Sunday’s (Aug. 31) Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway featured veterans and fresh faces in the top 10. Behind Chase Briscoe’s second win of 2025 and Tyler Reddick’s best finish since the Daytona 500 in February, Erik Jones had his best run of 2025, Legacy Motor Club had two cars in the top five for the second time this year and the first time for both of its regular drivers. AJ Allmendinger had his second top five of the year on an oval and Kyle Busch had his best finish in eight weeks.
Notably absent?
Three-quarters of the playoff field. And also any playoff driver not in a Toyota.
The four playoff hopefuls in the top 10 were Briscoe, Reddick, Reddick’s 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace in sixth and Briscoe’s Joe Gibbs Racing compatriot Denny Hamlin in seventh.
Perhaps most notably absent from not only the top 10 but from anywhere near the front of the field were the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers. Chase Elliott’s 17th-place result was the best among them, with teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron in 19th and 21st. Both Elliott and Larson led a handful of laps during pit cycles but didn’t factor in the race.
Alex Bowman had an even worse night. On an early pit stop, an air gun malfunctioned and a hose was caught under the car, costing Bowman two laps to the field. He never really recovered, finishing 31st, two laps down.
Team Penske also had a lackluster night as a team, with Austin Cindric in 12th as its lone top-15 result. Ryan Blaney recovered from a spin to finish 18th while defending series champion Joey Logano managed only a 20th-place result. Penske partner Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry spun on the second lap and finished last despite posting the fastest lap of the race.
Trackhouse Racing saw Ross Chastain finish a solid 11th but Shane van Gisbergen a disappointing 32nd.
Is it time for anyone who doesn’t drive for JGR or 23XI to hit the panic button?
Absolutely not. It is time for some teams to be realistic, though.
Heading to World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, the drivers currently below the cut line include Logano (-3 points), Austin Dillon (-8) and Berry and Bowman tied at 19 points below the line. Van Gisbergen hovers three points to the good.
Berry and Dillon probably shouldn’t make the cut. While each had the prerequisite win to make the playoffs, before the reset, Berry was 21st in points and Dillon 26th. Neither is a weekly contender for wins and top 10s and winning was a thick layer of icing on an insubstantial cake.
The same can be said for van Gisbergen, even with four wins under his belt. He was 25th before the reset, even with those wins, and he hasn’t found consistency on the ovals yet.
Because of the number of winners outside the top 16, Bowman started the playoffs on the wrong side of the cut line despite being ninth in points before the reset. That’s a very respectable season—he’s probably the least deserving of a round one elimination among those in danger right now. Logano had a mediocre regular season at best, a trend that continued at Darlington. Still, he’s very likely to climb into the top 12 this weekend at Gateway, where he has never finished worse than fifth in three races.
That really only leaves Bowman as a driver who shouldn’t be below the cut line. He needs to worry.
Several drivers who struggled on Sunday should rebound at Gateway based on past performance.
Cindric has a win at Gateway and he, Larson, Bell and Blaney all have average finishes inside the top 12, so they will arrive with good notes. Larson has three wins at Bristol Motor Speedway and will be a favorite for another. Bell doesn’t have a Bristol win but has six to 10s in eight races. He can easily correct course in the next couple of weeks, and Cindric and Blaney just need to maintain, as does Hamlin, who has four Bristol wins and has no reason to worry as of right now.
Byron and Chastain both have 14th-place averages, which should be enough to hold court in the standings if they finish in that vicinity. Byron is stronger than Chastain at Bristol.
Elliott’s 17th-place Gateway average is less than stellar, so he will have to be careful—a solid finish will keep him alive, and he’s second among active Cup drivers to Larson in average finish at Bristol.
The 23XI drivers have both struggled at Gateway but top-15 finishes at Gateway and Bristol should be enough coupled with their Darlington performance.
So really, there’s no need for anyone to panic and there’s absolutely no reason for teams like Hendrick or Penske to do anything different. The worst thing any of the contenders can do is panic. Yes, some of them need to improve on pit road and a few had some bigger issues at Darlington that need to be ironed out, but they got to the playoffs on consistency and trying to do things differently can throw that out the window. There’s a difference in racing to win and racing to not lose. If they race to win, the legit contenders will be fine.
There might be an upset or two along the way, which is the nature of a playoff system that rewards a couple of great races over a season of very good ones, but all in all, at least in the first couple of rounds, the system still favors consistency. Next week, a few teams may have to get a little creative to survive until the next reset, but for now, they all just need to go race.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.