Sunday night was more than eventful for Ryan Newman and the No. 6 team in the Bojangles’ Southern 500, as Newman finished 23rd in his Oscar Mayer / Velveeta Ford Mustang in a race that ran well into the morning hours.
With Dog’s Most Wanted WGNA adorning his No. 17 Ford, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. worked his way inside the top-15 before being plagued with a mechanical issue forcing him to settle with a 33rd-place finish in Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) race at Darlington Raceway.
"I saw the 8 start to get loose like he blew a tire and chased it up the track. I was already on the bottom and I saw the 11 and a few other cars on the top and they were just trying to get down and we all kind of jumped on the brakes."
"This is just the night we needed at Darlington Raceway. My crew chief Danny Stockman and the team did a great job all night working on the handling of our No. 3 American Ethanol Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and it paid off. The track loosened up a lot more than we expected tonight, so we had to adjust for that and figure out which groove on the track worked for us with that handling."
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Ford Mustang – “It was kind of a blue-collar top five. We just hung around fifth to tenth all day and was able to clear off a few cars there at the end and ended up fifth. We had really good short run speed with the Miller Ford, but we didn’t really have the long run speed and the long runs, you’ve got to have that.”
Camry driver Erik Jones won his second career NASCAR Cup Series event in his 100th career-series start at Darlington Raceway on Sunday morning.
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 2nd WHAT ELSE DID YOU NEED TO WIN THE RACE? “Six inches less in the spoiler probably, for everybody. It was just really hard to pass. I think this package has been good for a lot of places but here. It’s a high grip track, already narrow. It was just tough to pass."
Erik Jones had the best car when it mattered most leading the final 42 laps to claim his first win this year in the 70th annual Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Christian Eckes broke through and won the Southern Illinois 100 for the first time in his career. The Venturini Motorsports driver took the lead on lap 10 and never looked back, as Eckes led 91 laps en route to victory.