Active/Next Gen Cup Track Stats: Darlington

Last week at Daytona we got to see history as Harrison Burton got his 1st career Cup win, Wood Brother’s 100th Cup win, and we could just see the first driver lower than 30th in points make the Playoffs. Now, we head to a historic track in Darlington where the playoff drivers will be decided. Down below you will find different statistics for active drivers and Next Gen races of the NASCAR Cup series here at Darlington Raceway ranging from Most Wins to Best Average Finishes by starting position in the Next Gen era. So read and enjoy these fun fact track stats!
In this post you will only find active and Next Gen stats, if you are looking for all-time stats check out my previous article All-Time Cup Track Stats: Darlington.

– In the Spring Darlington race the drivers that finished 2nd and 3rd in Stage 1/2 went on to finish 1st and 2nd in the race, but the drivers who won the 2 stages wound up out of the Top 30.

– Joey Logano is the only active driver to have multiple poles here at Darlington, but there are 6 drivers looking to join him this weekend.

– No matter who wins this weekend Denny Hamlin will leave this weekend 1st in the table above, but there is a chance he won’t have the best Win%.

– With their Top 3 finishes in the Spring race Josh Berry and Ty Gibbs both moved into the Best Active Top 3% table above.

– Denny Hamlin has been a beast at Darlington as among active drivers he is the only one with 10+ Top 5’s, 15+ Top 10’s, 50+ Top 5%, and a 70+ Top 10%.

– Look out for Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Larson to be great in the stages this weekend as they are the top 3 in Stage Wins, Stage Win%, and Stage T10% here among active drivers.

– Of the 7 active drivers to have 13 starts at Darlington without a Pole, 5 of them will be looking to get that first Pole here this weekend.

– The only difference in the two tables above is that David Ragan has not been able to get a Top 3 finish here in 13 starts, but has gotten a Top 5.

– Incredibly, there is no overlap in drivers in the “without stage” tables above as every active driver who has ran more than 20 stages here has a Stage T10.

– Going into the Spring race there were 3 drivers on a 3 race Top 10 streak at Darlington and they all finished Top 10, this week Keselowski, Wallace, and Byron will look to make it 5 straight Top 10’s at Darlington.

– It’s risky to lead more than 30% of the laps in a Next Gen race at Darlington as 5 of the 6 drivers to do so have finished 25th or worse.

– The 2024 Spring race had a few good runs by drivers as 3 drivers put their name in the table above by how good they did.

– There have only been three times a driver has run every lap of a Next Gen Darlington race in the Top 15, two of those three times have done by Brad Keselowski.

–The tables above say starting position does not matter here at Darlington in the Next Gen car, but starting 30th or worse does make up half of the worst Avg. finishes, and starting 4th seems to have some advantage.

– Tyler Reddick and William Byron are the only drivers to have over a 100 Avg. Driver Rating in the Next Gen at Darlington, and they are the only drivers to run over 90% of the Next Gen laps here in the Top 15 as well.

– Do not be surprised if Chevy is good in the race this weekend, as they’ve won 3 of the 5 Darlington Next Gen races, but also don’t be surprised if they don’t win the Pole as 0 of 4 have been won by Chevy.