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Tag: BoJangles Southern 500

  • Denny Hamlin is back Full-time for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

    Denny Hamlin is back Full-time for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

    Denny Hamlin is scheduled to return to racing full time Saturday evening at Darlington Raceway. He has no backup plan for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 and is determined to run the entire race.

    Hamlin has not competed in a full race since March 24th when he suffered a compression fracture in his lower back. He has missed four races and drove only 23 laps last week at Talladega. Hamlin is currently 31st in the Sprint Cup point standings.

    “I don’t think there’s any doubt we’ll go the whole way,” Hamlin said. “I stayed in the car for about an hour and a half straight with no issues during practice. Nothing was uncomfortable, nothing hurt or nothing was sore, so I’m pretty comfortable I can make it the three or three and a half hours that it’s going to take to run the race.”

    He has no illusions about the difficulties he will face in his first full race since March.

    “It will be a challenge,” Hamlin admitted, “because this is one of the toughest, physically challenging races that we have; not only by distance but the amount of mental focus that you have to have during this race is tough. You’re running right next to the wall and the margin for error is zero.”

    Hamlin also believes that with a couple of wins and a little luck that that he can get into the top-20 before the Chase begins.

    “There’s nothing that wins can’t fix,” he insists. “That’s the bottom line. If we put ourselves in position and win a race here and there, more than likely if we win a couple of races then we’re going to be top-20 in points, I would think.”

    Hamlin continued, “You’ve got to have things go your way; that’s the bottom line to it. A lot of this sport is based on luck and we’re going to need some.”

    Hamlin has already made a good start with a strong qualifying lap and will begin the race in the sixth position. NASCAR pre-race coverage starts at 6 p.m. on Fox. The green flag for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 is scheduled to drop at approximately 7 p.m.

  • Kurt Busch Wins the Pole for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 and Sets a Track Record at Darlington Raceway

    Kurt Busch Wins the Pole for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 and Sets a Track Record at Darlington Raceway

    Kurt Busch won the Coors Light Pole Award with a qualifying lap of 181.918 mph. His time set the track record previously held by Kasey Kahne in 2011 with a lap speed of 181.254. It is his 16th pole in 446 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.

    This is Busch’s second pole in 17 years at Darlington Raceway. In September 2001 he won the pole and became the youngest pole winner at the legendary track. He was 23 years and 29 days old at the time.

    Jimmie Johnson qualified second giving him his seventh top-10 start in 2013. In 15 races at Darlington Raceway, Johnson has scored eight top-10 starts. That number includes his 2012 win which gave Hendrick Motorsports its 200th NASCAR Sprint Cup victory.

    Kyle Busch will begin the race from the third position. This is Busch’s fourth top-10 start at Darlington Raceway and his eighth top-10 start this season.

    Kasey Kahne and Martin Truex Jr. will start the race in positions four and five, respectively. Denny Hamlin qualified in sixth place and will compete in his first full race since March.

    Please visit nascar.com for the complete starting line-up. http://www.nascar.com/en_us/sprint-cup-series/standings/results/2013/bojangles-southern-500.html

    NASCAR pre-race action starts at 6 p.m. on Fox for the 64th annual Bojangles’ Southern 500 on Saturday, May 11th. The green flag is scheduled to drop at approximately 7 p.m. The drivers will once again race under the lights for 501.3 miles (367 laps) to determine who will tame the ‘Lady in Black.’

  • Crunching The Numbers: Darlington

    Crunching The Numbers: Darlington

    With a weekend full of rain delays, wild wrecks, close finishes, and underdog winners at Talladega Superspeedway behind them, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series head to Darlington Raceway, NASCAR’s first superspeedway, for some night racing on Mother’s Day weekend at the track that is “Too Tough To Tame”.

    Sprint Cup Series

    Saturday night’s 64th Annual Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington, which has become a staple of Mother’s Day weekend in recent years, is one of the toughest races of the year in large part to the egg shaped nature of the track that gives crew chiefs fits when trying to perfect the setup of the car and the inevitable “Darlington Stripe” that drivers are sure to get during the duration of the event. The new Gen6 car will also make its Darlington debut this weekend and 500 miles on Saturday will tell the tale if early season success with the car will lead to Victory Lane or if we’ll see a new winner take the checkered flag.

