FORD QUALIFYING RESULTS:
1st – Joey Logano
7th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Aric Almirola
13th – Chase Briscoe
16th – Michael McDowell
18th – Chris Buescher
19th – Austin Cindric
23rd – Brad Keselowski
25th – Harrison Burton
27th – Todd Gilliland
28th – Cole Custer
31st – Cody Ware
32nd – JJ Yeley
35th – Kevin Harvick
36th – BJ McLeod

KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Rheem Ford Mustang – NOTE: Harvick cut a left-rear tire during practice and did not make a qualifying attempt while repairs were made. “It’s really just kind of a guess. How long the tire was going flat. Trying to decide did the tire come apart or was it going low. You’re kind of guessing as to what was what to analyze your handling characteristics of the car. So it’s definitely a lot of guessing at this point. Fixing the diffuser, not having a backup car, no spare parts or anything like that. You have to round all that stuff up from somebody else and put that stuff on your car and repair those couple of pieces that were damaged. They got all that done. The big key is just trying to figure out how to analyze your car and not knowing what the circumstances were with the tire.”

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – PIT ROAD INTERVIEW – YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHAT YOU HAD BEFORE QUALIFYING. WAS THAT A SURPRISE LAP? “At this point in the season everything is a surprise, you’ve just got to adapt quickly and today the guys did a great job giving me something I could wheel and it felt good and able to lay down a really good one and two there. My three and four was decent. I thought I probably left a little there, but, overall, it’s so cool to have this car up front. This is my first quarter midget. This is where it all started for me, so to go to where it all started and start on the front row here at Darlington is really, really special. All the way from Silver City in Meridan, Connecticut. This is a pretty neat thing for me.”

WHAT DOES THIS DO FOR TOMORROW? “I hope there are a lot of pit stops here. It helps with the pit stall selection, obviously. There’s nice little advantage up there at stall one, but it’s a long race. This is definitely a long one. You have to have some long run speed in your car as well, so hopefully we’ll have that.”

POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE MORE ON THE EDGE HERE WITH THE NEW TIRE OR NOT? “I think it’s the same stuff that we’ve been fighting when you go to low grip racetracks like Fontana and it has some bumps, some tire wear. You have those things and we don’t all have everything quite figured out yet. We’ve had 15 minutes of practice at a time and we can’t change anything that’s substantial to fix it, so we’re learning at a very slow rate in comparison to what we’ve done in the past when we’ve had three practices and changed springs and bars and changed all this stuff, where we can’t do that anymore. It takes longer to figure things out and I think that on top of the car really doesn’t do a good job being sideways like the old car wanted to be sideways. This one doesn’t really like it, so when you start to get in trouble it’s gone. The challenges when you come to a low-grip racetrack, where the car is yawed out more, makes it ever more challenging for the drivers to get a hold of that.”

HOW IS THE NEXT GEN CAR COMING ALONG SINCE THE CLASH? “It’s coming. We’re still developing and learning things as we go, whether it’s as a sport or as an individual team. We’re all kind of figuring out what makes it go fast and then I think all things considered it’s gone really, really well. You look at the situation our sport was in as far as getting parts and the lack of time with the car, it was a recipe for disaster. It really could have gone the other way fairly easily, but I think everyone in the industry has done a good job of getting cars to us, racing and doing everything we need to do and putting on good races. The races have been pretty entertaining.”

IS THIS A CASE TODAY OF THIS CAR STILL BEING UP AND DOWN, WEEK TO WEEK, AND TRACK TO TRACK? “It’s kind of hard to say. Darlington is such a unique racetrack. There’s only one Darlington. We really haven’t gone to many bigger racetracks yet. We went to Fontana and that’s a unique one. Vegas is probably similar to Kansas in some ways, but it’s kind of hard to say for sure on how that all works. I’d say we’ve been racing better on the short tracks. Take Dover out of the question, but the rest of them, yeah, so it’s hard for me to give a clear progress report. I can give something maybe in general, but it’s kind of tough to say, ‘Hey, are we better at short tracks than mile-and-a-halves right now?’ It seems pretty equal.”

