Welcome to the NASCAR playoffs.
After a grueling 26-race regular season, 16 of the sport’s brightest stars found victory or consistent success that allowed them to fight for a title over the final 10 races of the year.
Tonight, that starts with a daunting dance with The Lady in Black, Darlington Raceway.
Built in 1950, Darlington’s unique turns serve as a test of bravery for most, allowing The Lady in Black to leave her mark on racers that push a little too hard.
The Southern 500 represents the final Crown Jewel race on the NASCAR calendar. While the 16 playoff drivers look to punch their ticket to the next round, the remaining 20 stars of the NASCAR Cup Series look to etch their names in the history books as a winner of NASCAR’s oldest major.
With 500 miles and 367 laps ahead this evening, the Track Too Tough To Tame aims to claim more victims and reward her latest champion.
Last Week at Daytona…
While 22 drivers remained winless coming into last week’s regular season finale at Daytona, a crash on lap 27 removed many possible dark horse candidates like Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Zane Smith, Noah Gragson, Carson Hocevar, and Riley Herbst.
In the end, it came down to an eight-lap sprint to the finish between a number of winless drivers. Justin Haley fended challenges from RFK teammates Ryan Preece and Chris Buescher in the closing laps before taking the white flag as the leader.
Unfortunately for Haley, a run from the top lane — headed by Cole Custer — sought to steal his thunder down the backstretch. Haley threw a block on the Haas Factory Team entry from top to bottom, allowing Ryan Blaney to surge ahead on the high side that Custer vacated.
Blaney poked ahead coming out of turn 4, allowing him to block the challenges of Haley, Custer, and Daniel Suárez to claim his second victory of the season. For a more in-depth look at the Coke Zero Sugar 400, take a look at our esteemed writer Audrey Jeffress’ recap of the race.
This Week in NASCAR
To kick off the news week, NASCAR told the court that they were intending to sell one of the four charters previously held by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. NASCAR elected to make this move even though they have four additional charters that they could issue at any time, according to Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass.
The teams’ legal team responded with the following statement:
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Frankie Muniz suffered a fall from a ladder at his Arizona residence this week, leading to a fracture in his wrist that’ll keep him out of the driver’s seat for the next six-to-eight weeks. Here is Muniz’s statement on his injury:
The latest preliminary injunction hearing took place on Thursday, August 28 as 23XI and FRM hit the courtroom yet again to fight for their right to maintain charter status through the remainder of 2025.
Though most of the previous hearings contained contentious undertones, the lid blew off in this hearing as the teams revealed documents that showed NASCAR’s vision of American stock car oval racing’s future.
This document included multiple strategies to enhance NASCAR’s monopoly over the sport, including continued sanctions on IndyCar from using their facilities, purchasing Speedway Motorsports outright to take control of 30 tracks across the United States, and abolishing the idea of team ownership in the sport.
NASCAR’s response was tepid at best, pointing out that Michael Jordan and 23XI team members bashed other team owners for not siding with them in their fight for a fairer and more equitable charter agreement.
For a broader sense of what was said in court on Thursday from someone that attended, here’s Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass’ take from the courtroom.
The very next day, NASCAR made some adjustments to their proposed sale of one of the charters before the end of the 2025 season.
I wrote a speculative piece back in March that chronicled what I think NASCAR would look like if the teams were to come out on top in this lawsuit, so I wrote another speculative piece discussing how NASCAR would look if they were to win this court case based on this document released by 23XI and FRM.
Back to the racing, 23XI development driver Corey Heim continued making his mark on the Craftsman Truck Series, surviving a late-race restart to claim the victory at Darlington, his eighth victory of 2025.
As for the Xfinity Series, they made their way out to Portland International Raceway, and though it wasn’t as definitive as some of his other wins, Connor Zilisch equaled Heim’s totals for the season by claiming his eighth win of the season after a hectic final restart.
The NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session resulted in Denny Hamlin taking the pole position with teammate Chase Briscoe joining him on the front row. For a full lineup, click here.
Jey and I normally convene and craft our power rankings together, but this week included so many storylines that it shrunk my timeline to write my entries. Thankfully, Jey picked up the slack and wrote about how we’d rank the 16 playoff drivers and how strong we feel they are at this point in the season.
The Race
The 76th running of the Cook Out Southern 500 begins airing on USA Network at 6pm Eastern time with Leigh Diffey, 2007 Southern 500-winning crew chief Steve Letarte, and 1999 Southern 500 winner Jeff Burton in the booth to call this 367-lap, 500-mile affair.
Tonight’s race is sure to be a struggle with tire management always coming into play at Darlington, especially over the course of 367 laps which will be split into three stages that end on the following laps: 115-230-367.
As for the average Southern 500, it looks something like this: 9 cautions for 48 caution laps, 17 lead changes, an average duration of four hours, the final caution flag flying around lap 326 (or 42 laps to go), and surprisingly, no instances of overtime in the last decade since the event moved back to its rightful Labor Day weekend date.
Writer’s Pick
Last week, I selected Todd Gilliland to win the Coke Zero Sugar 400, and within 20 laps, that pick went up in smoke as Tyler Reddick took both cars out of contention after a clash exiting turn 4.
This week, I will be rolling with the 23 team as I believe Bubba Wallace will claim another Crown Jewel victory, this time in the sport’s most challenging event.
Wallace ended the regular season on a high note, scoring four straight top-10 finishes prior to mishaps at Richmond and Daytona that put him out of contention.
The 31-year-old driver claimed the pole here in last year’s regular season finale and notched four straight top-10s here from September 2022 through last year’s spring race.
It seems that Bubba and his team tend to rise to the occasion as the pressure mounts on his race team off the track, so after a contentious day in court this week, I suspect the 23 will be celebrating another Crown Jewel victory at the end of 367 laps.
(Top Photo Credit: Getty Images)
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