DARLINGTON 2/PORTLAND
Saturday, August 30 – NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 12 p.m. ET (FS1)
Saturday, August 30 – NASCAR Xfinity Series, 7:30 p.m. ET (CW)
Sunday, August 31 – NASCAR Cup Series, 6 p.m. ET (USA)
After a year where it hosted the regular season finale, Darlington Raceway is back in its familiar position as the opening race of the NASCAR playoffs. Four Ford drivers, including the two who have combined to win the last three championships, are in the NASCAR Cup Series field while four more, including defending champion Ty Majeski, are competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. While the postseason openers for both take place in South Carolina, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will run a standalone event in its next-to-last regular season event at Portland International Raceway.
FORD BIDDING FOR FOURTH STRAIGHT TITLE IN CUP AND TRUCKS
Ford will be looking to extend its streak of consecutive championships in the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to four. Defending champion Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney have combined to win the last three titles, marking the first time Ford and Team Penske captured three straight series championships. Logano will be going for his fourth Cup title and third in the last four years. On the Truck Series side, ThorSport Racing is going for a third consecutive crown after Ben Rhodes (2023) and Ty Majeski (2024) drove their Ford F-150s to each of the last two titles. Zane Smith started this current championship streak when he won the 2022 title with Front Row Motorsports.
POS – NAME (Points above or below the cut line)
4th – Ryan Blaney (+20)
10th – Austin Cindric (+2)
12th – Joey Logano (+1)
13th – Josh Berry (-1)
*The top eight drivers advance after Bristol
PLAYOFF APPEARANCES SINCE 2014
NASCAR began the current 16-driver playoff elimination format in 2014 and this season there’s a mix of postseason experience in Ford’s four drivers competing for the championship. Joey Logano leads the way with this being his 11th appearance while Penske teammate Ryan Blaney has made the postseason for the ninth time in his career. Austin Cindric has now qualified three times in his four seasons at the Cup level, and Josh Berry has made it for the first time in his debut campaign with the Wood Brothers.
DRIVER – PLAYOFF APPEARANCES IN CURRENT FORMAT
Joey Logano – 11
Ryan Blaney – 9
Austin Cindric – 3
Josh Berry – 1
FORD’S ALL-TIME PLAYOFF RECORD
Ford is coming off a 2024 season that saw it win half of the 10 playoff races, including the season finale at Phoenix Raceway. Overall, the Blue Oval has 57 all-time NASCAR Cup Series playoff victories since the postseason era started in 2004. Kurt Busch won the inaugural race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that year and rode that momentum to the series championship. Since then, a total of 13 drivers have captured at least one playoff event with Joey Logano, who won three a year ago, leading the way with 15. Ryan Blaney has five postseason wins while Austin Cindric and Josh Berry are each looking for their first.
BLANEY ENTERING PLAYOFFS ON A ROLL
Ryan Blaney’s victory last weekend at Daytona International Speedway continued a hot streak that has seen him finish no worse than eighth in the last six races. During that time, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champ has an average finish of 4.8 and three top-five runs. Not included in that, is the pole he won at Watkins Glen and the first-place starting spot he earned after Daytona qualifying was canceled due to weather conditions. Blaney enters the playoffs as the fourth seed and is coming off a fifth-place performance earlier this year at Darlington Raceway, which marked his first top-five in 17 starts at the Lady in Black.
JOSH BERRY: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS? “I feel good about it, especially when you look at that first round. Darlington has been a really good track for me. We ran well there this year and last year. Gateway was good for us last year and we blew a tire, and obviously the Penske cars have been really strong there. I think we’re lined up to have success. We just have to go out and execute. That’s the biggest thing. We need to execute a little bit better on Saturdays. We need to start a little closer, qualify a little better and it’s gonna be important to get stage points, but I feel as good as I ever have going into this deal. I think everybody is gonna look at us and say, ‘Oh, they’re gonna be out in the first round,’ and I don’t think so.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC: “The focus for the first two rounds of the playoffs has to be how well do you execute? How well do you keep yourself in the game? I feel like that’s what the playoffs are all about for the Round of 16 and the Round of 12, and if having that execution generates good finishes, then good things will come, I think, for our group.”
JOEY LOGANO: “I think it’s fine starting the playoffs at Darlington. Darlington is a good track for us typically, and it’s a tough one. Tough races should be in the playoffs, so it’s definitely a tough race. There’s a lot of pressure. Everyone handles it differently. For us, we like it. It’s a great opportunity to go out there and hoist the big trophy again. That’s our goal. The facts are we’re starting a little bit behind the eight ball, but we did last year, too. That’s also a fact and we won the championship, so it can be done. We’ll have to fight from behind a little bit in each round, but we can do it.”
RYAN BLANEY: “I feel like all of them kind of play to our strengths. The spring race at Darlington this year was great for us. We had it won and had a late yellow, and then I look at Gateway has always been a great track for us as a group at Team Penske. We’ve won two out of the three races there and I’ve run really well in the other one, so I think just as a whole that place is good to us, and Bristol, I think we’ve been getting better at that place. I feel like last year was a little bit of a struggle for us, but I loved how our car was there in the spring, so I can’t really pick out a track in particular that I feel the strongest about in that first round.”