    Driver Races Win Top 5 Top 10 Pole Laps Led Avg. Start Avg. Finish
    Denny Hamlin 7 1 3 6 0 354 10.7 5.9
    Jimmie Johnson 14 3 7 10 0 543 12.5 9.1
    Brad Keselowski 4 0 1 2 0 0 16.2 9.2
    Martin Truex, Jr. 7 0 1 3 0 98 24.3 11.3
    Tony Stewart 20 0 4 11 0 20 17.1 11.8
    Jeff Gordon 32 7 18 21 3 1720 6.7 11.8
    Jeff Burton 30 2 8 16 0 817 20.7 12.3
    Mark Martin 46 2 17 26 2 801 13.3 12.4
    Ryan Newman 14 0 7 9 1 325 7.9 12.4
    Carl Edwards 9 0 3 6 0 94 15.8 13.1

    Who To Watch: This weekend, Denny Hamlin is scheduled to make a full time return to racing after getting out early at Talladega last weekend. Hamlin couldn’t have picked a better track to make his return at than Darlington because Hamlin leads all active drivers with the best average finish of 5.9 in seven starts at the track, along with one win, three top fives, six top tens, and 354 laps led. The next driver, Jimmie Johnson, is a full 3.2 position points behind with an average finish of 9.1 in 14 starts. However, Johnson does have more wins, top fives, top tens, and laps led than Hamlin with three wins, seven top fives, 10 top tens, and 543 laps led. Defending series champion, Brad Keselowski, will also be another to watch with his 9.2 average finish in four starts, which is comprised of one top five and two top tens.

    One last driver to keep an eye on is Jeff Gordon, who is the wins leader among active drivers with seven wins in 32 starts. Gordon also has amassed 18 top fives, 21 top tens, three poles, 1720 laps led and an average finish of 11.8. Gordon will also be making his 700th career Sprint Cup Series start this weekend.

    Nationwide Series

    As has been commonplace for Nationwide and Cup Series companion weekends all season long, several Cup drivers will run the Nationwide race in order to learn information for the Cup race and to go all out to win the trophy and Friday night’s VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 will be more of the same with the Cup regulars battling it out with the Nationwide regulars for supremacy at Darlington.

    Driver Races Win Top 5 Top 10 Pole Laps Led Avg. Start Avg. Finish
    Austin Dillon 1 0 1 1 0 0 3.0 5.0
    Joey Logano 2 1 1 1 0 4 4.5 6.5
    Sam Hornish, Jr. 2 0 1 1 0 3 10.0 7.5
    Matt Kenseth 16 3 9 12 0 327 12.4 9.7
    Justin Allgaier 4 0 2 2 0 31 11.0 9.8
    Kasey Kahne 10 0 1 4 0 46 13.7 12.8
    Reed Sorenson 4 0 0 2 0 0 20.5 13.0
    Kyle Busch 8 1 3 4 1 273 5.1 13.5
    Jeff Green 19 1 5 9 1 86 16.1 14.9
    Trevor Bayne 1 0 0 0 0 0 9.0 16.0

    Who To Watch: Heading into his second start at the track, Austin Dillon leads all drivers with the best average finish of 5.0 after his 5th place finish last year and his qualifying run that placed him in 3rd to start the race. Next in line is Joey Logano, with one win, one top five, one top ten, four laps led and an average finish of 6.5 in two starts. Others who should be good at Darlington include: Sam Hornish, Jr., who has one top five, one top ten, three laps led, and an average finish of 7.5 in two starts; Matt Kenseth, with three wins, nine top fives, twelve top tens, 327 laps led, and an average finish of 9.7 in 16 starts; and Justin Allgaier, with two top fives, two top tens, 31 laps led, and an average finish of 9.8 in four starts.

  • Scott Speed Races for a Cause with “Team Kyle” at Darlington Raceway

    Scott Speed Races for a Cause with “Team Kyle” at Darlington Raceway

    [media-credit id=22 align=”alignright” width=”254″][/media-credit]Bebida Beverage Company (BeBevCo) announced Friday that the company has made a deal with Go Green Racing to be their primary sponsor in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.  The fastest-growing relaxation drink in the world, Koma Unwind, will join NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Scott Speed this weekend for the BoJangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

    “How cool is it when you can build your brand of relaxation drink by backing a driver with a history of building the number one energy drink in both Formula 1 and NASCAR Sprint Cup? Scott will do a great job for us,” said BeBevCo CEO, Brian Weber.

    Go Green Racing is making their second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start of the season with Speed who will be driving the No. 79 Ford Fusion Saturday evening at Darlington Raceway.

    The car will be running a special paint scheme to honor 7 year old Kyle St. Clair of Scarborough, ME.

    Kyle was born seven weeks early and suffers from lung disease and severe immobility. He has had over 45 surgeries and has spent much of his life in hospitals.

    His family has recently been able to bring Kyle home using hospice care.

    Go Green Racing team owner, Archie St Hilaire recently met Kyle and said “I had the chance to meet Kyle and his family a couple weeks back and he is truly an amazing boy. The strength and love he has is contagious. I hope we can get our car into the race and put on a good show for Kyle.”

    They are also encouraging fans to show their support for Kyle by following his “Team Kyle” Facebook page.

    Fox will air the Bonjangles’ Southern 500 mile race Saturday evening starting at 6:30 pm ET.

