Darlington Race Review

 

Tyler Reddick

    Reddick is a freaking beast of a driver. No matter what is thrown his way, he finds a way to rebound and recover. This week, Reddick dealt with a battery issue the entirety of the race, being put behind at the end of stage 1 but was still able to rally his way through the field. He qualified on the pole, was easily the fastest in practice, and had the best car today. Reddick's worse finish so far this season is 13th which came last week at Vegas. Aside from that and an 8th place finish at Phoenix, Reddick has won every race this season. He is just the 3rd driver in NASCAR's modern history to win 4 of the first 6 races of the season. 

    The most wins 23XI has had in a season was 3, which happened back in 2024 when Reddick won 3 races and made it to the Championship 4. Reddick has already surpassed that total in just the first 4 races this season. 23XI could very well get to double digit wins as a team this season especially with the speed Bubba Wallace has also shown early on this year. Reddick won this race by nearly 6 seconds, and that could have been a lot more had he gotten to the lead prior to the green flag cycle beginning. He's almost 100 points up on the 2nd place driver in the standings as well. I'm not sure if Reddick's dominance is going to last all season, but it's clear that the 45 team is the fastest in the garage right now.

Top Finishers

• 1. Tyler Reddick
• 2. Brad Keselowski
• 3. Ryan Blaney
• 4. Carson Hocevar
• 5. Austin Cindric
• 6. Ty Gibbs
• 7. Daniel Suarez
• 8. William Byron
• 9. Chris Buescher
• 10. Erik Jones
• 11. Denny Hamlin
• 12. Chase Briscoe
• 13. Ryan Preece
• 14. Shane Van Gisbergen
• 15. Chase Elliott
• 16. Ross Chastain
• 17. Josh Berry
• 18. Connor Zilisch
• 19. Christopher Bell
• 20. Michael McDowell
• 21. Kyle Busch
• 22. Zane Smith
• 23. Todd Gilliland
• 24. Justin Allgaier
• 25. Austin Dillon
• 26. Noah Gragson
• 27. John H. Nemechek
• 28. Cole Custer
• 29. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 
• 30. Aj Allmendinger
• 31. Ty Dillon
• 32. Kyle Larson
• 33. Joey Logano
• 34. Bubba Wallace
• 35. Riley Herbst
• 36. Cody Ware
• 37. Timmy Hill

    RFK Racing was the best overall team today. All 3 of their cars spent time inside the top 10 and at one point they were all up in the top 3. Brad Keselowski had the 2nd best car today in the field. He was able to win both stages, but just didn't have the long run speed that Reddick had that last run. Keselowski is on a 65 race winless streak now since his win at Darlington in 2024. That said, Brad had a really good points day and jumped up into the top 10 in the standings. 

    Chris Buescher was a top 5 car for most of the day, but  he got rear ended by Tyler Reddick going into turn 3 just before the final green flag pit stop sequence. It looked like Buescher was trying to pit as the team called him late into put road. That said,  Reddick didn't check up and got into the back of Buescher. Buescher's car wasn't the same after but he still finished 9th. As for Ryan Preece, he wasn't as strong as his 2 teammates this race. He did collect some stage points in stage 2, but he never ran up in the top 10 after stage 2. That said, Preece finished a respectable 13th place.

    Team Penske was all over the place today. Ryan Blaney ends up with a 3rd place finish, but he dealt with his own issues throughout this race. At the beginning of stage 2, Blaney had another loose wheel that put in him in the back of the pack. He failed to collect any stage points in stage 2, but did work his way back into the top 5 late in this race. He ends up with a 3rd place finish and his 2nd top 5 of the season. Austin Cindric ran up inside the top 10 for most of this race and collected 6 stage points at Darlington. He wasn't a top 5 car, but he had a good enough long run car to get a top 5. This was one of Cindric's best runs on an oval that he's had in his Cup career. Joey Logano was terrible today. He ran outside the top 30 and just had no speed.

    The standout Chevrolet team today wasn't Hendrick Motorsports, but rather it's alliance team in Spire Motorsports. Carson Hocevar had to start in the back after fixing a control arm. He didn't get into the top 10 until the final stage, but he was flying the last 20 laps of the race. He may have had the best car that final run, and he ends up a with a 4th place finish. Hocevar just needs to minimize the mistakes that he makes because he's got the raw speed to run in the top 10 at most ovals. Daniel Suarez was a 10th to 15th place car for much of the race, but he opted to stay out after the Riley Herbst crash to get track position. He ended up staying in the top 10 on the older tires and got on the same strategy as the leaders to score a 7th place finish. Michael McDowell, meanwhile, got busted for multiple speeding penalties and came home with a 20th place finish.

    Joe Gibbs Racing was pretty quiet today given their high standards. Ty Gibbs paced the way for the team with a 6th place finish. Gibbs quietly worked his way into the top 10 as this race went on and after the Herbst crash, stayed out to gain track position. That worked pretty well for him as he stayed in the top 5 for most of stage 3. Denny Hamlin got into Erik Jones during stage 2 which took out Bubba Wallace in the process. Hamlin didn't really have winning speed today which I thought was surprising. He had one other issue in the latter parts of stage 2, where he thought he had a tire going down. Hamlin would end up finishing 11th.

