5 KYLE LARSON<\/p>\n
Age: 33 (July 31, 1992)
Hometown: Elk Grove, California
Last Week: 7th (Las Vegas)
Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels
Standings: T-7<\/p>\n
Twitter \u2022 Instagram \u2022 Facebook<\/p>\n
No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet<\/p>\n
2026 \/ Cup Career \/ Darlington<\/p>\n
Races: 5 \/ 407 \/ 16
Wins: 0 \/ 32 \/ 1
Poles: 0 \/ 22 \/ 0
Top 5: 1 \/ 135 \/ 7
Top 10: 3 \/ 207 \/ 9
Laps Led: 117 \/ 10,479 \/ 1,050
Stage Wins: 0 \/ 72 \/ 6
Average Finish: 12.8 \/ 14.0 \/ 12.9<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kyle Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com team led 62 laps en route to a seventh-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last Sunday. The result marked their third consecutive top-10 finish of the season.
\u2022 Larson has finished in the top three in six of his 16 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington Raceway, including a win in the fall of 2023. He has led laps in all but four of those races and has paced 394 of the 1,050 total laps run at Darlington in the Next Gen car.
\u2022 The defending Cup Series champion has won six stages at Darlington, second most among all drivers.
\u2022 Larson will fill in for Alex Bowman in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Series race Saturday at Darlington, driving the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. Last weekend at Las Vegas, Larson won in that ride.<\/p>\n
9 CHASE ELLIOTT<\/p>\n
Age: 30 (Nov. 28, 1995)
Hometown: Dawsonville, Georgia
Last Week: 2nd (Las Vegas)
Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson
Standings: 5th<\/p>\n
Twitter \u2022 Instagram \u2022 Facebook<\/p>\n
No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet<\/p>\n
2026 \/ Cup Career \/ Darlington<\/p>\n
Races: 2 \/ 363 \/ 18
Wins: 0 \/ 21 \/ 0
Poles: 0 \/ 12 \/ 0
Top 5: 2 \/ 117 \/ 4
Top 10: 3 \/ 193 \/ 8
Laps Led: 13 \/ 5,993 \/ 159
Stage Wins: 0 \/ 39 \/ 3
Average Finish: 9.4 \/ 12.8 \/ 15.9<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chase Elliott earned his best finish of the 2026 season last weekend, placing second at Las Vegas.
\u2022 Elliott\u2019s average finish of 9.4 is his best through five races since 2017 and ranks third among all drivers.
\u2022 He is one of five drivers to finish on the lead lap in every race this season.
\u2022 Elliott has a best Darlington Cup finish of third (spring 2023) and four top\u2011eight results in his last eight starts there.
\u2022 Last spring, Elliott finished eighth at Darlington.<\/p>\n
24 WILLIAM BYRON<\/p>\n
Age: 28 (Nov. 29, 1997)
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Last Week: 3rd (Las Vegas)
Crew Chief: Rudy Fugle
Standings: T-7<\/p>\n
Twitter \u2022 Instagram \u2022 Facebook<\/p>\n
No. 24 RAPTOR Chevrolet<\/p>\n
2026 \/ Cup Career \/ Darlington<\/p>\n
Races: 5 \/ 293 \/ 15
Wins: 0 \/ 16 \/ 1
Poles: 0 \/ 16 \/ 2
Top 5: 1 \/ 66 \/ 5
Top 10: 2 \/ 122 \/ 7
Laps Led: 28 \/ 4,336 \/ 331
Stage Wins: 1 \/ 35 \/ 4
Average Finish: 12.6 \/ 15.1 \/ 15.4<\/p>\n
\u2022 William Byron scored a stage win and led 26 laps at Las Vegas before finishing third, his best result of the season.
\u2022 Byron has earned 35 stage points through five races and ranks third in average running position at 10.03.
\u2022 He has run the fifth-most laps in the top five and the second-most in the top 10 this year.
\u2022 At Darlington, Byron has two poles, one win (spring 2023), and four stage wins.
\u2022 In last year\u2019s spring Darlington race, he led 243 laps and finished second.