ON HIS THROWBACK SCHEME. “I think my car looks cool this week, at least it is to me. I don’t know if it’s cool with anyone else, but, for me, the quarter midget scheme is like the coolest thing because I think it says so much to kids about chasing your dream. My dream when I drove this paint scheme as a kid was to be a Cup driver and win a championship and to have that paint scheme is so special to me this weekend and having it on the front row it’s a full circle thing. Having Silver City Quarter Midget Club on the back and all the fun stories that go along with the scheme to me is really neat, so having that start on the front row on Mother’s Day, that’s a pretty neat story.”

IS THIS THE BEST CAR YOU’VE HAD THIS SEASON OR IS IT TOO SOON TO TELL? “We fired off pretty good off the truck and the speed continued throughout the run it seemed like, so probably one of the best ones we’ve had so far this year.”

Toyota Racing – Denny Hamlin
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes

DARLINGTON, S.C. (May 7, 2022) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin was made available to media prior to the Darlington Raceway race this Saturday:

DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing

What are your thoughts on tomorrow’s race with your previous success at Darlington?

“I’m looking forward to it. Myself, (Kyle) Larson, (Kevin) Harvick, we were able to do tests here a couple months ago, a tire test. But yeah, I mean, you know, we weren’t all that great during that test, but we’ve learned so much since then. And it seems like our team in general is getting better as the season’s going on. And now we’re starting to get some good data points where we’re going back to tracks that are similar, we can create setups that are a lot more competitive. So I’m really confident going into this weekend that if we don’t have any trouble that we will be in contention.”

What is your anticipation for how this tire will run tomorrow night?

“You know, it had comprable fall off I thought to what we’ve had in the past. Myself and (Kevin) Harvick and (Kyle) Larson all thought that it was a very good tire. Good from the very short part of the run, you felt like you had a lot of grip and then at the end, you were all over the place like you should be so certainly I think that probably won’t be part of our story this weekend, which is good.”

What is it about Joe Gibbs that makes him such a great boss?

“His work ethic is the best example I can give you. He just, he works harder than anybody I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t matter if you’re 30 or 40, he works harder. So I mean, he just kind of leads by example. You know, a lot has been made about his reputation of just motivating people. And a lot of it really doesn’t come through words. It just comes through example of work ethic like he had.”

Are you optimistic at all about the appeal for the wheel coming off or are you just happy to have your crew here in Darlington?

“Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure. The basis of it, the general feeling and what I’ve heard is that you know, this is not our gun. It’s not our nut. These are all parts that are given to us and there’s absolutely nothing that we believe our changers could have done differently. You know, the nut falls out. I don’t know how we control that. But you never know. You know, I think that they’re making their case. See how it all turns out, but certainly yeah it’s important to have you guys here.”

How do you feel about the way this season has gone so far for you?

“It’s been frustrating. I mean, honestly, it’s just been, you know, week after week of being the coyote it gets the anvil dropped on its head. I mean, I don’t even know how else to explain it. I mean, even after the wheel falls off, I just told my team at Dover you know, I think we got back to about 10th or 12th or something in the middle of one run. I said, if we don’t just, you know, screw up from here, we’re going to feel like this is just incredible. I mean, my car’s been really fast. Las Vegas, I had the best car and was leading until I missed a shift and like, it’s been a lot of things that have certainly kept us from getting our result from looking the way it should. How do you believe? I mean, one thing that I noticed, you know, my team doesn’t need to convince me how strong we are or how good we can be, but I’m 20 whatever in points, and this is before last week, and Chase (Elliott) is leading and we had a better average running position on the race than Chase. And we’re 23 points difference in points. So our performance when we’re not at Martinsville running 30th, has been really good all year. We’ve had things that just have broken. I’ve had more mechanical failures this year than I’ve ever had. Again, you know, some of these parts that we don’t control and NASCAR is continuing to change them and develop them to make them better so we don’t have a lot of problems, but we’ve just been kind of the poster child of the ones that break things. And then last week, you know, what can I do? I just do, the 51 spun there and I just didn’t, didn’t get around, run into him. It’s been unfortunate, but I can tell you it’s a lot different than running top-10 every week and trying to figure out how you’re going to get enough speed to win. That’s what I’d really like to be worried about.”

