(Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
By Aaron Bearden
Post-race review and analysis from the NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway.
Who Won?
Denny Hamlin. A timely rainshower fell while Hamlin was leading on old tires, helping him lock up his second win of 2020.
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Midweek Madness
A bird, a fox and a shower all showed up at in the small town of Darlington, South Carolina on Wednesday night.
They each added drama and entertainment to what was already a unique night for NASCAR.
Three days after restarting the NASCAR Cup Series with a surreal, fan-free 400-mile affair at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR upped the ante and returned for its first Wednesday night race in 36 years. Mother Nature didn’t seem poised to cooperate early on, continuing a trend of stormy weather that had already rained out the Xfinity Series on Tuesday. But a break in the weather over Darlington allowed NASCAR’s Air Titans to dry the track as the evening rolled on.
What seemed unlikely in the early afternoon finally happened at around 8 p.m. ET. The Cup field rolled onto the racing surface just three days after the previous race at the same track, and the green flag flew to kick off the second race of NASCAR’s return.
It was there that the first signs of a unique night were spotted.
Just one day removed from a tongue-in-cheek “30 for 30” parody about iRacing’s ambitious virtual flagman, the real-life race saw a similar flag-waving motion from NASCAR’s Joey Aycock.
Took lessons from the 🐐. pic.twitter.com/LeLsCeVRWJ
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 21, 2020
The incident quickly made waves on social media and earned a rewarded VIP iRacing account.
As the field rolled through Turns 1 and 2, Ty Dillon snuck by polesitter Ryan Preece to take the lead. He proceeded to pace the opening eight laps in a GEICO-sponsor car adorned with the company’s “Hump Day” camel – a fitting scheme for a rare Wednesday show.
The next hour played out in relatively standard NASCAR fashion, albeit with entertaining battles to enjoy. Tire strategies and cautions saw the field ebb and flow, but Clint Bowyer emerged as the early favorite by claiming both of the opening stages. It marked the first time the Kansas native had won two stages in a single year – no, that’s not a typo.
Bowyer had the pace to contend for a win, but his evening was undone in Stage 3 when he found himself trapped behind the returning Ryan Newman on old tires.
In just his second race back from a head injury sustained at the Daytona 500, Newman was in vintage form. He threw a fierce block on Brad Keselowski in the early stages – move that FOX Sports’ Mike Joy hilariously termed as “shoving the hot dog into the bun,” paying homage to his sponsor Oscar Mayer and eliciting a laugh from colleague Jeff Gordon.
Newman proved difficult for Bowyer to overcome in the final stage despite his older tires. Bowyer lost multiple spots and valuable time before he finally overtook the Hoosier while cracking a timely joke about him being “hard-headed.”
Bowyer later hit the wall and spun out, falling deep in the field. he never recovered, dropping to 22nd at race’s end.
The true craziness came in the race’s closing stages. Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott collided while racing for what could have been the win, leaving Elliott crashed by the inside wall and flipping Busch off.
That incident and the caution flag it incited helped Denny Hamlin maintain the lead for a few more minutes. It was during this time that rain fell, bringing the field to pit road. There was then a brief delay, and during the wait a wild fox found its way onto the racing surface – a fitting animal given that the broadcast was handled by FOX Sports.
Minutes later the race was called as the rain picked up. Hamlin was declared the winner, and as many drivers in that situation would do, he offered a thumbs up for the broadcast from the cockpit of his machine. But the moment was given added hilarity by the mask Hamlin was wearing, which overlaid a fake smile onto his visage.
Mood 😷👍🏼 pic.twitter.com/23C7S3sL2D
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) May 21, 2020
While Hamlin took meme-worthy victory photos in the infield, Busch discussed his run-in with Elliott. His mask also quickly added a dose of humor when fans discovered that it had a fake license plate that said “4 Give Me.”
By the time the broadcast had wrapped up shortly before the beginning of a new day, NASCAR had supplied enough meme-worthy moments to rival Michael Jordan and ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary series. The numerous memorable visuals added a dose of fun and normalcy to one of the motorsport’s most surreal stretches of competition.
Elliott flips the bird
Chase Elliott told Kyle Busch he was No. 1 just before the rain hit on Wednesday night at Darlington Raceway.
