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The Top Five: Breaking down the Southern 500 at Darlington

Five thoughts after Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway…

1. Denny’s Drive

Denny Hamlin sometimes seems like the forgotten Joe Gibbs Racing driver when compared to teammate Kyle Busch, who is constantly in the spotlight.

But Hamlin’s impressive weekend at Darlington might have been the best of his NASCAR career, and it reminded everyone how good he can be.

It looked like Hamlin had choked away a chance to win the Southern 500 when he missed pit road under the green flag late in the race — a mistake that cost him more than 10 seconds (he was 23 seconds behind the leaders when he came out of the pits).

From that point, though, the rally was on. Hamlin charged through the field and retook the lead with three laps to go when Martin Truex Jr. blew a tire.

The win will go down as one of Hamlin’s signature moments, and deservedly so. As good as he is at Darlington — his average finish here was the best among active drivers entering the race — Hamlin still had to execute an incredible comeback after his mistake.

“Denny is obviously a wheel man here,” crew chief Mike Wheeler said. “If you don’t win here with Denny, you probably didn’t have a good enough car.  Seeing him coming from 10 seconds back in one stint, I was really happy with that effort, and I knew we probably had the fastest car.”

2. Asphalt’s fault

Goodyear did a great job with the Darlington tire and deserves praise, but the tire wear that allowed Hamlin to tear his way up through the field — as others fell off the pace — was due to the track surface more than anything.

That’s really what it comes down to: Does the track surface wear and get abrasive after a repave, or does it act like Charlotte?

Darlington, despite being the closest track in proximity to Charlotte, has certainly aged much differently since being repaved. As such, tires make a massive difference — which truly makes it a throwback race to the times there were comers and goers throughout the course of a run.

Hamlin’s charge was the shining example, but don’t forget the end of Stage 1, either.

Truex tracked down Kyle Larson and caught him from several seconds back — something that never happens on 1.5-mile tracks where the tires don’t wear as quickly (if anything, clean air just allows the leader to drive away at those places).

But with tires making a difference, Truex made the pass at the line.

Great stuff. And it’s because of the surface — yet another reminder these tracks should hold off on repaves as long as possible.

3. Hot take?

I don’t share in the belief regular season champion Martin Truex Jr. is a lock for Homestead, even though he obviously has a great chance to get there after going into the playoffs with at least 52 points for each round.

Here’s the thing: Sure, he has a massive advantage over a driver like Jamie McMurray, who has zero playoff points. But the top contenders for the title — Truex’s primary competition like Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson — will enter the playoffs with well over 20 points.

So by the time Round 3 rolls around, Truex might have a 30-something point advantage on Busch and Larson — half a race — but not a full-race lead.

In that case, he’s a virtual guarantee to make Round 3. But after that, anything can happen, like if three different winners left only one spot on points, which could be a battle if Truex has problems.

Truex will be in my final four picks, of course. But let’s just pump the brakes on acting like he’s unstoppable or can’t get caught up in someone else’s wreck at Martinsville.

4. Come back, throwback!

Prior to the green flag, Motor Racing Network announcer Mike Bagley said I really should check out the view from the Earnhardt Towers suites in Turn 3 if I’d never seen that perspective before.

So I stood alongside Bagley as the field rode around behind a pace car and Richard Petty’s old No. 43 car — driven by Petty himself — on the parade laps. The pace car turned off its lights (the signal the race was about to go green), but then a funny thing happened: Petty didn’t get off the track.

I’m not sure if Petty just forgot when he was supposed to come to pit road or just chose to stay out for fun, but the result was NASCAR trying to communicate with The King — and methods included a black flag (how hilarious is that?) followed by pace car driver Brett Bodine emphatically waving Petty by, with his hand outside the window.

Finally, Petty got the hint.

On the team radios, drivers sounded tickled as spotters relayed why the race would be delayed one lap. NASCAR’s original seven-time champion wouldn’t get off the track to start Darlington’s throwback race. Ha!

I absolutely loved it and am still smiling about that as I type this. What else could sum up the throwback weekend so well than a Hall of Famer taking an extra moment in the spotlight after he and his colleagues were celebrated?

The “reunion” part of the throwback concept continues to build. It’s really turned into a Homecoming for old drivers — not just Hall of Famers, but anyone who used to be involved with NASCAR — and that’s a beautiful thing.

Although the throwback concept is planned out for upcoming years, the theme will change each time (the next two years are open to all years of NASCAR history). That should do enough to keep the weekend fresh, and I hope it becomes a permanent fixture that people won’t tire of.

