Top Dog: Erik Jones
Ahh, the playoffs, the time of year where the pressure is on and members of 16 teams (and each playoff drivers’ fans) likely have their blood pressure spike.
But unlike other sports, the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs still feature those eliminated from title contention, adding another element of uncertainty to an already dramatic 10 weeks.
For those who missed out, the goal is simple, though it is easier said than done: focus on getting better for next year, experimenting with different pieces, and go out and win.
That task has become more prevalent with the Next Gen to see an outsider crash the party, and for nearly the second time in four years, it was Erik Jones playing spoiler.
The two-time Southern 500 winner, most recently in 2022, continued to show why Darlington Raceway is his playground, finishing third in the Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday (Aug. 31st) after having race winner Chase Briscoe in his sights.
Stealing a quote I heard from my Frontstretch colleague Michael Massie, when you give a driver who is good at Darlington a good car, good things happen. Case in point: Jones.
Jones dazzled in his charge to the front, jumping from 19th to 13th in the opening stage. By the time stage two rolled around, the No. 43 came to life and Jones had wheeled it to third.
The Byron, Mich. native remained in the top five during the final stage, running fourth when the final caution came out with 54 laps remaining. Jones quickly pounced on the restart, getting around his Legacy Motor Club teammate John Hunter Nemechek to settle in third.
Over the final 30 laps, Jones began to crowd the rearview mirror of second-place Tyler Reddick, showing him the inside on multiple occasions while both ran Briscoe down. Coming to four laps to go, Jones got a big run on Reddick off turn 4, but he had the window shut by a tight squeeze from the No. 45. That closed off any opportunity to reach Briscoe, and Jones was forced to accept third as part of a Toyota brigade.
The rise of LMC has been well documented, but the resurgence of Jones deserves a deeper dive. His 2022 Southern 500 made it appear the former Joe Gibbs Racing prodigy had been tossed as a diamond in the rough, but a dismal 2024 aroused questions again.
However, as time goes on, so does the maturing of Jones, who just earned his first pair of back-to-back top fives since the fall of 2020 — when he was still with JGR.
It’s an important step for this team to take, and if they can continue to mind their p’s and q’s, Jones could be one of the playoff contenders a year from now.
But until then, Richard Petty made a legacy of his own at Darlington, and the current driver of the No. 43 has undoubtedly done the same for himself.
Notable Underdog Runs
The cherry on top for LMC is the fact that not only is Jones running well, but so is the No. 42 of Nemechek. It feels like you can’t have one without the other, and that was the case at Darlington, where JHN finished fourth.
Nemechek had to climb out of an even deeper hole from the start, roaring from 30th to ninth by the end of stage one while splitting the stage on his pit stop. Some concerns about his right rear tire wear were appeased by an even stronger stage two, where Nemechek finished eighth.
In the final stint, Nemechek ran as the highest non-playoff driver, and following the first cycle of green flag pit stops, the No. 42 was beginning to chase down the leaders. However, the caution with 54 to go reset the field, and after losing third to Jones, Nemechek could only stay in touch before racking up the fourth-place result.
The milestones piled on for Nemechek and LMC as a whole. Nemechek earned his career-best finish with the performance, and it is the first time the Toyota-powered team has placed both cars inside the top five on a non-superspeedway. It is also the seventh top 10 for Nemechek, matching Jones for the second most top 10s in a single season recorded by an LMC driver.
Needless to say, Nemechek and the team as a whole arguably deserve the most improved award.
Underdogs completely crashed the top five, and splitting up a top seven that featured six Toyotas was Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger, who put up one of his best performances of the season.
Stage one was quiet for Allmendinger, who finished the opening frame in 17th, but the night time was the right time for the veteran driver. As he continued to chip away, a caution midway through the stage allowed Allmendinger to restart inside the top 10, working his way up to sixth. A couple of more yellows at the latter end of the stage opened the door for Allmendinger to slip inside the top five and finish the penultimate stage in fifth.
Surviving a hard push to begin the final stage, the No. 16 went back to work, slipping back to ninth after freeing up over the run. However, after a couple of heroic passes and the final caution, Allmendinger worked his way back forward, running some of the fastest lap times to charge back to fifth and grab a top five.
