StatChat 2025 - Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington
- Adam Carabine
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By Adam Carabine
Happy weekend everyone, it’s time for another edition of Stats Saturday. This weekend NASCAR travels to Darlington, South Carolina for the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Darlington is a uniquely egg-shaped oval, with corners 1 and 2 being quite a bit wider than 3 and 4. The track is 1.366 miles long. It was built in 1950, and Johnny Mantz won the first NASCAR race there that same year. Chase Briscoe won last year’s Southern 500, and Denny Hamlin won the Darlington race earlier this year.
Tomorrow’s race will be 367 laps long (for a total of 501.32 miles), with stage breaks occurring at 115 – 230 – 367. The fuel window is approximately 69-75 laps, though tire wear may be more of a factor deciding pit stops. Pit road speed is 45 mph, and the caution vehicle runs at 50 mph.
This year, the NASCAR Cup Series has run 6,511 laps, for 9,315.35 miles so far this season. No driver has completed every single lap - Tyler Reddick is closest, running 14 laps down.
Top 5 Career Average Finishers at Darlington:
Denny Hamlin | 7.92 over 26 races (5 wins) |
Brad Keselowski | 12.00 over 23 races (2 wins) |
Tyler Reddick | 12.33 over 12 races |
Kyle Larson | 12.53 over 15 races (1 win) |
Kyle Busch | 13.30 over 27 races (1 win) |
Bottom 5 Career Average Finishers at Darlington:
Riley Herbst | 34.00 over 1 race |
Cody Ware | 30.33 over 6 races |
JH Nemechek | 27.67 over 6 races |
Carson Hocevar | 27.00 over 4 races |
Michael McDowell | 26.10 over 20 races |
Darlington is being classified as an Intermediate track for this article.
Top 5 Career Average Finishers at Intermediates:
Denny Hamlin | 11.93 over 346 races (29 wins) |
Kyle Larson | 12.15 over 184 races (18 wins) |
Chase Elliott | 12.38 over 165 races (7 wins) |
Kyle Busch | 12.45 over 362 races (29 wins) |
Joey Logano | 12.55 over 292 races (19 wins) |
Bottom 5 Career Average Finishers at Intermediates:
SVG | 22.40 over 16 races |
JH Nemechek | 22.38 over 51 races |
Ty Dillon | 22.33 over 132 races |
Ryan Preece | 21.79 over 98 races |
Noah Gragson | 21.44 over 46 races |
David Pearson is the winningest driver at Darlington, having won there 10 times. Dale Earnhardt had 9 wins. Denny Hamlin is the winningest of current full-time drivers, having scored 5 career wins there.
Notable drivers who have not won at Darlington:
Chase Elliott | (has won at 15 other tracks) |
Ryan Blaney | (has won at 10 other tracks) |
Christopher Bell | (has won at 10 other tracks) |
Tyler Reddick | (has won at 8 other tracks) |
Alex Bowman | (has won at 8 other tracks) |
Based on average finish, Denny Hamlin lists Darlington as his BEST track, while no drivers list it as their WORST.
Based on their point pace, let’s have a look at how this season is comparing to last season for drivers:
Drivers Faring Better than in 2024
Chase Briscoe | +246 pts |
Ryan Preece | +239 pts |
JH Nemechek | +229 pts |
Erik Jones | +175 pts |
Zane Smith | +119 pts |
Drivers Faring Worse than in 2024
Brad Keselowski | -225 pts |
Noah Gragson | -218 pts |
Daniel Suarez | -113 pts |
Ty Gibbs | -112 pts |
Tyler Reddick | -95 pts |
Next, let’s look at who’s having their best and worst career year by Average Finish:
Best Career Year
Christopher Bell | 12.50 |
Chase Briscoe | 13.69 |
Ryan Preece | 16.54 |
JH Nemechek | 20.00 |
Worst Career Year
Cole Custer | 24.00 |
Carson Hocevar | 22.31 |
Zane Smith | 20.81 |
Rookie of the Year Battle
SVG | 2,022 (4 wins) |
Riley Herbst | 294 |
The Manufacturer Standings are calculated by awarding points to the highest finisher for each manufacturer according to their finishing position. (40 for 1st, 35 for 2nd, 34 for 3rd, etc.) No stage points or playoff points count.
Manufacturer Standings
Chevrolet | 960 |
Toyota | 920 |
Ford | 872 |
Here is the same formula, but used on a team-vs-team basis:
Chartered Team Standings
Hendrick | 907 |
Joe Gibbs | 887 |
Penske | 750 |
RFK | 736 |
Trackhouse | 735 |
23XI | 680 |
Spire | 642 |
RCR | 599 |
Legacy MC | 598 |
Front Row | 587 |
Kaulig | 545 |
Wood Bros | 427 |
Hyak | 388 |
Haas Factory | 338 |
Rick Ware | 191 |
At each stage break, the Top 10 drivers are awarded points based on their finishing positions. Here are the leaders this year:
Stage Point Leaders
William Byron | 239 |
Ryan Blaney | 227 |
Kyle Larson | 179 |
Denny Hamlin | 169 |
Tyler Reddick | 161 |
Bubba Wallace | 152 |
Alex Bowman | 149 |
Chase Elliott | 138 |
Christopher Bell | 132 |
Austin Cindric | 125 |
Milestone Watch
Chris Buescher | Looking for his 30th Career Top 5 |
Kyle Busch | Looking for his 390th Career Top 10 |
Christopher Bell | Looking for his 100th Career Top 10 |
SVG | Looking for his 10th Career Top 10 |
Ross Chastain | This will be his 250th Career Cup Series Start |
Scorigami Update
Daytona was the first time in the Cup Series that:
- Riley Herbst finished 40th
- SVG finished 16th
- Cody Ware finished 20th
- Josh Berry finished 9th
- Cole Custer finished 4th
- Ty Gibbs finished 8th
- Austin Cindric finished 39th
Here are the top 10 longest active winless streaks:
Winless Streaks
Justin Haley | 167 races |
Cole Custer | 123 races |
Erik Jones | 105 races |
Kyle Busch | 83 races |
Michael McDowell | 74 races |
Daniel Suarez | 60 races |
Brad Keselowski | 49 races |
AJ Allmendinger | 46 races |
Alex Bowman | 42 races |
Chris Buescher | 34 races |
The race begins Sunday, August 31st at 6:00 pm EST (3:00 pm PST) – Enjoy the race everyone!
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Is there an error? Is there a stat missing that you’d like to see? Let us know!
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