Never mind that the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion was running second at the time. Elliott felt that Busch deserved it.
Moments prior, the two drivers had each been in contention for the win.
Denny Hamlin led the way, but he sat vulnerable on older tires. Busch tried to take advantage on what turned out to be the final restart, making a dive under his teammate shortly after the field took the green flag on Lap 199. But the move didn’t stick, and Hamlin powered back to the front on the outside lane.
Sensing an opportunity to mount a challenge of his own, Elliott ripped around the top behind Hamlin and rolled outside of Busch for second. The pair came off of Turn 4 side-by-side, then suddenly Elliott’s No. 9 Chevrolet was sent spinning off of the nose of Busch’s No. 18 Toyota.
Elliott’s car clobbered the wall, totaling it in an instant. The 2014 Xfinity Series champion was forced to climb from the machine and go through the usual medical checks after a crash.
But he wasn’t going to do it without letting Busch know how he felt.
Instead of going directly to the ambulance, Elliott waited on the apron for Busch to drive by. When the Nevadan passed, Elliott lifted his right hand and gave him a one-finger salute.
That wasn’t the end of the No. 9 team’s frustration. Rain fell moments after the incident, bringing the field to pit road for what would prove to be the end of the race. Crew chief Alan Gustafson and a few members of the team made their way down to the wall adjacent from Busch’s No. 18 Toyota, spending a few tense minutes waiting out NASCAR’s decision to call the race.
Security was called to the area as a safety precaution, but it proved unnecessary. Gustafson just wanted to talk the incident out with Busch, whom he’d handled crew chief duties for in his three years with Hendrick Motorsports from 2005 through 2007.
“He (Busch) made a mistake and I get it,” Gustafson told the FOX Sports 1 broadcast. “I don’t think he intentionally wrecked us, but you just get tired of coming out on the wrong end of those deals too often. I certainly feel like we were in position to win that race.”
After climbing from his car and talking the incident out with Gustafson, Busch admitted to making a mistake.
“There’s no question, I know I made a mistake, and just misjudged the gap,” Busch said. “I had a run on Chase (Elliott). I knew he was there, but I knew I needed to get in line as quick as I could … I tried to look up in my mirror and see where (Kevin) Harvick was (so I could) get in and I just misjudged and made a mistake and clipped the 9 and spun him into the wall.
“I hate it for him and his guys. I have too many friends over there on that team to do anything like that on purpose. I’ve raced Chase since he was a kid and never had any issues with him whatsoever. It was just a bad mistake on my part and I’ll just have to deal with it later on.”
Busch has spent the better part of a decade racing Elliott with minimal issues. The two-time Cup champion has a tendency to run Super Late Model (SLM) events in his spare time, and Elliott came up the SLM ranks before rising through NASCAR’s ladder system.
He planned to reach out to Elliott and apologize once he left Darlington.
“Obviously I just made a mistake, misjudged the gap, sent him into the wall,” Busch said. “That was entirely unintentional. I’ll definitely reach out to him and tell him I’m sorry AND tell him I hate it that it happened. All I can do.”
Elliott’s decision to show Busch a middle finger found itself in the grey area of the NASCAR rule book. The rules surrounding crashes ask that a driver “immediately proceed to the ambulance or other vehicle as directed by safety personnel or a NASCAR Official,” while at no time approaching “any portion of the racing surface or apron.”
The strict rules were put into place after an incident involving Tony Stewart and Kevin Ward Jr. at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in 2014, where Ward was tragically struck and killed.
Despite that, NASCAR indicated no urge to give Elliott a penalty in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
Well said https://t.co/srvy0D1amK
— Steve O'Donnell (@odsteve) May 21, 2020
While he didn’t make many friends in the process, Busch did salvage a second-place result from the ordeal due to the rain that followed it. The Nevadan made a much-needed leap up in the point standings and secured his third top-five in the past four races.
Now he’ll just have to deal with the headaches of wrecking out the sport’s most popular driver – a pain he knows all too well after crashing Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a battle for the lead at Richmond Raceway in 2008.
“I can say whatever I can say,” Busch said. “I’ve never been a very good politician anyways. His fan base is going to have the hatred to me anyways. I just deal with what I got to deal with.”
