\u201cOne thing I will tell you is that heads up on Darlington, you want to see some cars out of control here in a few weeks,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cThese cars, with essentially little to no underbody because we\u2019re now going to the short track aerodynamic package for Darlington, these cars are out of control.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m predicting four seconds of fall off, it might be more. It\u2019s just the cars with the underbody taken off and that simple diffuser, just even on new tires, just absolutely out of control. So, it\u2019s going to be a wild card race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christopher Bell<\/a> has also echoed those sentiments.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Darlington is going to be very, very, very different than what we’ve had in the years past with the Next Gen car so, I’m excited about it,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI think it has potential to look like a much different Darlington race than what we’ve had in the in the last couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n Bell pointed to the first true oval track race using the 750 spacer, which produced way more tire fall off and action than anyone was even predicting earlier in the week.<\/p>\n \u201cI just had a ton of fun at Phoenix,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI thought Phoenix was night and day different than what we’ve had the last, well, since we’ve started going there, it’s been really hard to pass and this race was the first race. I felt like you could actually make your way through the field if you had a better car. I proved that; Ryan Blaney<\/a> proved that it seemed like.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you had a better car, you were able to pass, and I think a lot of that a lot of that was due to the horsepower and the added horsepower made the track feel slick. The tires degraded. We were sliding around, and the best cars made the way to the front. I think Darlington is going to be more of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n General view<\/p>\n Photo by: James Gilbert \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n Ross Chastain<\/a> says Darlington is always fun.<\/p>\n \u201cI only race the old car one year at (Chip Ganassi Racing) and all my other races there have been with Trackhouse,\u201d Chastain said. \u201cAnd in all my years racing there, we\u2019re always sliding around.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, they haven\u2019t slid around as much as the O\u2019Reilly Series car but they slid in their own way. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve had bad races at Darlington. Darlington, in my opinion, is the best race track in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Sure, but everyone seems to agree that the racing using the old car and the O\u2019Reilly Series car is the best version of Darlington, and Sunday appears poised to look most similar to that if all the simulation holds true.<\/p>\n Brad Keselowski<\/a> has made the joke, but also kind of serious, that teams are going to go through broken toe links and tires aplenty on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest thing I\u2019m thinking about at Darlington is to go 50 laps on a set of tires was almost impossible with the NextGen car in the last two or three seasons, and now that we have more horsepower and less aero, I don\u2019t know if we\u2019re gonna be able to go 35 laps,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cSo, keeping up with the tires is going to be a big challenge. The drivers managing it, the teams putting our setups to where it can do it. Darlington is going to be a heavy lift. It\u2019s always a heavy lift, but it\u2019s a heavier lift now, I think, with these circumstances and a lot of unknowns entering the race at Darlington.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might turn out no different, but I don\u2019t think that will be the case. I think it\u2019s gonna be a really difficult race.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"General](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773957491_344_general-view.jpg\")
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