THE FIRST TIME FORD WON THE SOUTHERN 500
The first time Ford won a NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway was when Curtis Turner took the Southern 500 on Sept. 3, 1956. Unlike today, where the field is set at a maximum of 40 cars, there were 70 vehicles in the race that saw Turner lead 224 of the 400 laps. He beat Speedy Thompson to the finish line by more than two laps, and did it in record fashion with an average race speed of 95.167 mph.
KESELOWSKI SWEEPS 2018 SOUTHERN 500 WEEKEND
Brad Keselowski rode a fast pit stop by his crew to register a win in the 2018 Southern 500. Keselowski found himself in a three-way battle with Kyle Larson and teammate Joey Logano in the latter stages. When the caution came out for a spin by Jeffrey Earnhardt with 23 laps to go, Keselowski and his crew were able to win the race off pit road and assume the lead for what proved to be the final restart of the race. Keselowski was able to get out front with 19 laps to go and eventually win by 1.224 seconds. Logano finished second to make it a 1-2 Ford/Team Penske finish and cap a weekend that also saw him take the NASCAR Xfinity Series race a day earlier.
WOOD BROTHERS LEAD THE WAY
It comes as no surprise that the Wood Brothers are Ford’s all-time winningest team at Darlington Raceway, posting eight career victories. All but one of those triumphs came in a Mercury, which the team ran in the 1960’s and 70’s. David Pearson, who holds the record with 10 career Darlington Cup victories, led the way with six while Cale Yarborough captured the team’s first in 1968. The last Darlington win for Wood Brothers Racing came in 1981 when Neil Bonnett took the Southern 500 in 1981 behind the wheel of a Ford.
PLAYOFF SCENARIO
There are only two more races remaining in the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season and three Ford drivers currently hold down playoff positions. Sam Mayer, who comes into Saturday’s race at Portland International Speedway on a streak of four straight top five finishes, is locked in following his victory in Iowa. His Haas Factory Team teammate, Sheldon Creed, is 84 points above the cut line while AM Racing’s Harrison Burton holds a 36-point advantage over his cousin, Jeb, for the final spot. Ryan Sieg, who led the most laps a week ago in Daytona, is 56 points below the cut off and likely in need of a win to make the 12-driver field.
PORTLAND EXPERIENCE
This marks the fourth straight year the NASCAR Xfinity Series will compete on the road course of Portland International Speedway and three of Ford’s four playoff contenders have run in the previous three. Ryan Sieg, Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer have been in each event with Creed (2023) and Mayer (2024) each winning the pole once. Harrison Burton has not competed on the course, having spent the last three years driving in the NASCAR Cup Series. Cole Custer has Ford’s lone victory on the course after taking the checkered flag in 2023.
FORD’S PLAYOFF DRIVERS
As noted above, this weekend will be the first race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs with four Ford F-150 drivers – two each from Front Row Motorsports and ThorSport Racing – competing in the 10-driver field. Here’s a look at where each of them stands going into the three-race round.
POS – NAME (Points above or below the cut line)
2nd – Layne Riggs (+23)
3rd – Chandler Smith (+16)
6th – Ty Majeski (+6)
10th – Jake Garcia (-3)
*The top eight drivers advance after New Hampshire
MAJESKI BEGINS BID FOR REPEAT
Defending series champion Ty Majeski is looking to become only the second driver to win back-to-back titles as he opens the postseason as the No. 6 seed. Majeski, who is still looking for his first win of the season, has playoff wins at two of the tracks that make up this year’s playoff schedule (Bristol in 2022 and Phoenix in 2024). The only driver to win consecutive series championships is Matt Crafton, who did it in 2013 and 2014.
FORD NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS
AT DARLINGTON
1956 – Curtis Turner
1960 – Joe Weatherly (1)
1961 – Fred Lorenzen and Nelson Stacy
1962 – Nelson Stacy and Larry Frank
1963 – Fireball Roberts (2)
1964 – Fred Lorenzen
1965 – Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett
1968 – David Pearson (1)
1969 – Lee Roy Yarbrough (2)
1970 – David Pearson (1)
1981 – Neil Bonnett (2)
1982 – Dale Earnhardt (1)
1985 – Bill Elliott (Sweep)
1988 – Bill Elliott (2)
1992 – Bill Elliott (1)
1993 – Mark Martin (2)
1994 – Bill Elliott (2)
1997 – Dale Jarrett (1)
1998 – Dale Jarrett (1)
1999 – Jeff Burton (Sweep)
2001 – Dale Jarrett (1)
2005 – Greg Biffle
2006 – Greg Biffle
2018 – Brad Keselowski
2020 – Kevin Harvick (1) and (3)
2022 – Joey Logano (1)
2024 – Brad Keselowski (1) and Chase Briscoe (2)
FORD NASCAR XFINITY SERIES WINNERS
AT PORTLAND
2023 – Cole Custer
FORD NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES WINNERS AT DARLINGTON
2020 – Ben Rhodes
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