How do you work yourself out of this situation in points?

“We’ve given up on the regular season points. And even getting in the top-10. I’m not even sure. So for us, it’s actually simplified our strategy, we go for Playoff points only. So when you see the field start splitting because they want stage points or whatever, you know where the 11 stands from this point on. We’re trying to get five points at the end of the race and two for the Playoffs during stages. So it actually simplifies our strategy for the regular season.”

How has practice changed for you in your approach to the sessions?

“Yeah, I mean, there’s certainly a little bit of a change. When you think that hey, you got 20 minutes and we plan our race weekend and our practices down to the minute usually, but we haven’t seen a session and not have a yellow. So our plans constantly get changed. Before we practice on Friday, I would look at things and really digest what I could do better, and then go to work on Saturday to try to improve it for happy hour. You got 20 minutes and so you better have all the information that you need to get better right away because you’re about to go qualify. So you have to have everything at your fingertips a lot quicker. And you just really got to plan that 20 minutes to be the best that you possibly can to get all the information you can. It’s just not a lot of time obviously. But I don’t dislike the schedule. I think that certainly there’s a lot of benefits in the way that we’re doing it, but just kind of need to be more efficient.”

Are you concerned about dropping out of the top-30 in points considering the issues you’ve had that are out of your control?

“If I drop out of the top-30, this would be my last season for sure.”

Would you have been better off with the wheel last week to backup on pit road versus having the wheel come off?

“We talked about that. If I would have backed up, more than likely I would have gone a lap down in the pits. So it’s actually better for the wheel to fall off and then you try to flip it around to not go a lap down. So you know from where the pace car is you think about where they dropped us off with it. He probably was halfway down the backstretch. I’d say when we were pulling off pit road, again, I was in pit stall nine I think so it fell off the box too. If I said right away, you have to backup, the chances of me backing up — first of all I was up front, I get run over by cars all over the place. So that’s the number one thing. I was the first car off pit road so there was going to be 35 guys who were going to plow into the back of me if I tried to reverse it. I was actually better off to just keep going and take the damage so that’s what I did.”

Are you all resigned to the fact that this is the harshness of this penalty this season?

“It’s just so different. I mean, you know, I think that we change a lot of rules at times to and we need to, to kind of keep up with the times. Again, this isn’t our equipment. It’s a very tough thing four races is very, very steep. There’s not a person. I wish Tony Stewart, that we could just go back in time and say I’m sorry for making such a big deal about loose wheels and I’m not trying to under sell it because you had a few at COTA that kind of bounced out in some places. The penalty, it’s just it’s dramatic for the team before you even levy all this other stuff. So we can’t race with a loose wheel. I mean, you only have five nuts, if you could kind of limp around and you had some warning. Now these things just fall off because you got one nut and again it’s with a gun that’s not as powerful. It’s just very very difficult when I try to talk to the pit crew guys, it’s so hard to know how much torque you have on them and every gun you get is different. So it’s like, just very difficult box that we’re put in. But certainly from a selfish perspective and even as a team owner, I mean, listen my pit crews are provided by JGR. Did I like their department caused my crew chief to be gone for four weeks? No. We had pit crew issues over there to begin with and now we’ve lost two of those guys. So it’s just not it’s not been a good year for luck and for myself personally.”

#

About Toyota

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Through the Start Your Impossible campaign, Toyota highlights the way it partners with community, civic, academic and governmental organizations to address our society’s most pressing mobility challenges. We believe that when people are free to move, anything is possible. For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
DARLINGTON RACEWAY
GOODYEAR 400
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MAY 7, 2022

KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway. Press Conference Transcript:

GIVE US YOUR THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, TOMORROW’S RACE – THE THROWBACK WEEKEND AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY.

“It’s a tough track. Thankfully, I was able to be a part of the Goodyear tire test here a couple of months ago. So, it was good to get laps and get familiar with the Next Gen car here. It didn’t seem way different. Darlington (Raceway) is a fun track. Like I said, it’s really tough. I actually crashed a couple of times at the test and was able to keep going.

It’s a difficult race. It’s easy to make mistakes and if you can just limit those mistakes, you can hopefully have a good day.”