5. Delusional Dale Jr. fans

Crew chief Greg Ives will be likely suspended for one race after the No. 88 team left two lug nuts loose on the right rear wheel during the final pit stop.

NASCAR pulled Earnhardt out of line at the end of pit road after spotting the loose lugs (Earnhardt was initially told there were four, not two) and the driver spent some time peering at the wheel with his crew.

“There was a real bad vibration on the last run, and there was a bunch of them loose on the right rear,” he told me. “They must have just had a screw-up. It’s nothing intentional. You wouldn’t want to leave four loose like that. I mean, they’re not even up on the wheel.”

Either way, two or more lug nuts means at least a one-race suspension (three or more is a three-race suspension), which means Ives won’t be at Richmond next week unless Hendrick Motorsports appeals the upcoming penalty.

Here’s the thing: Earnhardt fans on Twitter responded to this with not disappointment, but much rejoicing because they don’t like Ives. I don’t want to call out individuals and embed their tweets here, but more than a few fans seemed to think this would give Earnhardt a chance to turn things around next week.

Damn! Are you people serious?

Ives isn’t the problem — at least not the sole problem. It’s all of Hendrick Motorsports right now. Look at Darlington: After a glimmer of hope in practice, none of the team’s drivers ran very well all night or finished in the top 10 (Chase Elliott was 11th).

So you really think just because an engineer gets to be crew chief for a week that Earnhardt will suddenly find speed that the rest of the team doesn’t have?

C’mon. There will be no Richmond miracle, with or without Ives. It’s not the crew chief, it’s the cars in general.

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DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR picks: Darlington Southern 500

I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission.

Last race’s results: Played $4 Brake Pad contest. Won $0.

Season results: $76 wagered, $80 won in 19 contests.

This week’s contest: $4 Brake Pad game (single entry).

Darlington picks:

— Kyle Larson ($10,300): As you’ll see with these picks, I’m leaning heavily on 10-lap averages from Darlington practice. Single-lap speed doesn’t tell us much here — since the tires fall off so dramatically — so I want to pick cars that are good on the long run. Even though Larson hits the wall a lot at Darlington, he was fastest in 10-lap average for final practice (out of 26 cars), which I will take as a good sign.

— Denny Hamlin ($9,900): Hamlin was fastest in 10-lap average for the first practice and then dropped to fifth in final practice — but it was notable that his fastest run was from laps 21-30 during that session. That shows his team made positive changes and was getting faster. Hamlin also happens to be excellent at Darlington: His average finish is 6.3, which is the best of any driver and his personal best at any track.

— Jamie McMurray ($8,500): McMurray was eighth-fastest in 10-lap average for final practice and has been a pretty consistent top-10 car all season long. He looks like a solid choice for another good run on Sunday. This was a tough call, as Clint Bowyer ($8,400) also seems like a solid pick at this price range (Bowyer was ninth-fastest in 10-lap average and starts 16th, which is 11 spots further back than McMurray).

— Kurt Busch ($8,200): Aside from winning the Daytona 500, it hasn’t been a very good season for Busch (only two top-five finishes since then). So why would Darlington be any different? Well, Busch had two solid practices — he was third-fastest in 10-lap average for both sessions — before qualifying seventh. That could translate into a good Southern 500 performance.

— Kasey Kahne ($7,500): I’m not sure if I’m talking myself into this one or it’s really true, but the Hendrick Motorsports cars looked pretty decent in practice despite a poor team-wide qualifying effort (the top qualifier was Jimmie Johnson in 18th). So although Kahne starts 23rd, he was the fastest Hendrick car in final practice (ninth in single-lap speed) after being sixth in the first practice. That’s good speed for this price, although Dale Earnhardt Jr. ($7,600) is another viable option in this range if you’re willing to gamble that his slump will suddenly end.

— David Ragan ($5,600): If you’re looking for a bargain, I’m going with Ragan this week. Ragan’s 10-lap average was 16th of 26 cars in final practice, which puts him just behind Joey Logano and ahead of drivers like Daniel Suarez and Austin Dillon. He starts 26th, which is three spots higher than his season average. Compared to other options in this price range, Ragan’s prospects appear pretty decent.

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Daniel Suarez unsure why Subway abruptly ended sponsorship

Daniel Suarez, walking through the Darlington garage with a patch over the spot where a Subway logo used to appear on his firesuit, claimed Saturday he did not know why the sandwich chain suddenly ended its sponsorship.

