NASCAR drivers made a return to racing for the first time in 71 days on Sunday, May 17, for The Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina.
Brad Keselowski, who drove the #2 car, started on pole for the race, not because he held the fastest qualifying lap, but because of the drawing that was held to determine starting positions.
Keselowski led all 40 cars to the green.
However, they did not make it a full lap around the track before that green flag changed to yellow. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., in the #47 car, brought out the first caution flag on NASCAR’s first lap back in action when he tried to make a four-wide off of turn two and ended up slamming the wall. He finished in 40th place.
Keselowski led the first 45 laps until Alex Bowman, in car #88, took the lead. Bowman, one of four drivers competing for Rick Hendrick’s Hendrick Motorsports (HMS), was off to a fast start after starting in the second position. The HMS cars were all well prepared for this race, as three of them were in the top three by lap 60.
Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Jimmie Johnson, in car #48, passed teammate Alex Bowman for the lead with eight laps left in Stage One. It looked like he was going to hang onto that lead and take home the first stage win of his career until disaster struck.
Johnson was a straightaway from the green checkered flag when he made contact with the #17 car of Chris Buscher, which ended Johnson’s day and his chances of winning the race. His winless streak now goes up to 100 races, the longest drought in his 83-win career.
“Gosh, what I would do to get that corner back to do it over again,” Johnson said after being checked and released at the infield care center. “Coming to the end of the stage, I was just trying to make sure I got a good run off of turn two. I felt like I was going to be able to exit the corner side-by-side with him. Things just went horribly wrong there.”
Before Johnson’s crash, his HMS teammate and driver of the #24 Axalta Chevrolet, William Byron, was in second place. Byron was credited with the Stage One win.
But 21 laps into Stage Two, the trouble continued for the HMS cars. While running in the first position, Byron cut a right tire and his car spun out, bringing out the fourth caution of the day.
As for the rest of Stage Two, Kevin Harvick dominated the race in car #4, and there was not much action until a self-adhesive banner came off the wall of the racetrack and landed on the front bumper of Denny Hamlin’s car. Hamlin dropped a few positions trying to get the banner off and prevent his #11 car from overheating.
The caution came out with 13 laps to go in Stage Two when rookie driver Christopher Bell spun out in car # 95 while running in the top 15. This brought the leaders to pit under the yellow flag. Leader Harvick had some pit road miscues and fell all the way down to fourth when the race restarted with nine laps remaining. Keselowski finished off Stage Two in the first position, with Bowman, Martin Truex Jr., Harvick and Clint Bowyer rounding out the top five.
It only took Harvick a few laps in Stage Three to retake the lead he had in Stage Two. Once he got the lead, he was off, powering away to lead a race-high 159 laps. Harvick had some competition from Bowman in the later laps, but in the end, Harvick closed out NASCAR’s first race since February with a win.
With this win, Harvick ties NASCAR Hall of Famers Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson with 50 career Cup Series wins, leaving all three in a tie for 12th place on the sport’s all-time wins list.
“I just want to thank everybody from NASCAR and all the teams for letting us do what we do,” Harvick told Fox Sports. “It’s dead silent out here. We miss the fans.”
Harvick leaves Darlington at No. 1 in the Cup point standings – the same position he has been in since the last Cup race more than two months ago.
Below are some key storylines from the day:
· Rookie Tyler Reddick finished seventh and rookie John Hunter Nemechek finished ninth.
· The race had 6.32 million viewers. That makes The Real Heroes 400 the most-watched non-Daytona 500 NASCAR Cup Series race since the March 5, 2017 race at Atlanta.
· The next race for the Cup Series is Wednesday, May 20, at 6 p.m. back at Darlington Raceway. This is the first time we will see constant mid-week races since the 1990s.
· The field will be inverted for the start of the Toyota Owners 500 at Darlington, which means Ryan Preece, the driver of the #37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet who finished 20th in the last race, will be on the pole. Ty Dillion, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer and Ryan Blaney will round out the top five.
It will be exciting to see if NASCAR can continue to keep viewership up while the country remains under lockdown.
Photo courtesy of Chris Graythen