    Chase Briscoe started back in 23rd, but was able to work his way into the top 15 by the end of stage 1. Briscoe would eventually work his way into the top 5 during stage 2 where finished 4th in the stage. Briscoe was also the first car on new tires after the Herbst caution during the beginning of stage 3. Briscoe was running 5th when he tried clearing himself in front of Riley Herbst in turn 4 with just a couple laps left in the race. Briscoe, however, just wrecked himself and cost the team a top 10 finish as he finished 12th. Christopher Bell was just mediocre today, as he ran in the mid teens for most of the race. He would end up finishing 19th. 

    Hendrick Motorsports wasn't good today. William Byron ran in the back half of the top 10 for most of the day and came up 8th place. Byron's been good so far this season, but he has lacked the race winning speed that we saw from him and the other HMS cars last year. Kyle Larson ran up in the top 5 for most of this race, but the team just fell behind with the track as the race went on. With about 10 laps to go, Larson smacked the outside wall in turn 1 which broke the toe link on his car. Larson would end up with a 32nd place finish after being a top 5 car for most of the day. Chase Elliott qualified 3rd, but faded quickly and ran in the mid teens for much of the race. He ends up with a 15th place finish. Justin Allgaier continued to run mediocre and finishes 24th.

    Erik Jones was caught up in an early wreck in stage 2 where Denny Hamlin kind of just punted him. Jones didn't sustain any major damage in the wreck fortunately, and he rallied to finish in the 10th position. Jones has been pretty good at Darlington, as he has 2 wins in the Southern 500 and a 3rd in 2025 Southern 500 so it is not surprise to see him to finish well. Shane Van Gisbergen wasn't great for most of the day, but he ended up scoring another top 15 on an oval with a 14th place finish. Connor Zilisch gets an alright 18th place finish, but he was involved in another controversy after he accidentally wrecked Riley Herbst. 

    There were only a couple of cautions for incident today which meant that there were a lot of green flag pit stops. The first caution for incident was when Denny Hamlin got into the back of Erik Jones in turn 3. Hamlin and Jones were able to continue, but Bubba Wallace sustained some nose damage which hurt any chance of him having a good run. Wallace collected 7 stage points in stage 1, but he had a loose wheel that he had to get fixed after the ending of stage 1. The other incident was for Riley Herbst, who had a decent day going, but he got too much damage and finished the race in 35th multiple laps down.

Standings

POS	DRIVER	POINTS	+/- McDowell
1	Tyler Reddick	325	+186
2	Ryan Blaney	230	+91
3	Bubba Wallace	205	+66
4	Denny Hamlin	203	+64
5	Chase Elliott	194	+55
6	William Byron	191	+52
7	Chris Buescher	188	+49
8	Christopher Bell	182	+43
9	Brad Keselowski	182	+43
10	Kyle Larson	176	+37
11	Ty Gibbs	173	+34
12	Ryan Preece	154	+15
13	Carson Hocevar	151	+12
14	Daniel Suarez	150	+11
15	Shane Van Gisbergen	140	+1
16	Joey Logano	139	0
17	Michael McDowell	139	0
18	AJ Allmendinger	124	-15
19	Zane Smith	123	-16
20	Ross Chastain	115	-24
21	Austin Cindric	109	-30
22	Chase Briscoe	108	-31
23	Kyle Busch	106	-33
24	Erik Jones	103	-36
25	John H. Nemechek	101	-38
26	Austin Dillon	93	-46
27	Riley Herbst	88	-51
28	Ty Dillon	86	-53
29	Noah Gragson	84	-55
30	Todd Gilliland	82	-57
31	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	80	-59
32	Josh Berry	76	-63
33	Connor Zilisch	69	-70
34	Cole Custer	61	-78
35	Cody Ware	53	-86
36	Alex Bowman	23	-116

    The cutline now centers around Joey Logano and Michael McDowell. The drivers that moved up the most in the standings this week are Austin Cindric (+9), Chase Briscoe (+4), Daniel Suarez (+3), Brad Keselowski (+3), and Erik Jones (-3). As for the drivers that lost the most spots, that would include Joey Logano (-5), Riley Herbst (-4), and John H. Nemechek (-4).

Overall Thoughts

    There was a lot of hype coming into this race especially from the drivers. There was going to be 4 seconds of fall off and the drivers were going to be on edge all race long. While I don't think this race lived up to that kind of hype, it was still a really solid race in my opinion. There were plenty of comers and goers throughout the field. While it was tough to pass, it wasn't impossible unlike previous races at Darlington. The fastest cars could move their way to the front like Reddick and Blaney showed late in this race. There didn't need to be a bunch of cautions to get movement in the field. It was fun to watch the drivers man handle these cars around the track with as much fall off as there was.

    Darlington, as a whole, is a really fun track when the drivers are challenged. The increased horsepower helped this race a lot more than what it would have been with the 670 HP package. I do believe that the mile and a half tracks need the horsepower increase as well because it's clear that the increased horsepower is making an improvement on the racing product. Phoenix had one of its best races since the Next Gen Era debut. The race today was one of the best races Darlington has had since 2022. I think Martinsville and Bristol should be much better shows than what they have been compared to previous years next week.

    It's kind of funny to see people already tired of Tyler Reddick dominating early on this season. He's been a good driver the last few years, as evident when he won the regular season championship in 2024. Reddick isn't going to win every single race this season, but I do think NASCAR fans need to be appreciate greatness when we see it. We haven't seen a driver dominate the Next Gen Era yet, but Tyler Reddick is in the midst of that right now. I don't think he's going to win the next couple of weeks, but he's going to continue to be a threat all season long to win at every style of track. Overall, this was a really solid race and I look forward to see the Southern 500 in person this fall!