2025 Goodyear 400 Recap

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Denny Hamlin took the lead on pit road prior to NASCAR Overtime and parlayed the advantage into a clutch victory in yesterday’s Goodyear 400 for his second win in as many weeks.

William Byron set the fastest lap in qualifying on Saturday to lead the field to green with Ryan Preece joining him on the front row when they green flag flew on Sunday afternoon.

It wouldn’t be long before the first caution flew on lap 4 for betting favorite Kyle Larson. The 2023 Southern 500 winner qualified poorly, placing him in the middle of the field. Larson compounded it by clipping the apron and spinning into the inside wall, putting his Terry Labonte throwback car out of contention.

Several cars throughout the field puzzled virtually everyone by pitting for tires after just three-and-a-half laps at speed, and their work would be undone when Carson Hocevar hit the turn 2 wall and spun down to the turn 3 apron with a flat tire on lap 24.

The second caution brought the entire field down pit road with Byron maintaining his advantage. As the first stage wound down, Byron found himself mired in lapped traffic with Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher, and Ryan Blaney surging behind him.

The tension culminated when Byron found himself inadvertently triggering an accident involving Hocevar and Riley Herbst that brought the entire field down pit road for a two-lap dash to the end of the stage.

Byron held on for the stage 1 win while the rest of the pack fought for 2nd through 10th.

Byron’s domination continued through the second stage as he held onto the lead through green-flag pit stops as Blaney and Tyler Reddick ducked onto pit road for fresh rubber.

Just as Reddick and Blaney got back on the lead lap, Brad Keselowski’s right-rear tire came loose and spit debris on the track that (eventually) brought out the race’s fourth yellow flag.

The poor timing of the caution forced Blaney and Reddick to stay out until another caution fell, and despite having older tires than much of their competition, the two were able to hold on and earn stage points at the end of stage 2.

William Byron pulled off his best Max Verstappen impression by leading all of the laps in the first two stages en route to another stage win, doubling up on Playoff points.

For the first 243 laps of this race, there was only one number on the top of the leaderboard: 24.

In a performance reminiscent of Jeff Burton’s Dura Lube 300 victory at New Hampshire in September 2000, Byron put a beating on the field, but there was a caveat: he hadn’t faced traffic the whole day.

Every time that Byron’s throwback Axalta Camaro reached lapped traffic, it slowed him down significantly, though those instances were few and far between as cautions riddled the event through the first two stages.

The final stage suffered a caution early on as Reddick and Josh Berry made contact on the exit of turn 2 that sent Berry’s Jim Clark throwback Ford into the inside wall and out of the race.

What ensued was an 89-lap run where a real Darlington race broke out with the timing of a team’s pit stop and how well the driver took care of the tires took center stage.

Byron’s torrid pace in his 2015 Jeff Gordon throwback Camaro propelled him ahead of his competition until green-flag pit stops kicked off with 62 laps to go when Joey Logano dove into the pits for his final stop.

Over the next 20 laps, different teams filtered in and out of pit road, but as the leaders started to cycle through, it was apparent Byron’s run to a perfect race where he leads all the laps would surely come to an end.

Byron finally received service on lap 244, relinquishing the lead briefly to Denny Hamlin before the No. 11 retreated for fresh rubber along with Blaney.

When Byron emerged and got back up to speed, he didn’t resume the race in the lead or in second. Instead, their strategy snafu stuck them in third behind Christopher Bell and new leader Tyler Reddick.

Reddick stretched the gap to Bell during the pit cycle, sprinting out to a lead of over five seconds. When Hamlin and Blaney rejoined the track, they were roughly 17 seconds behind Reddick’s McDonald’s machine.

Over the next 40 laps, Ryan Blaney went on a warpath through the field, slicing and dicing his way through the field and eating away at the gap to Reddick.

Byron and Bell failed to mount a charge, making them light work for Blaney when he passed both of them, and with that, the only things standing in Blaney’s way to Reddick were the time gap and some lapped traffic.

Most of the lapped cars were agreeable to the 2023 series champion. Wheeling a car that was reminiscent of his father’s lone Xfinity Series victory, Blaney rode the high and low sides depending on the lap in ways resembling his dirt-racing father.

Thanks to some mistakes from Reddick on older rubber, Blaney erased a seven-second gap in 10 laps, getting to Reddick with a little under 10 laps to go.

Blaney played nice, making sure not to ruin Reddick’s race while trying to make a pass, and in turn 1 with four laps to go, Blaney finally completed the pass on Reddick.

Getting a little out of the groove, Reddick’s ill-handling Camry slid into the outside wall on the exit of turn 2.

Kyle Larson ran over 100 laps off the pace in his damaged No. 5 Camaro and just so happened to be in direct eyesight of Reddick’s wall contact. Larson slammed on the brakes on the exit of turn 2, right in front of lapped car Bubba Wallace.

Larson left Wallace no time to react, so the No. 23 sent the No. 5 careening into the inside wall, bringing out the final caution and NASCAR Overtime.

It was at this point that Ryan Blaney’s chances of winning went up in smoke because he came out of the pits in fourth behind Byron, Reddick, and new race leader, Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin’s crew insured his 56th career victory by getting their driver out first on pit lane. Denny used a great launch on the restart to scamper away from the competition to take his second-straight checkered flag.

Byron muscled his way back up to a runner-up result, with Bell, Reddick, and Blaney rounding out the top-5 spots. Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs, and Kyle Busch constituted the top-10.

For full race results, click here.

(Top Photo Credit: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)