The result is Allmendinger’s best finish at Darlington, and he is two top 10s away from matching the most top 10s he’s recorded in a season with Kaulig (eight in 2023).
There’s the Darlington stripe count, and then there’s the count for everything that a driver hits in addition to it. For Carson Hocevar, his car looked like a pinball on multiple occasions.
The eventful night first popped on the radar when Hocevar spun on lap 152, calling his car “the worst car I’ve ever driven.”
Shortly afterwards, Hocevar was entering his pit stall as Christopher Bell was exiting his, causing significant contact between the two that ended with Hocevar turned around backwards.
Contact with other drivers such as Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher continued to mount frustration for the Spire Motorsports driver. But after surviving each instance and taking a deep breath, Hocevar “rode the ‘Dente” into the top 10, taking positions one spot at a time. And after a tumultuous night that could have continued to snowball, Hocevar showed a promising sign in his development by finishing ninth, earning a career-high seventh top 10.
Front Row Motorsports continued the underdog parade with a strong night of its own. Zane Smith backed up a stout Darlington performance back in the spring (where he finished 12th) with another top 15, leaving the South Carolina track in 13th.
A disastrous opening stage that saw Smith have a pit road penalty, nearly crash into Bubba Wallace, and fall a lap down were reversed when the Huntington Beach, Calif. native got his lap back and slowly made headwind to the front before finishing 13th. It is Smith’s third top 20 in the last four races.
Right behind Smith in 14th was his FRM teammate Noah Gragson, who pieced together a showing that manifests his knack for “The Track Too Tough to Tame.” Gragson was a fixture in the top 15, passing several playoff contenders and flashing impressive speed throughout the night. The result is Gragson’s first top 20 since the Coca-Cola 600 in May, where he finished 10th.
Underdog Power Rankings
1. Jones (NR): Had a couple of things gone differently, we’d be discussing Jones as a three-time Southern 500 champion. The ascension continues for LMC and Jones, and they shouldn’t be slept on at other tracks this season. World Wide Technology Raceway is one of those venues, where Jones earned a top 10 at the inaugural Cup event in 2022.
2. Allmendinger (+2): The No. 16 team’s goal was to wreak some havoc over the final 10 weeks, and the team chiseled away at it with a top-five run. The notebook is thinner for Allmendinger on an already small sample size for the field at Gateway, but both of his starts there yielded top 15s, including a top 10 in 2022.
3. Hocevar (-1): Some of it wasn’t of Hocevar’s own doing, but it felt like the No. 77 hit everything but the pace car at The Lady in Black. Yet, the sophomore driver still rallied for a top-10 result and showed us another example of the raw talent he possesses. Gateway is where Hocevar first introduced himself to the Cup world in 2023, and he backed it up with a top 10 there a year ago.
4. Nemechek (NR): Nemechek took a page out of his teammate Jones’s playbook, looking like a threat to win the Southern 500 himself on multiple occasions. His lone appearance at Gateway resulted in a 27th-place showing, but this whole LMC organization is a completely refreshed team since that run.
5. Smith (-2): Darlington is truly a test of both man and machine, and it separates the men from the boys. That is good news for Smith, who earned a top 15 at the historic venue in both races this year. Like Hocevar, Smith’s Cup debut came at Gateway back in 2022 when he filled in for Buescher, finishing 17th. He followed that up with another top 20 a year ago in 19th.
Honorable Mentions: Shane van Gisbergen, Cole Custer
Small Team Scheme of the Week
Kaulig and Black’s Tire coming together at Darlington has become a tradition at this point, and this year’s livery was arguably the best one yet.
Paying tribute to The Lady In Black, the typical blue stripe for the sponsor was switched to black for the event, making Kaulig’s familiar neon green numbers stand out.
Entering his fifth year with Frontstretch, Luken Glover is the author of The Underdog House, shedding light on the motivation and performance of NASCAR's dark horse teams as they strive to fight to the top. Additionally, Glover reports for the site at various events, and he contributes in the video editing department.
A 2023 graduate of the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is a middle school math and PE teacher, as well as a basketball coach. He is passionate about serving in his church, playing/coaching a wide variety of sports, and researching motorsports history.