If he’s 31st or worse in the driver standings, his Chase spot will go to someone else. This is a race I always wanted to win. “Nature has not helped us by any means”.
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“But, on the other hand, Darlington is my favorite race track we go to”.
A second straight win would not be shocking for the No. 42, as Larson has recorded an eighth-place finish and a 10th-place finish in his two previous starts in the Sprint Cup Series at Darlington. He swept both events in 1996, including the Southern 500 to join Bill Elliott as the only racers to capture the Winston Million bonus for winning three of the sports’ crown jewel events in the same season.
“You’ve got to be willing to really put yourself out there and take that risk” at Darlington, Gordon said.
In the NASCAR.com game, I’m again targeting the big names starting up front. We’ve been one of the fastest, if not the fastest vehicle all summer long and everywhere we’ve been we seemed to have rotten luck, but it was worth having all that bad luck if that’s what it takes to get a Southern 500 trophy.
Thousands were up early packing the fan zones around the speedway for pre-race festivities. Harvick was still the top points’ earner in most fantasy games, however, and that is what players are truly concerned with. “This is a great honor”. “I feel like we have a good cushion right now”. “Just couldn’t be more excited to win at Darlington – Southern 500, we won it”. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver had to come from traffic in order to get back to the front and was able to rally back for a second place finish. Maybe he thought I was giving him the finger or something.
Kyle Busch prepares for NASCAR Sprint Cup auto racing practice at Darlington Raceway Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016, in Darlington, S.C. gain a victory in the Southern 500 that could lead the Hendrick Motorsports team into NASCARs championship chase.
Kevin Harvick started the race in the pole position, and led for 214 of the race’s 367 laps.
Why is that significant? It was sweet redemption for him at the 1.366-mile track where in 10 previous career starts he had led a total of almost 100 laps but the best finish he could manage was fifth. Too many times it has seen pit-road mistakes or mechanical gremlins ruin a potential winning run.
While David Pearson, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip dominated Darlington from this weekend’s celebrated 1975-84 era, in the modern years there have now been 11 different drivers in victory lane over its last 11 races: Greg Biffle (2006), Jeff Gordon (2007), Kyle Busch (2008), Mark Martin (2009), Denny Hamlin (2010), Regan Smith (2011), Jimmie Johnson (2012), Matt Kenseth (2013), Kevin Harvick (2014), Carl Edwards (2015) and Truex (2016). But with the Chase looming, it’s taken on an even more critical meaning.
He is the defending victor of this weekend’s race, and he has finished seventh or better in four of his last five starts here and six straight top 15s.
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Last Sunday at Michigan, for the Pure Michigan 400, was some great clean racing with very few caution laps run, and in the end Kyle Larson drove it home for his first career win. – 696; M. Kenseth – 669; C. Elliott # – 659; J. Johnson – 656; A. Dillon – 651; J. Mcmurray – 642; R. Newman – 635; K. Larson – 621; K. Kahne – 598.
