DARLINGTON, S.C. – What was once a clear picture of the playoffs going into Darlington was shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch and erased on Sunday night at Darlington Raceway.
In the season’s first NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race, Petty/GMS driver Erik Jones held off Denny Hamlin over a 20-lap run to win the CookOut Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway for Jones’ second victory at the legendary track, his first for Petty/GMS Racing and the first at Darlington for the Petty organization since 1967.
Jones also chalked up his third win overall and the 200th overall win for the 43 car. The win also marked the 43 car’s first trip back to Victory Lane since Aric Almirola won at Daytona in 2014. Last but not least, Jones became the first non-playoff driver to win the first postseason event since NASCAR introduced the elimination format in 2014.
“We’ve been so close all year, and I didn’t think today was going to be the day,” exclaimed Jones in Victory Lane. “It was going to be a tough one to win, I knew, but no better fitting place. I love this track. I love this race. On that trophy twice, man. I was pumped to be on it once, but to have it on there twice — pretty cool.”
Jones won his first Southern 500 in 2019 driving for Joe Gibbs Racing but was released after the 2020 season in favor of Christopher Bell. In what could be deemed as karma or a strange twist of fate, Jones held off his former teammate, Denny Hamlin, who ran second and out of time to catch Jones, finishing in the runner-up spot, 0.252 seconds behind the race winner.
“Well, I mean, I never lost any belief in myself through any of it,” Jones said. “I knew I could still do it, and I just knew we needed to grow the program to do it, and we have. We’ve brought on a lot of great people in the last year. Dave Elenz (crew chief) called a great race today. His first Cup win — that’s pretty cool for him.”
Elenz joined Petty/GMS this year as crew chief after working at JR Motorsports and the Xfinity programs there.
Jones continued, “I’m excited, man. We’ve been talking about this day for a long time, and it is redemption in a lot of ways. Very fitting that it’s here at this race again. I felt like this was the race that saved my job the first time around, and coming back here with this win, I guess it puts you back on the map.”
Jones got his chance at the front of the field when Kyle Busch, who had led a race-high 155 laps, suffered a blown engine on the front stretch as he prepared for the final restart. Busch had inherited the top spot when his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Martin Truex Jr., suffered a similar failure with less than thirty laps to go in the 367 lap event.
Tyler Reddick ran third, followed by pole winner Joey Logano, who vaulted to the top of the playoff standings, six points clear of second-place William Byron, who finished eighth on Sunday.
While the Sunday night race at “The Lady In Black” yielded a number of accomplishments and accolades for the winner, it also yielded a major shakeup and erased the previous week’s gains for a handful of playoff drivers looking to lock themselves into the next round, making the playoff picture a lot more fuzzier than before.
Former champion Chase Elliott spun sideways in Turn 2 on Lap 113, two laps short of the end of Stage 1, cracked the back of his No. 9 Chevrolet and slid into the path of Chase Briscoe, who couldn’t avoid the collision. Elliott took his car to pit road where his team tried valiantly to repair the damage to the right-rear toe link and upper and lower control arms which were broken. The 10-minute time allotment under NASCAR’s damaged vehicle policy ran out, and Elliott retired from the race in last place.
The 15-point advantage Elliott carried into the playoffs was erased and Elliott scored the minimum one point for his efforts at Darlington, going from first to ninth in the playoff standings, 14 points ahead of 16th-place finisher Austin Cindric in 13th.
“I just hit the wall in (Turns) 1 and 2 and broke something in the right-rear,” said Elliott. When asked what he has to do for next week, Elliott replied that he is going to have to run “a lot better than we did today.”
As for Kevin Harvick, his chances at punching his ticket into the next round went up in flames, literally, on Lap 275, as the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford lost speed running ninth leaving the 2014 Series Champion telling his crew on the radio, “My rocker panel’s on fire.”
Flames erupted on both sides of the car as Harvick brought his Ford onto the apron of the racetrack and scrambled from the car. When asked about the night and the incident, Harvick erupted much like the flames shooting out from under his racecar.
“I’m sure it’s just crappy parts on the race car like we’ve seen so many times. They (NASCAR) haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff. We just let it keep going and keep going. The car started burning and as it burned the flames started coming through the dash. I ran a couple laps and then as the flame got bigger it started burning stuff up and I think right there you see all the brake fluid that was probably coming out the brakes and part of the brake line, but the fire was coming through the dash. What a disaster for no reason.”
He added, “We didn’t touch the wall. We didn’t touch a car and here we are in the pits with a burned up car and we can’t finish the race during the playoffs because of “crappy ass parts.”
Harvick exited the race in 33rd place and dropped to the bottom rung of the playoff standings, 13 points below the current cut line.
Last year’s champion Kyle Larson and his team recovered from what could have been a huge blow to Hendrick Motorsports in the playoffs. The California native managed an amazing comeback after what appeared to be engine problems early in the race.
Larson brought his car to pit road on Lap 79, complaining of sounds like the engine was about to go. Larson went three laps down as his crew worked under the hood of the No. 5. Within a few laps, the sound was gone and Larson was back to full power as he would get back on the lead lap and finish 12th on the night in the 500 mile event.
Ford driver Joey Logano led the first 37 laps from the pole and 64 overall, but an issue with the left-front tire cost him time and position. He never regained track position. Rookie Austin Cindric, last week’s winner Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe and Kevin Harvick are now the four drivers below the current cut line with two races left in the Round of 16.
The Cup Playoffs will resume this week at Kansas Speedway before arriving in Bristol, TN for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on September 17th and the cutoff race to drop the field from 16 contenders to 12.
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Chris Graham