ESPN.com’s Bob Pockrass reported earlier Saturday that Subway had immediately ended its contract with Joe Gibbs Racing — this despite having been scheduled to sponsor Suarez’s No. 19 car at Talladega Superspeedway next month.

The company told Pockrass in an oddly worded statement the sponsorship “had” to be terminated “due to circumstances beyond our control.”

But Suarez said the decision wasn’t something he could control, either.

“That is nothing in my control and there’s not a lot I can do about it,” Suarez told me and Pockrass after qualifying.

The Cup Series rookie told us he found out about Subway’s decision on Friday. He had been out of the country for the NASCAR off weekend and “didn’t know a lot about” what was going on.

Asked if the decision was related to something he did, Suarez said: “I don’t really know. Like I said, I just found out yesterday — and on a race weekend, I don’t really have time to think about that. I have to think about the race.”

So was Suarez sad or upset about the decision?

“That’s part of racing,” he said. “Sponsorship comes and sponsorship leaves. There’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t really know the reasons, so there’s not a lot I can add to it.”

Subway, which had sponsored Suarez predecessor Carl Edwards, jumped on board with the Mexican driver at the start of the season. The company even featured Suarez in a commercial, which was part of its four-race sponsorship.

“We are excited about the future with Daniel Suarez!” Subway chief advertising officer Chris Carroll said in a February statement.

But by Saturday, Subway had pulled the commercial off YouTube and Joe Gibbs Racing had removed the company from the “Partners” section of its website.

JGR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Kelley Earnhardt Miller: Dale Jr.’s disappointing final season ‘depressing’

If you’re a member of Junior Nation who has found Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s string of bad results in his final season to be deflating, you’re not alone.

Earnhardt’s sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller said this season has been “pretty depressing and disappointing,” and aches to see her brother have better results.

“It seems like just some luck things that happen here and there, and things that are beyond his control,” she said Friday at Darlington Raceway, where the track unveiled the naming of the Earnhardt Tower suites honoring her brother and father. “It’s certainly not how he wanted this last season to be and it’s not a lot to write home about lately.”

Earnhardt Jr. has just four top-10 finishes this year after having four straight seasons of at least 20 top-10s before his injury-shortened 2016 campaign. He currently ranks 22nd in points, which is on pace to be his worst year since 2009.

Earnhardt Miller said she’s frustrated for her brother because”I know he wants so much more than that” and has seen how he responds when he’s contending for wins.

“When he’s really running well, he has that connection with all the people around him and his fans and really holds his head high when he’s performing well,” she said. “So I’d love to see that for him in this last year.”

That said, Earnhardt Miller has no regrets about seeing Earnhardt Jr. come back to race one more season. She’s glad he has gotten to run this final season on his own terms and not have to cut his career short because of an injury, she said.

In terms of support, Earnhardt Miller said she just shoots Earnhardt Jr. a text here and there to keep his head up. She’d do more than that but said Earnhardt Jr. “doesn’t like anything mushy, so I try not to get too mushy.”

“He says I’m always mushy and I’m always the one that cries at everything,” said Earnhardt Miller, who acknowledged she’ll cry a lot at Homestead in November. “So I try to just keep it on the surface and not get too deep, but let him know that we’re thinking about him. I think that’s the most important thing for him.”

Even now, after all the fame he’s experienced throughout his career, Earnhardt Jr. still doesn’t seem to grasp how big of a star he is at times.

“We’ve sat in a lot of meetings this year where I have to remind Dale he’s a pretty special athlete,” Earnhardt Miller said. “He’s so humble and down to earth. He’s like, ‘Why would anybody want to do that (tribute)?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, this is the last year of your career on the track and you are a really special human being. You rank up there with a lot of top-notch athletes.'”

Earnhardt Miller just wants him to have some happy days on the track to go with it.

 

 

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Jeremy Clements on Cup drivers dominating Xfinity: ‘Who wants to watch that?’

One of the most-cited arguments in the debate over Cup Series drivers running Xfinity races is lower-level drivers learn something by competing against NASCAR’s best.

What does Road America winner Jeremy Clements think about that theory? Ehhhhhhhh….

“The problem is they’re in top-dollar equipment,” Clements said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “(People say) ‘It’s good for you to race them, it makes you better.’ I’m like, ‘Well half the time they’re so much faster, it doesn’t make me better when they fly by me. I don’t know what I’m learning from that.'”