\u2022 In the Next Gen era at Darlington, Byron ranks top three in most major categories, including laps led.<\/p>\n
48 JUSTIN ALLGAIER<\/p>\n
Age: 39 (June 6, 1986)
Hometown: Riverton, Illinois
Last Week: 25th
Crew Chief: Blake Harris
Standings: 36th (owner\u2019s points)<\/p>\n
Twitter \u2022 Instagram \u2022 Facebook<\/p>\n
No. 48 Ally Chevrolet<\/p>\n
2026 \/ Cup Career \/ Darlington<\/p>\n
Races: 1 \/ 84 \/ 2
Wins: 0 \/ 0 \/ 0
Poles: 0 \/ 0 \/ 0
Top 5: 0 \/ 0 \/ 0
Top 10: 0 \/ 2 \/ 0
Laps Led: 3 \/ 20 \/ 0
Stage Wins: 0 \/ 0 \/ 0
Average Finish: 38.0 \/ 27.3 \/ 35.5<\/p>\n
\u2022 Alex Bowman will not compete this weekend as he continues to recover from vertigo; Justin Allgaier will drive the No. 48.
\u2022 It will be Allgaier\u2019s second consecutive week filling in after driving at Las Vegas.
\u2022 In the NOAPS, Allgaier has earned stage points in every stage this year.
\u2022 He won the Phoenix NOAPS race, extending his record to 10 straight seasons with a win.
\u2022 At Darlington in the NOAPS, Allgaier leads active drivers with three wins and nine straight top 10s.<\/p>\n
17 COREY DAY<\/p>\n
Age: 20 (Nov. 28, 2005)
Hometown: Clovis, California
Last Finish: 8th (Las Vegas)
Crew Chief: Adam Wall
Standings: 7th<\/p>\n
Twitter \u2022 Instagram \u2022 Facebook<\/p>\n
\u2022 Corey Day will make his first NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Series start at Darlington on Saturday.
\u2022 He finished ninth in the Truck Series race at Darlington in 2025.
\u2022 Day led laps for the first time in his stock\u2011car career last weekend at Las Vegas.
\u2022 He enters Darlington with four straight top\u201110 finishes.<\/p>\n
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS<\/p>\n
2026 \/ All-Time \/ Darlington<\/p>\n
Races: 5 \/ 1,422 \/ 36
Wins: 0 \/ 320* \/ 16*
Poles: 0 \/ 259* \/ 9
Top 5: 4 \/ 1,326* \/ 58*
Top 10: 8 \/ 2,268* \/ 97*
Laps Led: 158 \/ 85,525* \/ 4,269*
Stage Wins: 1 \/ 138 \/ 8<\/p>\n
*Most
**Tied for most<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hendrick Motorsports enters the weekend as Darlington\u2019s all-time leader in wins, top fives, top 10s, and laps led.
\u2022 The team has won five of the last eight Darlington stages.
\u2022 At least one Hendrick car has finished in the top 10 in 12 of the last 13 Darlington races.
\u2022 The Hendrick engine department has earned 559 national-series wins, including four straight in NOAPS.
\u2022 HMS remains the all-time premier series leader in wins, poles, top fives, top 10s, laps led, and championships.<\/p>\n
QUOTABLE<\/p>\n
Kyle Larson on returning to Darlington:
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to getting back to Darlington and applying what we\u2019ve learned. I feel like this track suits my racing style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chase Elliott on Darlington:
\u201cDarlington has been a tough one for us, but it\u2019s a place I enjoy. Having a better Saturday will be key.\u201d<\/p>\n
William Byron on momentum heading to Darlington:
\u201cLast week\u2019s race was more indicative of what we expect this season. I\u2019m hopeful we can build on our past success at Darlington.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justin Allgaier on subbing for Bowman:
\u201cWe all hope Alex continues to recover. I\u2019ve always loved Darlington and hope we can make him proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corey Day on his first Darlington NOAPS start:
\u201cDarlington always puts on a great show. I\u2019m excited to experience it in the No. 17 and see what speed we bring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendrick Motorsports PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 KYLE LARSON Age: 33 (July 31, 1992)Hometown: Elk Grove, CaliforniaLast Week: 7th (Las Vegas)Crew Chief: Cliff DanielsStandings:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,717,4384,49432,720,12716,634,582,721,1704,722,82],"class_list":["post-545476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-charlotte","tag-hendrick-motorsports","tag-justin-allgaier","tag-motor","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-speed","tag-speedway","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}