WHAT DO YOU, DENNY HAMLIN AND KEVIN HARVICK KNOW FROM THAT TEST THAT NOBODY ELSE KNOWS UNTIL PRACTICE TODAY?

“At the test, there was only three of us. All of my issues came off of turn two. I spun off of two on like lap five and backed it into the fence. And then on my last run of the day, I got loose over there as well and hit the wall. I think with them running the Truck race yesterday, the patch in turn two should hopefully be less slick. But that’s kind of where my issues came from. The transition into the new patch and then out of it is pretty rough, but that’s not really any different than what it was last year.

Other than that, it’s pretty a straight-forward kind of Darlington. I just recommend people taking it easy for the first few laps (laughs). It caught me off guard when I spun that first time.”

WE’RE ALMOST TO THE HALFWAY MARK OF THE REGULAR SEASON. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? YOUR WINNING PERCENTAGE ISN’T QUITE LIKE IT WAS LAST YEAR; LAPS LED, STAGE WINS AND ALL OF THAT. BUT YOU’VE ALREADY BEEN TO VICTORY LANE AND YOUR CAR IS COMPETITIVE.

“I guess actually my win percentage would probably be the same to this point last year. But yeah, we were definitely running stronger and contending more for wins at this point in the year last year. I still feel like we need to get better, but I do feel like we’re not far from being really good. Just have to continue to work hard and keep trying to be consistent. I had a little bit of inconsistency I feel like on my part a couple months ago. Now, we seem to be rolling OK. I think my last three finishes were a fourth, a fourth and a sixth. So, that’s been good. We would like to get more stage points and things like that. We’re way closer to the points lead than we were at this point last year, too. I guess you can spin it a couple of different ways to find some positives about it.

It’s been a good year so far. Just would like to get on a roll like we had last season.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK, YOU LED A LOT OF LAPS AT KANSAS SPEEDWAY LAST YEAR. COULD HAVE WON THE FIRST RACE; DID WIN THE SECOND RACE. WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE WITH THE NEXT GEN CAR?

“I don’t know. I’m trying to remember what race – I think at Auto Club, we were able to run really close to the wall. I think (Tyler) Reddick did a test at Kansas and I remember him tweeting something about how he just ran right next to the wall the whole time. So, I would imagine it’s pretty easy to run next to the wall. I think it may be less of a multi-groove track.

We’ll see. I love Kansas. It’s definitely one of my favorite tracks. It does have multiple lanes, typically. If that top lane gets going really fast, it does make it hard to pass. I hope we can run the bottom, middle and things like that. I know Reddick will be against the fence anyways (laughs).”

WHAT ABOUT YOUR ARLINGTON EXPERIENCE? THAT HAD TO BE OVERWHELMING IN CERTAIN WAYS.

“Yeah, that was such a cool experience. That’s a really neat tradition that Charlotte Motor Speedway has started now with the Coca-Cola 600 winner. Brad (Keselowski) was able to go last year and now I got to go. I thought that was my first time there, but apparently I went when I was really young. I have family that lives nearby Washington D.C. I think I was like six or seven years old and they had taken me there before. I didn’t really remember that.

It was a cool experience, for sure. It really puts things into perspective. We all have a lot of respect for the military, but once you get to go and do other things like I’ve been able to do now that I’m in the Cup Series with the military and really doing it around the 600. Charlotte does a great job with that. It makes you respect the men and women of the military and everybody that’s given us the ultimate sacrifice and continue to serve. It was a great experience and I hope I can visit it again someday. It would be great to win the 600 again and get to go next year; take my wife and maybe take my dad and get to experience it some more.”

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 79 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Darlington Advance | Saturday, May 7, 2022

Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Socios Ford Mustang, visited the Darlington infield media center this morning to talk about this weekend’s race.

CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Socios Ford Mustang – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT DARLINGTON AND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND? “Dry weather, for one. I’m excited to see that in the forecast for the weekend now, and always enjoy coming to Darlington. Bristol is still my favorite, but this one is a really close second, so always enjoy coming down here. I love the character of this place, the challenge of it. It’s been a fun track for me through the years and I think we have a lot of questions with the new car coming in like we have about every racetrack this year, but I think there’s a lot we think will carry over from Dover last week, hopefully for us, and I think we’re ready to get into it. I know it’s gonna be a decent amount cooler than we probably initially anticipated. I don’t know if I’m gonna complain inside the car, but it’s always a fun track once it gets really slick out there as well. I’m ready to get after it and see what we’ve got here in practice and qualifying this morning and be ready for the race.”

IS IT A DIFFERENT MINDSET OF RACING MAINTAINING TRACK POSITION AS OPPOSED TO TRYING TO GAIN IT? “I would say not really for us. You’re basically trying to get all you can every lap and whether that’s trying to get by cars or maintain it. I guess one thing that was a little different is early on in the race when we knew there were some tire wear issues we were able to roll back just a little bit to try and make sure we weren’t one of those cars, one of those teams with those issues, so there’s a little bit of that. You can kind of control some of how hard you need to push, but ultimately I think that we still have to get after it really aggressively. You still have to work really hard to find that track position, whether it’s holding onto it or getting it. It’s been something that we’ve used those words a lot this year already and then there have been places where it’s surprised us and it hasn’t’ been that big of a deal. It’s something that we have focused on a decent amount. We’ve talked a lot and put a decent amount of focus on qualifying for the year, and I think that’s something that may have taken a little bit for granted in the past, that working on a race car we do have to work on our qualifying efforts very aggressively right now. That’s harder to do than ever when it’s 20 minutes of practice and you don’t really have time to do any kind of mock run, but with this car also we’re not doing all the shenanigans of taping up and changing a whole lot to try and set up for a qualifying run. We don’t have a big balance offset, so it is a little bit easier for us to get an idea where our car is gonna go for a qualifying run wherever we ended practice or what we’re aiming for typically is very close. If you’re not P1, it wasn’t close enough, but we are putting a lot of focus into qualifying this year, especially in the last couple months.”

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST TIME HERE AND HOW LONG IT TOOK TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING? “Yeah, I do. It was 2011. I ran two Xfinity races that year subbing in when Trevor Bayne got sick. I ran Richmond and Darlingotn. I remember coming down here and at that time in the Xfinity Series the rookies had an extra set of tires and so I remember unloading off the truck and everybody was just sitting still. Nobody was going out on track and Chris Andrews was crew chiefing and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got an extra set of tires. Let’s go out there and get used to it.’ I think the story I got is that Carl was up on top of our hauler watching and may have suggested to Chris that we should plug in the backup because this is a tough place. We ended up making it through practice really well. I was actually a pretty quick study to the place. It’s just a ton of fun. There was a lot of learning with the car. That was my second race in a car with a splitter. I think that’s what took me probably the most time to adapt to over the valances we were running in ARCA, but loved it immediately and ended up having a pretty good day going and got a left-front cut down on a restart and kind of just made it to where our day wasn’t near as good as it could have been. I do remember coming in and seeing the place for the first time and the intimidation of it, but as soon as practice got started it was pretty much a fish in water. It was a place very similar in all the character to a lot of the tracks that we’d been running on the ARCA side. It just was a whole lot faster.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THIS FIRST HALF OF THE SEASON HAS GONE AND THE IMPROVEMENTS YOU SEE GOING ON AT RFK? “Time is flying, that’s for sure. It’s been a really good start. It’s not been all that we had hoped and I guess that’s always easy to say, but we’ve had a pretty constant progression, which is solid, which is good and we are seeing gains in different areas along the way. I think we just hope that we’d be able to take a few larger steps early, but we’re getting there and we are finding our place. We’re continuing to work on it. I think that we’ve been able to start being a lot more consistent in our days. Dover was obviously a good qualifying effort for us and it was a really good race start to finish. It wasn’t everything we wanted. We still need that last step to be able to compete for wins, but there’s been a lot of good things coming down the line. It’s been really neat to see Brad and a lot of his insights from whether it’s his truck team, whether it’s his manufacturing business, or some of the people that he has put into place and some of his ideas, coupling that with Jack’s experience. They remind me a lot of each other. It’s been neat to see it progress and keep building up and as we keep learning this new car, what we’re able to accomplish, so at the end of the day we have more work to do and if we can make half the progress in the next 12 weeks as we did in the first, then we’ll be in a really good spot. We just have to keep after it.”