  • Matty’s Picks 2012 – Vol. 11 Darlington Raceway – Bojangles’ Southern 500 – May 12, 2012

    Matty’s Picks 2012 – Vol. 11 Darlington Raceway – Bojangles’ Southern 500 – May 12, 2012

    [media-credit name=”darlingtonraceway.com” align=”alignright” width=”199″][/media-credit]Tonight we head to NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway. The track “Too Tough to Tame” is the spot for the 63rd running of Bojangles’ Southern 500 tonight on FOX, (live 7 p.m. ET) and when the engines fire tonight, it will be the last time the 43-cars making the start tonight have four straight fenders. The cars that exit the racetrack this weekend will surely go to the same scrap pile as the cars raced at Bristol and Martinsville. With the aging track surface and 43 drivers itching to claim hardware from The Lady in Black, the fenders will connect tonight when the green flag files.

    Darlington Raceway dates all the way back to 1950 as NASCAR’s first asphalt oval that measured over a 1/2-mile in length. The track’s first NASCAR race was held on Labor Day in 1950, won by Californian Johnny Mantz in a six-cylinder Plymouth, amongst a field of 75 cars! Much like this month’s Indianapolis 500, the first Southern 500 staged a 2-week qualifying scheme to whittle down the field of more than 80 entrants and align the 75 car field into 25 rows of three cars. When the dust settled, it was Mantz, driving a car owned by Bill France Sr., that would claim the $25,000 purse, a reward that was 7-times the average wage in 1950.

    Talladega Recap

    I had the honor of watching last week’s Aaron’s 499 with a very close family friend whom happens to be a Brad Keselowski fan (or maybe he’s just a fan of the Blue Deuce, or Miller Lite, or maybe just beer in general), and I have to give him credit for my win last week in Alabama. I happened to be writing my column last Saturday afternoon when Uncle Scotty walked through my front door, and I admit to asking his advice with my picks last week. “Pick Bad Brad” he said, “Remember when we were at Talladega and he put (Carl) Edwards in the fence for his first win. The kid can race in Alabama.”

    Thanks Uncle Scotty for the pick as Brad Keselowski ran as flawless of a race last week by Talladega standards as ‘flawless’ comes. Keselowski put himself in second coming out of the final turn at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, a position which conventional wisdom says the driver in the second spot on the final lap of a restrictor-plate race has a much better chance of winning than the leader.

    “I had this whole plan if I ever got in that situation where I was leading,” Keselowski said. “I thought about it and thought about it — dreamed about what to do — and sure enough, going into (Turn) 3, it was just me and (Kyle) Busch. And I knew the move I wanted to pull.”

    “. . . I went into Turn 3 high and pulled down off of Kyle and broke the tandem up. That allowed me to drive untouched to the checkered flag. It wasn’t easy to convince myself to do that, but it was the right move. I’m glad it worked.”

    My Dark Horse pick, Joey Logano got caught up in a wreck with 10-laps to go and finished 26th. I guess sometimes you just have to take the hi’s with the low’s.

    Darlington Picks

    Winner Pick

    As much as I hate to jump on the Biffle bandwagon, I believe it is in my best interest to make an educated pick this week and go with the Roush-Fenway racing driver. He’s starting from the pole at a track where passing is extremely difficult to complete and the eventual race-winner has come from the pole position 19-times, you’ve got to go with a driver starting towards the front tonight.

    Once in the last 10 races at Darlington has a driver won the race after starting the race outside the top-12 positions. That one time occurring in last year’s Southern 500 when Regan Smith made a late-race gamble to stay on-track and not take on tires during the race’s 11th and final caution, a call that would win him the race after starting in 23rd.

    Biffle enters the weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ points leader, and took the pole by breaking the tie between Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne for the top spot late in qualifying Friday evening. He was second fastest in both NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ practice sessions yesterday at the track Too Tough To Tame. The last time Biffle started from the pole at Darlington was back in 2008, and the top spot was not too kind to the Washington native, as he blew an engine and finished just 234 of the scheduled 367 laps at The Lady in Black, finishing dead last in 43rd. I’m hoping Lady Luck is on my side tonight and Biffle becomes the 20th winner from the pole at Darlington Raceway.

    Dark Horse Pick

    I’m not sure you can qualify the guy sitting 6th in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points a Dark Horse, but a Dark Horse isn’t always a driver that is way outside the realm of possibility of winning. This week it’s a guy that tends to fly under the radar of most NASCAR writers and fans. Martin Truex Jr. has been leading the charge of Michael Waltrip Racing drivers to boost the Toyota team to the upper echelon of race teams. Last week’s 28th-place finish marked Truex’s worst finish of the season, and he is looking for a quick rebound this week at a track where he has finished no-better than 6th in his six tries to tame The Lady in Black.

    6th in the first practice Friday afternoon, Truex slipped back to 12th on the leader board during Happy Hour, and rebounded to claim a starting spot for his NAPA Auto Parts Toyota in the third-row tonight in South Carolina. He’s had a great season so far, and a win tonight at Darlington would make a statement that Michael Waltrip Racing is a force to be reckoned with in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

    That’s all for now, so until the All-Stars come out in Charlotte…You Stay Classy NASCAR NATION!!

    PS: Happy Mother’s Day to all the NASCAR Moms this weekend!