Who… should you be talking about after the race?
Winning at Darlington Raceway isn’t just about outrunning everyone else. The track has a well-deserved reputation of being hard to master, and one thing that makes the Southern 500 so difficult is the concentration it demands for every lap. Even a small mistake is magnified by the track nicknamed The Lady in Black for the black streaks lining the walls from cars brushing them.
On Sunday night (Aug. 31), it was Chase Briscoe who bested the Lady for the second year in a row, winning the Southern 500 by .408 seconds over Tyler Reddick. Erik Jones was the top non-playoff driver, finishing third.
Briscoe took the lead for the first time on lap one and never looked back, sweeping the stages and leading nine times for 309 of the 367 total laps, a dominant performance. Both Reddick and Jones mounted a charge in the final 40 laps, but Briscoe was able to hold them off as he navigated light lapped traffic.
It’s Briscoe’s second win of 2025 and the fourth of his career. He leaves Darlington with a three-point lead in the standings and a ticket to the next round of the playoffs already punched.
On the other hand…
Josh Berry’s lap one spin certainly ruined his night, and playoff drivers Alex Bowman and Christopher Bell also had some early damage that saw them finish near the back of the field.
But despite a late rebound to finish seventh, one of the most surprisingly lackluster performances of the night came from Denny Hamlin, who leads all active Cup drivers in Darlington wins. Hamlin ran outside of the top 10 for much of the night as his team struggled to get the handling of the No. 11 right for him.
Hamlin started on the pole, but Briscoe passed him on the first lap. Hamlin led a total of 12 laps mid-race, but overall, looked flat compared to his usual Darlington performance. Still, two of the cars that beat him were his own, so that might soothe the sting a bit.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
Briscoe locks himself into the round of 12 with his win as the top 16 leave Darlington separated by 62 points.
It’s even tighter close to the cut line; 16th-place Berry is just 19 behind 12th-place Shane van Gisbergen. Both Berry and 15th-place Bowman had issues on Sunday night that cost them multiple laps. Berry did rebound to take a bonus point for the fastest lap of the race, but his last-place finish puts him in a likely must-win in the next two weeks, because while 19 points isn’t insurmountable, he’d have to rely on four other drivers having at least one bad race.
Austin Dillon is in 14th and is not a favorite to advance, though a great finish in one of the next two races could change his fortune.
Of the four drivers currently in danger of elimination, Joey Logano may be in the best spot thanks to his stellar performance at World Wide Technology Raceway, where the series visits this coming weekend.
As it stands, van Gisbergen only has a three-point advantage over Logano, and he’ll have to reinvent himself on ovals in the next two weeks to stay afloat long enough for the lone road course in the playoffs to matter.
Second-place Hamlin and third-place Kyle Larson have a decent enough collection of playoff points to ride through the first round with even mediocre finishes.
Reddick, Bubba Wallace and William Byron are also in the top six and can clear the cut if they are consistent at Gateway and Bristol.
Where… did he come from?
While Darlington specialist Jones got the most attention, his teammate, John Hunter Nemechek, also had a stellar race on Sunday night. Nemechek started the night in 30th place, making him the lowest starter in the top 10.
Jones’ relationship with the Lady in Black aside, the Legacy Motor Club drivers said that having team owner and Hall of Fame driver Jimmie Johnson back in Charlotte permanently after living abroad for the last couple of years is already having an impact.
It will be interesting to see if having Johnson’s full focus will pay more dividends this season.
On a night where the top five saw more non-playoff drivers than contenders, AJ Allmendinger also put on a great performance, running in the top five for a large portion of the race and finishing fifth. Surprisingly, both of Allmendinger’s top fives this year have come on ovals instead of his specialty, road courses.
When… was the moment of truth?
If winning at Darlington is more about racing the track, Briscoe wasn’t the only driver to tame the Lady in Black. In the final 25 or 30 laps, Reddick, Jones and Nemechek were all at least as fast as Briscoe, but they couldn’t make moves on the leader.
While the Next Gen car has been decent at some intermediates, as time goes on, it has become harder and harder to pass the leader as clean air has made track position trump speed even at a track where strategy is a key to a strong finish.
Considering the aerodynamic wall that the drivers behind Briscoe were hitting, it was a decent race, but Briscoe won at least in part because other cars simply could not make a run at him.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
The Cup and Xfinity Series head to World Wide Technology Raceway (also known as Gateway) for a double header with two very different objectives.
For the Xfinity Series, it’s the final regular season race and the last chance to seal a spot in the playoffs. With nine of twelve drivers locked in, there will be plenty of eleventh-hour moves to grab a spot. Currently hovering around the cut line are cousins Harrison and Jeb Burton. Harrison has a fairly solid 31-point lead over Jeb, but one bad incident could erase that, so keep an eye on the final cut Saturday night (Sept. 6).
The Cup teams hit Gateway as the midpoint of round one of the playoffs, and while they’ll have another week to decide things, the kind of day they have will set up the way they approach the cut-off race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Who should fans keep an eye on Sunday afternoon? The Cup teams have only seen Gateway three times, so there isn’t a lot of history to go by. The three winners include Kyle Busch, Logano and Austin Cindric. Logano’s 3.0 average leads the pack. He’s never finished worse than fifth, and a boost would be welcome for the No. 22 team, who has been just good enough this year to make the playoffs but will need a boost to go deep.
As for the non-playoff drivers, keep one eye on Allmendinger and Justin Haley, who have been surprisingly solid at the one-mile track with average finishes of 12th and 13th respectively, better than several playoff drivers. Both could use a strong finish, and this is a good opportunity for them.
How… did this race stack up?
In many ways, it was classic Darlington: the best drivers racing the track as much as each other, tire wear playing a role, strategy mattering and a lot of the field going home frustrated.
Despite the inability to pass the leader, Reddick and Jones certainly gave it everything they had. The top five wasn’t exactly what you expected.
If it had come down to speed and hard driving, it would have been a really good race. This is true even if the result had been the same.
It was competitive from the standpoint that there were a few different teams who might have been capable of winning, and the success of the six non-playoff teams in the top 10 was impressive and a fun diversion from the same old, same old.
It’s just the finish that fell flat. It wasn’t the worst race of 2025 or even particularly close to it. It’s just when it comes to The Lady in Black, she deserves a better dance partner than the Next Gen.
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.