AFTER LAS VEGAS, WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU EXPECT WITH THIS NEXT GEN CAR AT KANSAS? “I have not gotten there yet. I think Kansas has been a lot of fun being able to move around there in the past and I think that is definitely a hope that we’ll be able to move around and try and see what we can do for clean air out front, what we can do for multiple grooves. I think that we’re getting ready to find a pretty defined durability test here this weekend on what that right side can take. I think we’re pretty confident in the body’s ability to handle it. I think it’s suspension we’re starting to think about. I know there have been some updates made to the car since early in the year and it seems like it has been better and it probably will be. We just have to make sure that we don’t get too aggressive with that, and when we get to Kansas if that’s something that allows you to go up there next to the fence and be a little bit more aggressive with it, then you might be able to instill a little more confidence than you would have when you had a metal body and was sitting there rubbing on a tire as soon as you barely scrubbed it. That’s my initial impression on it. I don’t have a whole in-depth conversation, but I am hopeful that it will widen out and we’ll have multiple grooves to work with and be able to find some speed there and find a way to put on a good race, too.”

RODNEY CHILDERS MADE SOME COMMENTS ON THE RADIO ABOUT HOW THE FORDS OVERALL HAVE SOME WORK TO DO AND MENTIONED SOME SPECIFIC THINGS. HOW CLOSELY DO THE FORD TEAMS WORK TOGETHER? “I would say Brad would have a better answer to this because I am not in those trenches. From where I’m at, it definitely seems like I hear about ongoing communication and efforts to be together, but to what depth that is I’m not sure. I say I hear a lot about it, but I don’t see a whole lot directly from where I’m at. That’s not saying that it’s not happening in different ways, but for me and what I see it’s very much more RFK and a little bit of Front Row. I think that we have recognized that we have a little bit of catching up to do and probably got a little bit of a false sense of security after Daytona, but I think that we’re still after it. We’re still trying to figure out what it is that we need. I think for a little while we were all off on our own islands for how we unloaded every week that we may not have known as a collective manufacturer where we stood. I think some of the drivers are very similar, but I think that we were just all doing our own thing and we didn’t really know how to compare to the others at that point, and I think we’ve been able to hone in on some better baselines and some better unloads and I think it’s pointing out that we have a little bit of work to do yet.”

Ty Dillon, No. 42 Petty GMS Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Dillon at Darlington Raceway:

• Dillon has competed in six NASCAR Cup Series events at Darlington Raceway, recording four top-20 finishes. Running a limited schedule in 2021, the 30-year-old did not participate in any Cup Series event at the South Carolina track last season. Dillon has also driven in seven NASCAR Xfinity Series races, posting three top-10 results and never finishing outside of the top-15.
• Throwing Back to 1959: For the traditional Throwback Weekend, Dillon will honor the patriarch of the Petty family, Lee, by sporting the No. 42 design that captured the victory in the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959.

Lee, who began his driving career at the age of 35, battled John Beauchamp in the closing 30 laps. Coming side-by-side at the white flag as the only two cars on the lead lap, both caught Joe Weatherly on backstretch, creating a three-wide spectacle. After a close finish, Lee and Beauchamp together drove to Victory Lane before NASCAR named Beauchamp the winner. Lee immediately protested the result and after three days of review and photo evidence, the No. 42 was declared the official victor.

• Trackside Live: On Sunday, May 8 from 1:15 to 1:30 p.m. ET, Dillon will make an appearance at the Trackside Live Stage in the Darlington Raceway Fan Zone, for a live recording of the Stacking Pennies podcast. Dillon and host Corey LaJoie will chat about Throwback Weekend, running Lee Petty’s No. 42, and more. Stop by to have a first listen at the episode. - About Petty GMS: Petty GMS competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, operating the No. 42 Chevrolet for Dillon and the No. 43 Chevrolet for Erik Jones. The newly formed team brought together two storied organizations in December 2021. Over the last decade, owner Maury Gallagher built a victorious team, capturing two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championships, one ARCA Menards Series title, and two ARCA Menards Series East championships, as well as 65 wins and 235 top-five finishes across six series. Richard Petty, a member of the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2010, serves as Chairman of Petty GMS. Petty, known as “The King,” accumulated 200 wins and was the first of three drivers to win seven championships in the Cup Series.
• From the Drivers Seat: What does it mean to drive a Lee Petty throwback scheme this weekend at Darlington?

