NASCAR Cup Drivers Weigh In On Potential Must-See Darlington Race

DARLINGTON, S.C. — NASCAR Cup Series drivers are anticipating a new racing package at Darlington Raceway will make for a race with many unknowns.

The Cup cars will run with 80 more horsepower than they previously have with the Gen 7 car at Darlington. Along with 750 horsepower, instead of 670 HP, drivers will have a smaller spoiler and a simple diffuser that will drastically decrease rear downforce.

As winner of the last two Southern 500 races, Chase Briscoe has won the most Darlington wins in the Gen 7 era. He was candid with his assessment for the weekend.

“It’s gonna be absolutely out of control. It’s gonna be, I think, the hardest track we run on all year long. The added power is one thing but the biggest thing is taking the diffuser and everything off. I mean, I’ve ran the sim for probably a week-and-a-half and you are crashing every corner on every lap, even on new tires. It is out of control," Briscoe said on Jeff Gluck's "Gluckcast" podcast.

Although sim time is valuable, nothing beats real-world data. Briscoe believes the winner will be whoever can achieve the balance of unloading well and making the most of just 25 minutes of practice and two qualifying laps before the race.

"It’ll be very interesting in practice, qualifying. Like, literally the whole weekend I think is gonna be must see. One team is gonna hit it right and they are gonna murder the field I feel like, just because of how drastically different this thing drives," Briscoe said.

With a penchant for high tire wear and five Darlington wins, including last year in the spring race, Denny Hamlin is setting his sights on the weekend.

“One thing I will tell you is that heads up on Darlington, you want to see some cars out of control here? These cars, with essentially little to no underbody because we’re now going to the short track aerodynamic package for Darlington, these cars are out of control. I’m predicting four seconds of fall off, it might be more. It’s just the cars with the underbody taken off and that simple diffuser, just even on new tires, just absolutely out of control. So, it’s going to be a wild card race," Hamlin said.

As the most recent winner with the low downforce/high HP package, at Phoenix Raceway, Ryan Blaney is excited.

“Darlington is going to be a great race. It's gonna be tons of fall off, big comers and goers, the way it should be," Blaney said.

With high tire wear expected, Goodyear issued a bulletin on social media, stating:

With just 12 sets of tires for the entire race weekend and stage lengths of 90 laps, 95 laps and 108 laps, plus high tire wear, teams will have to be smart.

“The biggest thing I’m thinking about at Darlington is to go 50 laps on a set of tires was almost impossible with the Next Gen car in the last two or three seasons, and now that we have more horsepower and less aero, I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to go 35 laps. So, keeping up with the tires is going to be a big challenge," said Brad Keselowski, who won the spring race in 2024. 

While Keselowski, Briscoe, Hamlin, William Byron, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and Erik Jones have all won in the Gen 7 era at Darlington, Christopher Bell hasn't. However, he dominated at Phoenix with low downforce and high HP.

"I just had a ton of fun at Phoenix. I thought Phoenix was night and day different than what we've had the last, well, since we've started going there. It's been really hard to pass and this race was the first race, I felt like, you could actually make your way through the field if you had a better car," Bell said. "If you had a better car, you were able to pass and I think a lot of that a lot of that was due to the horsepower and the added horsepower made the track feel slick. The tires degraded. We were sliding around, and the best cars made the way to the front. I think Darlington is going to be more of the same."

But who will have the best cars? According to Daniel Suarez, a rocky trip back from Las Vegas and a sim that may be more of a guess than a validation could make that unpredictable.

"We did only for one hour, we did Darlington and it was very difficult to drive. I spent more time backward than going in the right direction. So, you never know what it’s going to be, right? We have never done it, so even the simulation, the simulators, we don’t really know how accurate they’re going to be until we’re there on Saturday. We are trying to prepare ourselves as good as possible with what we have and looking forward to the challenge," Suarez said.

Practice and qualifying for the Goodyear 400 is Saturday kicks off at 2:30 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. The race is set for Sunday at 3 p.m. on Fox Sports 1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.