Stripe Fest: Recapping The Southern 500 Weekend At Darlington

On the surface, three top-15 finishes at Darlington for the four-car Roush Fenway Racing team doesn’t seem so bad.

But the Roush Fords struggled all night and were fortunate to have Matt Kenseth (13th), David Ragan (14th) and Carl Edwards (15th) get respectable finishes. Greg Biffle was 22nd after hitting the fence.

Remember the mistake Jeff Gordon made last night? On the final pit stop, while he was running in the top three, Gordon initially missed pit road and had to come around again.

But when a caution came out and Gordon was on pit road, he was actually ahead of the leaders and was able to remain the last car on the lead lap.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s relationship with Lance McGrew was getting testy during a long night at Darlington Raceway, growing more tense by the lap as driver and crew chief sniped at each other over the team radio.

At one point, Earnhardt Jr. accused McGrew of “having a line for everything,” and McGrew fired back that his driver possessed the same habit.

Jamie McMurray has captured the pole for the Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, setting a new track record in the process.

McMurray’s second pole of the season was a result of his record-setting lap of more than 180.370 mph, edging out Jeff Gordon for the top spot.

All the talk about a “new” Kyle Busch? Don’t believe it, according to Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.

Moments after saying Busch has “gotten better at getting decent finishes when he doesn’t have the best car,” Hamlin was asked about the “new Kyle” that Busch mentioned after winning Richmond last week.

Too Tough To Tame?

NASCAR drivers hope Darlington’s claim isn’t quite true, as they’ll test the theory at the legendary South Carolina track.