Stewart-Haas Racing: Cook Out Southern 500 from Darlington

Race Winner:  Erik Jones of Petty GMS (Chevrolet)

Stage 1 Winner:  William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)

Stage 2 Winner:  Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)

 

SHR Race Finish:            

●  Aric Almirola (Started 19th, Finished 11th / Running, completed 367 of 367 laps)

●  Cole Custer (Started 30th, Finished 14th / Running, completed 367 of 367 laps)

●  Chase Briscoe (Started 22nd, Finished 27th / Running, completed 363 of 367 laps)  

●  Kevin Harvick (Started 18th, Finished 33rd / Fire, completed 274 of 367 laps)

 

SHR Points:

●  Chase Briscoe (15th with 2,019 points, 10 points below top-12 cutoff)

●  Kevin Harvick (16th with 2,016 points, 13 points below top-12 cutoff)

●  Aric Almirola (19th with 602 points)

●  Cole Custer (24th with 475 points)

 

Playoff Standings (with two races to go before Round of 12):

1.     Joey Logano (2,065 points) +38 points

2.     William Byron (2,059 points) +32 points

3.     Denny Hamlin (2,057 points) +30 points

4.     Christopher Bell (2,055 points) +28 points

5.     Tyler Reddick (2,050 points) +23 points

6.     Ryan Blaney (2,047 points) +20 points

7.     Kyle Larson (2,044 points) +17 points

8.     Ross Chastain (2,042 points) +15 points

9.     Chase Elliott (2,041 points) +14 points

10.   Alex Bowman (2,037 points) +10 points

11.   Kyle Busch (2,035 points) +8 points

12.   Daniel Suárez (2,029 points) +2 points

13.   Austin Cindric (2,027 points) -2 points

14.   Austin Dillon (2,025 points) -4 points

15.  Chase Briscoe (2,019 points) -10 points

16.  Kevin Harvick (2,016 points) -13 points

 

SHR Notes:        

●  Almirola earned his 13th top-15 of the season and his eighth top-15 in 15 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington.

●  This was Almirola’s second straight top-15 at Darlington. He also finished 11th in the series’ prior visit to the track in May.

●  Custer earned his eighth top-15 of the season and his third top-15 in seven career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington.

●  This was Harvick’s first finish outside of the top-10 at Darlington in 10 years. The last time he finished outside of the top-10 was in the 2012 Southern 500 (16th).

 

Race Notes:       

●  Erik Jones won the Cook Out Southern 500 to score his third career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his second at Darlington. His margin over second-place Denny Hamlin was .252 of a second.

●  Jones was the 17th different winner in the 27 NASCAR Cup Series races run this season.

●  There were nine caution periods for a total of 58 laps.

●  Only 18 of the 36 drivers in the Cook Out Southern 500 finished on the lead lap.

 

Sound Bites:

 

“We just really struggled with the balance. At the beginning of the race, we were starting off extremely tight and then we got to where we were extremely loose, and then we had nowhere to go with the 9 car (Chase Elliott) when he wrecked. That kind of killed our day, but we were able to get lucky because a lot of those guys had issues, too. It’s not the way we wanted to start the round, by any means, but we’re going to have to improve and we’re probably going to have to win. I don’t even know what the points look like, but we shouldn’t have been in that situation where we were struggling, anyway. We just couldn’t find the balance. It’s unfortunate, but we know what we’ve got to do now and that’s what we’ll try to go do.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang

 

“The car started burning and as it burned the flames started coming through the dash. I ran a couple laps and then as the flames 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. 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.” – Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Light Retro Ford Mustang

 

Next Up:

The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Hollywood Casino 400 on Sunday, Sept. 11 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. The second race in the 10-race NASCAR Playoffs starts at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by USA and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

 

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