DARLINGTON 2
Sunday, September 6 — NASCAR Cup Series, 5 p.m. ET (USA)
Ford Racing goes into the start of this season’s Chase with momentum on its side. Winners in five of the last seven races and three in a row, the Blue Oval heads to Darlington Raceway with five drivers competing for the championship after Ryan Preece’s dramatic overtime win in Daytona. Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric and Chris Buescher join him in the 16-driver field.
FORD DRIVERS IN THE CHASE
Ford has won three of the last four NASCAR Cup Series championships and this year five drivers will have the opportunity to extend that streak. Ryan Blaney, who won the title in 2023, is the second seed after posting three wins in the regular season while three-time champ Joey Logano is ninth after a late-season run saw him post victories at North Wilkesboro and Richmond. Austin Cindric rounds out the Team Penske trio while RFK Racing drivers Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece complete the lineup.
POS – NAME
2nd – Ryan Blaney (-25)
9th – Joey Logano (-65)
10th – Chris Buescher (-70)
15th – Austin Cindric (-95)
16th – Ryan Preece (-100)
PLAYOFF APPEARANCES SINCE 2014
NASCAR began the 16-driver playoff format in 2014 and while that number hasn’t changed, the format for this season has as the 10-race Chase returns. This will mark Joey Logano’s 12th appearance as a member of the field while Penske teammate Ryan Blaney is in it for the 10th time in his career. Austin Cindric has now qualified four times in his five seasons at the Cup level, and for Chris Buescher it marks his third career postseason berth and second as a member of RFK Racing. Ryan Preece, who is in his seventh fulltime season and third with RFK, is making his first Chase appearance.
DRIVER – PLAYOFF APPEARANCES IN 16-DRIVER FORMAT
Joey Logano – 12
Ryan Blaney – 10
Austin Cindric – 4
Chris Buescher – 3
Ryan Preece – 1
FORD’S ALL-TIME PLAYOFF RECORD
Ford has 59 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 leading the way with 15. Ryan Blaney has seven postseason wins, including two last season, while Chris Buescher has two. Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece are still looking for their first.
BERRY RUNS TOP 10 STREAK TO FIVE
Josh Berry was able to avoid all of the chaos on the final lap to finish ninth in Daytona and run his streak of consecutive top five finishes to five. That result came on the heels of a season-best third place run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The Wood Brothers Racing driver led 73 laps in Loudon, a career-high for one race, after qualifying second. Berry’s streak started in Indianapolis, where he finished seventh, and continued at Iowa (fourth) and Richmond (eighth).
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 on the restart 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.
FORD’S 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)
The Ford Mustang® coupe is America’s best-selling sports car and has a global racing presence. With Mustang-based race cars competing in international sports car competition (GT3 and GT4), NASCAR, NHRA, Formula Drift, in Supercars, at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and in its own bespoke regional one-make series – Mustang Cup and Mustang Challenge – the platform has an unprecedented global reach. This weekend, 32 Mustang race cars are scheduled to compete across all active disciplines. Learn more about Mustang at www.FordRacing.com.