Clements said if Cup drivers want to race in the Xfinity Series, they should have to drive for a non-Cup affiliated team. That would mean no more Cup guys in Joe Gibbs Racing equipment, JR Motorsports equipment or Team Penske equipment, for example, which would make it “way more fair,” Clements said.

He’s not the first one to come up with that theory, but it makes sense given Kyle Busch’s only winless Xfinity season came when he was driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2012 (Busch went 0-for-22 that year).

But in general, Clements said, there’s just not much entertainment value in watching Cup guys dominate in the lower series.

“Like Iowa when Ryan Preece won? We need more stories like that and more opportunities for guys like myself instead of top-name drivers in Cup getting the big rides and winning every weekend,” he said. “That’s not exciting to me.

“I don’t blame the Cup guys; I would do it, too. I’m just saying give us a chance. I mean who wants to watch that, honestly?”

 

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Social Spotlight with Brandon Brown of Chicagoland Speedway

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Each week,  I ask a member of the racing community to shed some light on their social media usage. Up next: Brandon Brown, digital marketing manager for Chicagoland Speedway.

The Chicagoland Speedway account on Twitter (@ChicagolndSpdwy) does a good job interacting with followers all year long, not just on a race weekend. What’s your philosophy as far as engaging on the feed throughout the season?

Well that’s kind of what it’s all about. I’ve been a NASCAR fan since I was 8 years old, so I appreciate talking to NASCAR fans like a NASCAR fan. That’s kind of my social media strategy.

One of the things I try to do is staying in every conversation we possibly can. For example: On Tuesday, Hendrick announced Chase Elliott was taking over the No. 9 car and William Byron was moving to the 24. I had a video queued up of when Chase Elliott won here in the 9 car in the Xfinity Series in 2014, and fans just started jumping on that. They started sending us pictures, saying, “Man, I was here in victory lane,” or “I saw his burnout.” It’s just great to interact that way. There’s no real science to social media, and that’s the way I look at it.

What’s the balance? Obviously you want to sell tickets to your race, but you also want to keep people informed and interact with them.

It’s a great balance because we want to let people know as Chicagoland Speedway what we have to offer: What the ticket prices are, how many camping spots we have, all the new amenities. But people on social media, you’ll find they become really disengaged when you just hit them over the head with “Buy tickets now, buy tickets now, we want you to buy tickets now.” And social media isn’t really the place for that, in my opinion.

So we hit on all of our marketing messages. We let people know that yes, we have tickets and we want people to come here. Our main goal is to put 55,000 people in those seats, sell out all of our camping spots and give people a great time. But on social media, you have to do different things. You have to stay conversational, and that’s not always hitting people over the head with ticketing messages.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? Is it instinct, or is there data that tells you?

There’s some great tools on Facebook, especially, where you can see what messaging point you threw out there and you lost 10 or 15 followers. And you can use that data to gear your posts toward being more conversational.

But a lot of the time on Twitter, I just do what I think I would want to see. Being a NASCAR fan myself from way back, I put out content I would like to engage with. I would call it sending out shareable content that gives you an emotional investment. If you’re emotionally invested in the content, you’re more likely to relate to it and share it out. And that helps us and that gets the job done.

You touched on Facebook, so let’s talk about that for a second. What’s the difference between content you put on Facebook and what you put on Twitter?

Well I treat Twitter as basically a place where you can have endless conversations with people about anything. Facebook is much more structured than Twitter when it comes to that. If you put out 20 Facebook posts a day, the algorithm will dilute it and all of your messaging will get filtered out unless it’s something that is really, really shareable.

But on Twitter, if I’m out there bantering with Texas Motor Speedway, Talladega, The Orange Cone and retweeting you all at the same time, it’s less likely to do that. So Facebook, we really try to stick more toward our sales messages and put your really, really great content on Facebook. On Twitter, you can be more conversational with it.

What is the strategy from a team perspective at Chicagoland? Do you have free reign to say what you want? Are there brainstorming sessions?

From Jan. 1 to race weekend, we have a great outline as to what we want to accomplish and when we want to accomplish it. But as you know, social media is 24/7/365 and very fluid, so we follow an outline, but you can’t always follow it to the T because things are changing all the time.

Are there any times when you worry about going too far with a tweet? Have you ever been reprimanded for something you tweeted?

I haven’t been reprimanded. I live-tweet all the races, and it’s saying our company message but also as a fan. When Ryan Blaney was battling Kevin Harvick (for Blaney’s first win at Pocono), you’re going nuts on Twitter. So there have been a couple things I’ve been asked to take down, but nothing really, really bad.