“It’s such an honor to not only drive the No. 42 each week but run Lee’s inaugural Daytona 500 victory scheme this weekend at Darlington. I don’t know if people realize the No. 42 was originally made famous by Lee, Richard’s father. He was the originator of the Petty name and very successful from day one in NASCAR as we know it. I hope to bring honor to his name and number with a modern twist and bring it back to Victory Lane.”

Erik Jones, No. 43 FOCUSfactor Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Jones at Darlington Raceway:

• Jones has competed in eight NASCAR Cup Series races at Darlington Raceway, earning one win (Southern 500 in 2019), four top-five and six top-10 results. The 25-year-old also has two starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, never finishing outside of the top-six.
• Honoring The King: As the Petty GMS organization throws back to the 1959 Daytona 500 for Throwback Weekend at Darlington, Jones will honor Richard Petty by sporting an iconic Petty blue scheme with FOCUSfactor on the hood and quarter panels.

Despite being one of 20 qualifiers who entered in a convertible, Richard qualified in the sixth position. Driving the No. 43 for the first time in competition, the 21-year-old experienced an engine failure just eight laps into the race, cutting his Daytona 500 debut short. During the 1959 season, Richard went on to earn NASCAR Rookie of the Year honors after garnering six top-five and nine top-10 finishes.

• READwithErik Live: On Sunday, May 8 from 12:30 to 12:45 p.m. ET, Jones will visit the Kids Zone Stage in the Darlington Raceway Fan Zone to host a live Reading Corner event. The Michigan native has been an avid reader throughout his life and shares this passion with his fans. Through his #READwithErik videos, Jones hopes to inspire children and encourage them to pursue an interest in reading. - About FOCUSfactor: FOCUSfactor is sold at America’s leading retailers such as Costco, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, The Vitamin Shoppe and Amazon.com. FOCUSfactor, America’s leading brain health supplement, is a nutritional supplement that includes a proprietary blend of brain supporting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutrients. In December 2012, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued US Patent 8,329,227 covering FOCUSfactor’s proprietary formulation “for enhanced mental function”. The issuance of the patent marked one of the few times a patent has been issued for a nationally branded nutritional supplement. FOCUSfactor is clinically tested with results demonstrating improvements in focus, concentration and memory in healthy adults.
• From the Drivers Seat: Driving the Next Gen car has been a transition for all drivers, but it seems like the No. 43 team has benefitted from that. What has stuck out to you as things you have to do differently in this car?

“I think it’s just pushing the boundaries of what guys are fighting. I look back to Auto Club and Vegas earlier this season where our FOCUSfactor Chevrolet was really strong. A lot of that was entry and some guys weren’t comfortable on entry speed, but I felt like we excelled there. You always look to take advantage of that, but it also comes down to driving style. What we’ve done a good job of is adapting to driving something a little snugger over the last couple of years, which has helped with the Next Gen car. Guys want to drive a loose car, but you can’t hang this car out and rip it like the old car. You have to be a little more patient and easier on it. The corrections are so fast and so hard to make with the steering and tires combined. It’s easy to get yourself in a bad situation. The approach is different at the faster tracks.”

ABOUT PETTY GMS:

Petty GMS competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, operating the No. 42 Chevrolet for Ty Dillon and the No. 43 Chevrolet for Erik Jones. The newly formed team brought together two storied organizations in December 2021. Over the last decade, owner Maury Gallagher built a victorious team, capturing two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championships, one ARCA Menards Series title, and two ARCA Menards Series East championships, as well as 65 wins and 235 top-five finishes across six series. Richard Petty, a member of the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2010, serves as Chairman of Petty GMS. Petty, known as “The King,” accumulated 200 wins and was the first of three drivers to win seven championships in the Cup Series. For more information, visit www.pettygms.com.

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