KANSAS CITY, Mo. – This weekend marks the 128th run of a NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway. This weekend is also Throwback Weekend, a fan favorite, where cars and stars celebrate the sport’s history.
Toyota has won the pole for the last four Cup races at Darlington, tied for their longest streak at any one track. The record for most consecutive poles is five straight all the way back in 1975-77 by Mercury.
Finding a favorite this weekend may be a tough job with the last nine Darlington races being won by nine different drivers. However, a Hendrick Motorsports driver may be a good bet.
William Byron and Kyle Larson picked up victories at Darlington in 2023 and Larson has the highest driver rating of 108.1 at the track. Larson will be driving a throwback paint scheme of the #5 honoring former Cup Champion and Hall of Fame member Terry Labonte.
Darlington has been called “the track too tough to tame’, and there have been epic battles at the track, but William Byron says that some of the battles and aggressiveness may be exaggerated.
“I think over-aggression is kind of over-blown at Darlington, especially with this car, you can be pretty aggressive,” Byron said. “You’ve got to be aggressive at Darlington now to get clean air and stay up towards the front.”
Coming into the weekend, all four Hendrick drivers are in the top five led by William Byron in first place, Kyle Larson is second, Chase Elliott third, Christopher Bell fourth, and Alex Bowman rounds out the top five.
All the racing action gets underway at 2 p.m. CT on Sunday.
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