But when we were traveling to Michigan, we camped there and my co-worker Michael (Blaszczyk, consumer marketing manager) and I live-tweeted our trip from the Chicagoland account. So we told fans to ask us anything. One fan asked us why we don’t give out free hot passes. I said hot passes aren’t as easy to get as you might think.

But then Dale Jr. quote-tweeted us and tweeted to this guy — his name is Jeff — “Don’t lie to Jeff.”


And of course, what Dale Jr. says on Twitter is the law and it blew up. I had that heart attack moment where, “Oh my God, I’m going to have to delete this tweet, we’re going to have to put out a press release,” all this stuff.

But then Jon Wood (from Wood Brothers Racing) jumped in and was like, “Dale’s just lying” or something like that, and a couple other team guys said he was just BSing. And that quelled it. But you have those heart attack moments where you’re trying to put out something that’s edgy and fun and cool, and you just hope it doesn’t get you in trouble.

You mentioned you grew up being a fan. What was your journey to get to this point and become the digital marketing manager for Chicagoland Speedway?

Since 1993, I’ve either watched, listened to or saw in person probably 99 percent of the NASCAR races. I almost quit Little League Baseball because I couldn’t watch the 2000 Pepsi 400. It’s been a dream of mine to work in NASCAR in some capacity. I went to journalism school at West Virginia University and got a degree in broadcasting, and I wanted to be Ken Squier. Ken Squier is my broadcasting hero.

You have to start somewhere doing something, so I was a sports writer in West Virginia while I was in broadcasting school. And then luckily I got on as a stringer at the Associated Press covering women’s basketball. (AP racing writer) Jenna Fryer went to West Virginia, and she came to our school to speak. And of course, I was asking her (questions), bugging her, went to lunch with her and then I paid my way to the Coke 600 in 2008 just to shadow her for a weekend.

After I got out of college, I was a sports writer at my local paper and then worked at a sports marketing company doing copy editing and publishing and then we started social media marketing. When I was ready to move on, the Chicagoland Speedway digital marketing coordinator job opened up, and I jumped at the chance. I went and applied, and within two weeks, I was hired. It was probably one of the greatest days of my life.

How does that fan perspective inform your decisions on a day-to-day basis?

I think it goes back to what I would want to see and hear and feel and visualize as a fan. Whenever we’re pushing out marketing messages, our videos, even our creative pieces, I want every little thing to make me feel like I did when I was a kid. Like we pushed out Kyle Busch’s 18 Days to Go on our social channels (Wednesday), and Toyota Racing interacted with it and it was just really fun stuff, so it spread out to a lot of people. I want to make all of our fans have an emotional investment like I did when I was a kid.

For people whose careers are just starting off and want to make it in the NASCAR industry like you did, what advice would you give to those people?

If you’re in college, do every little thing you can outside of your schoolwork. How I got on with the Associated Press is I ran stats at the (high school) state swimming meet for two 14-hour days. Basically, they’d swim for a little bit, I’d put the stats on a jump drive and send them down to Charleston, West Virginia. They’d publish them and we’d go back and forth. Basically, I was just sitting there for the majority of the day watching high school swimming.

I didn’t have to do that. They asked at the school paper: “Hey, who wants to do this?” I said, “Sure.” The next week, the AP called me and said, “Hey, do you want to cover women’s basketball?” Then men’s basketball, then football. Then Jenna Fryer came along. So the best advice is to do every little thing you can to advance your career.

What haven’t I asked you that you want fans to know about?

In NASCAR terms, we’re a new track — 2001. A lot of tracks have the history to pull from for content. Dale Earnhardt never raced here. We can’t showcase Dale Earnhardt on any of our social channels, and we know that fans absolutely love seeing old pictures of Senior and videos. We have a smaller pool of history to pull from, so we have to be really creative in stuff we do. So that’s a challenge, but it’s a really, really fun challenge.

It sounds like you really like your job.

I really, really like my job. I kind of stole this from your Quiet Track pictures, but I do sunrises every single race day. The first Cup sunrise (on the job), I sat there and thought of one of Ken Squier’s calls to tweet out, and I started tearing up. Because it was that powerful.

Living the dream, right?

Absolutely living the dream. It’s awesome.

You can follow Chicagoland Speedway on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat (Snap name: CLSNATION). Brown’s personal Twitter account is @BrandonBrownWV.

This interview was brought to you by Dover International Speedway. The cutoff race for the first playoff round takes place at Dover on Oct. 1. Here’s a link to buy tickets (and make sure to come say hi at the tweetup).