consistent with that. Gragson did slice through the field in last year's race, […]

A.J. Allmendinger Has Never Earned A Top-10 Finish At Darlington

A.J. Allmendinger alternating between full-time and part-time status in the NASCAR Cup Series hasn't seemed to have done anything to slow him down, as he now sits six points below the playoff cut line for a not-great Kaulig Racing team after two top-10 finishes in the last three races. But Darlington is one of his […]

For Riley Herbst, Rookie Inexperience Likely To Overcome Toyota Speed Advantage

As usual, Riley Herbst was outqualified by his 23XI veteran teammates Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick on Saturday at Darlington, with Herbst only qualifying 32nd to Wallace's fifth and Reddick's seventh. He was a slow learner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, so it is no surprise that this trend is repeating itself in the Cup […]

Cody Ware Seems Worse Than Before His Suspension

Ever since Cody Ware's return to full-time competition this season, he has seemingly been even slower than he was before his suspension in 2023 as he has a lower average start, lower average finish, and is thereby lower in points than he was at any time during his last full-time season in 2022. Since Rick […]