A glimpse at the future?
NASCAR’s entertaining showcase on Wednesday was more than a continuation of the sport’s return – it also might have been a glimpse into the sport’s future.
Midweek races with shorter distances have long been a point of debate among members of the NASCAR community, with the concept floated as a potential option to dominate primetime during the week and condense one of the longest schedules in professional sports.
First the first time in decades, NASCAR gave the concept a trial at Darlington Raceway. While that decision was borne as much out of necessity from the COVID-19 pandemic as it was curiosity, the end result was a race and concept that largely proved successful to those at the track.
“Loved it,” Brad Keselowski said of the midweek event. “Let’s do it every week.”
His teammate Joey Logano was similarly optimistic after the second race in four days.
“I think it really shows and opens up what we can do,” Logano said. “We just raced Sunday and now we are racing Wednesday and then we are going back to the track on Sunday again. It is pretty cool to see that we can do that and put on good races without any real big hiccups at all.
“I love it. More racing and less practice. I am all about that.”
Matt DiBenedetto noted enjoying “less practice and more racing,” while saying the schedule shift made him “feel like an old school dirt racer.”
The overall vibe from competitors at the track was a positive one. But there were many factors that aided the race’s feasibility. Amid a pandemic, NASCAR needn’t worry about fans, and the previous delays to the schedule elevated the value of getting races completed beyond holding them each on weekends.
With teams struggling financially and backlogged races piling up, the necessity to kickstart the racing economy and catch up on regular-season events before the playoffs helped the sanctioning body make swift, major schedule changes.
Going forward doing the same won’t be as simple. Attendance could become a factor once fans are permitted at races again, and not every track will be up for removing a full race weekend in favor of a one-day show.
But the NASCAR industry has proven that it can contest multiple races in a week under the right circumstances – a move that could be repeated if television viewership justifies it.
“From a team standpoint and from competitors, it’s great if we can shorten the schedule, do all those things,” Kevin Harvick said. ”In the end, the telltale sign is going to be when those TV numbers come out.
“If they’re good, that’s what drives everything. That’s what everybody sells their sponsorship on. That’s what we all want to see, is great TV numbers. We’d love the fans at the racetrack, but in the end the biggest stick comes from how many people turn on the TV.”
It will be difficult to gauge the television success of Wednesday’s Toyota 500, because the event was shifted up due to weather and then was subject to a delay of nearly two hours for track drying. But the NASCAR Cup Series will get at least two more shots at a clean midweek attempt at Charlotte Motor Speedway (May 27) and Martinsville Speedway (June 10).
Other Notes
- Erik Jones continues to be impressive at the Track Too Tough to Tame. Not only did he make arguably the move of the race, Jones brought home a fifth-place finish that has him sitting on an average finish of 5.4 at the facility in Cup competition.
- Ty Dillon’s eight laps led were the second most laps he’s led in any one Cup race, trailing only the 27 laps he led at Dover International Speedway in 2017.
- His brother Austin Dillon has a proposal for NASCAR – implement the choose cone rule seen at short tracks.
- Jimmie Johnson bounced back from his mood-shifting Stage 1 crash on Sunday with a methodical drive to the top-10 on Wednesday, his first at Darlington since 2014.
- John Hunter Nemechek went in the opposite direction. After securing media coverage and hype with a surprising top-10 for Front Row Motorsports on Sunday, the rookie suffered two early crashes en route to 35th in his second run on the egg-shaped oval.
- Matt Kenseth also struggled, spinning to bring out a yellow with a flat tire and finishing 30th four days after his top-10 return to NASCAR competition.
- Aric Almirola is quietly off to a great start in his third season with Stewart-Haas Racing. The native of “the” Tampa, Florida – as he said in his driver introduction – has three top-10s and sits seventh in the standings after six races.
- Polesitter Ryan Preece had the unfortunate designation of finishing Wednesday’s race at the opposite end of the field. Preece finished last after suffering engine issues at the start of the second stage.
- Christopher Bell quietly bounced back from his early-season struggles in his second run at Darlington. The Oklahoman was the top-finishing rookie in 11th, putting together a solid race after five finishes outside of the top-20 to open his Cup career.
