Hendrick Motorsports Media Advance: Darlington

Darlington Raceway
Sunday, Sept. 6
1.366-Mile Egg-Shaped Oval
5 p.m. ET
Location: Darlington, South Carolina
TV: Fox
Event: NASCAR Cup Series (Race 27 of 36)
RADIO: SiriusXM

5 KYLE LARSON
Age: 34 (July 31, 1992)
Hometown: Elk Grove, California
Last Race: 31st (Daytona)
Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels
Standings: 7th

No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM Chevrolet  

• Kyle Larson and the No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM team finished both stages at Daytona International Speedway in sixth before being involved in a last-lap incident.
• The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion enters The Chase as the seventh seed, 55 points behind the leader.
• Larson has won at eight of the 10 Chase tracks, with WWT Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway the only outliers.
• Larson has tallied one win, six top-five finishes and eight top-10 finishes at Darlington Raceway, along with an average finish of 7.1 in the crown-jewel Southern 500. Of his 1,070 career laps led at Darlington, 976 have come in the late-summer event.
• The 34-year-old has led a Next Gen-era-best 414 laps at Darlington Raceway.
• The Elk Grove, California, native’s last Cup Series victory came at Kansas Speedway in May 2025, a stretch of 50 races ago. Nine drivers have snapped 50-plus-race winless streaks at Darlington, tied with Phoenix Raceway for the most among non-drafting tracks.  

9 CHASE ELLIOTT
Age: 30 (Nov. 28, 1995)
Hometown: Dawsonville, Georgia
Last Race: 23rd (Daytona)
Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson
Standings: 8th

No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet  

• Chase Elliott enters the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase as the eighth seed this weekend at Darlington Raceway. He is 60 points behind the leader.
• This is his 10th postseason appearance in 11 full-time Cup seasons. Elliott has one championship, earned in 2020.
• Among the 10 tracks in The Chase, Elliott has won on five of them for a combined eight victories.
• In the spring race at Darlington, Elliott qualified third and finished 15th while leading six laps and earning points in the first stage.
• The 30-year-old’s best premier series finish at Darlington is third (spring 2023). He also has a victory at the track in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series (2014).  

24 WILLIAM BYRON
Age: 28 (Nov. 29, 1997)
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Last Race: 22nd (Daytona)
Crew Chief: Rudy Fugle
Standings: 13th

No. 24 Valvoline Restore & Protect Chevrolet  

• The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase kicks off this weekend at Darlington Raceway. It will mark William Byron’s eighth consecutive appearance in the postseason. He goes in ranked 13th, 85 points out of first.
• Byron has won at five of the 10 tracks in The Chase a combined total of seven times, including three at Martinsville Speedway.
• The Charlotte, North Carolina, native’s No. 24 pit crew ranks second overall this season according to Racing Insights.
• In the Next Gen era at Darlington Raceway, Byron has led the fourth-most laps (328).
• In six of the last eight races at Darlington, Byron has finished eighth or better, including his win in May of 2023.  

48 ALEX BOWMAN
Age: 33 (April 25, 1993)
Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
Last Race: 8th (Daytona)
Crew Chief: Blake Harris
Standings: 30th

No. 48 Ally Chevrolet  

• With an eighth-place finish last weekend at Daytona International Speedway, Alex Bowman earned his sixth top-10 finish of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season.
• Bowman has earned four top-10 finishes at Darlington Raceway, with his best being a runner-up finish in the spring of 2020.
• Earlier this season, Justin Allgaier drove the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet at Darlington in relief of Bowman, securing a 15th-place qualifying effort and a top-25 finish.  

17 COREY DAY
Age: 20 (November 28, 2005)
Hometown: Clovis, California
Last Race: 29th (Daytona)
Crew Chief: Adam Wall
Standings: 7th

• Corey Day returns to Darlington Raceway for the opening race of The Chase in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series. It will mark Day’s first postseason appearance.
• Following The Chase points reset, the Clovis, California, native sits seventh in the driver standings, 55 markers behind the leader.
• Among the nine tracks in The Chase, Day has already run at least one NOAPS event on eight of them, including a victory at Talladega Superspeedway and a runner-up finish at Martinsville Speedway. He’s also earned top 10s at Darlington (sixth), WWT Raceway (ninth), Bristol Motor Speedway (eighth) Las Vegas Motor Speedway (fourth and eighth), Charlotte Motor Speedway (fifth), and Phoenix Raceway (ninth).
• In Day’s first start at Darlington this past spring, he qualified 12th and battled to a sixth-place finish.  

Hendrick Motorsports

*Most
**Tied for most

• The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Darlington Raceway this weekend for the kickoff of The Chase. Hendrick Motorsports leads all organizations in wins (16), top fives (58), top 10s (98) and laps led (4,295) at the Track Too Tough to Tame.
• Among the 10 tracks in the Cup Series Chase, Hendrick Motorsports has piled up 135 victories including 20 in the Next Gen era. The organization leads the field in postseason wins (62) and has won at least one race in The Chase/Playoffs in 22 of 23 seasons. That includes multiple victories in each of the last six years.
• The Hendrick Motorsports engine department enters the weekend with 578 victories across all three national NASCAR touring series, including 19 of 24 events in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series this season.
• Hendrick Motorsports remains the Cup Series’ all-time standard bearer in wins (322), poles (259), top-five finishes (1,344), top 10s (2,299), laps led (86,519) and championships (15).  

QUOTABLE
 
Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet, on The Chase: “I think with a short amount of races left until the end, a good result can help us, but a bad result can hurt us even more because you have less time to make up for it. I think it makes you have to be on your game even more. We have the tools in the toolbox to do it; we just need to get a little bit faster, and that makes everything easier. It makes it a little bit easier when you’re in the top five every race and qualifying well. I have confidence in our team that we can get back to winning. I would love to get to victory lane these next 10 races and have a solid Chase.”

Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet, on The Chase: “Ten weeks is a lot of racing, a lot of stage points, a lot of race results, a lot of bonus points for winning. All those things can stack up. It totally depends on how you run it. And I think if you get rolling, I don’t see anything wrong with where you’re seeded in points. Is the mountain a little steeper to climb at that point in time? Sure, but if you’re running well enough, I think any of that’s possible.”

William Byron, driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet, on starting The Chase at Darlington Raceway: “Darlington [Raceway] is a place I always look forward to going to. We typically run really well there. Last fall we were a bit off as a group, but I think we righted the ship some in the spring. We need a good, solid weekend though to start The Chase off with good momentum. We don’t need to do anything fancy; show up, execute, be there at the end.”

Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet, on returning to Darlington Raceway: “Darlington [Raceway] is a tough track; both physically and mentally. It’s a long race. Keep it off the wall, focus on racing the track as it changes and come away with another solid finish.”

Corey Day, driver of the No. 17 Chevrolet, on returning to Darlington Raceway: “Darlington [Raceway] is a fun place to race, but it can definitely be nerve-wracking. It’s a track that can reach up and bite you really quick, so it’s important to stay disciplined and put together a clean finish. It’s easy to make a mistake there and turn a good day into a bad one, so getting this one out of the way early in The Chase is important for us. My No. 17 HENDRICKCARS.COM team is focused on staying consistent over these next nine races, putting ourselves in a good position each week and hopefully heading into Miami ready to contend for a NASCAR O’Reilly Series championship.”