Joey Logano Takes Pole on Darlington Throwback Weekend

After an extended stay at the "Monster Mile" the Cup Series visits the "Lady in Black" this weekend. This race at Darlington is always one of the highlights each season. One of the reasons why is because it is throwback weekend. This will also be just the 10th time a Cup race has been held on Mother's Day.

Joey Logano will be starting on pole tomorrow, after laying down an impressive lap of 28.805 seconds in the final round of qualifying. It is the 23rd career pole for Logano, and his first in nearly three years.

"That was so much needed for all of us here," Logano said. "The last couple weeks have been pretty rough. We had a couple crashes and weren’t very strong at Dover and coming here and recover at Darlington is really nice. This is huge. Track position here is really big but long-run speed means so much. We need to keep the long-run speed and it seemed like we were in the ballpark in practice. But it sure is nice to see the front right now and hopefully lead some laps."

Kyle Larson will be starting alongside Logano on the front row, giving both Ford and Chevrolet a representative. Toyota took the next four spots with three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers - Christopher Bell, Martin Truex Jr, and Kyle Busch along with 23XI Racing's Kurt Busch. Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, William Byron, and Tyler Reddick round out the top ten.

Back in 2003, Ricky Craven beat Kurt for the win by 0.002 seconds, tied for the smallest margin of victory in Cup history. With this race seemingly taking place in a time capsule, it is only fitting that the elder Busch is one of the drivers to watch in terms of favorites. In seven incident-free races since 2016, Kurt has an average finish of 6.9, with only one finish worse than eighth. Another good omen for him is that 12 of the last 13 races here have been won by drivers over 30 years old.

Gibbs has won four of the last six races at Darlington, with Stewart Haas Racing winning the other two. This race is often won by the most talented drivers. Among all of the Darlington race winners, 63 percent of them have won a Cup championship. Chevrolet has not won at Darlington since Kevin Harvick took the checkered flag in the 2014 spring race, the year before SHR switched to Ford.

All eyes will be on Hendrick Motorsports this weekend. The team has won five races this season and all four drivers have been to victory lane. Darlington has been a different story though.

Hendrick has won 22 times since the start of the 2021 season but hasn’t won at Darlington in a decade. They have a record 14 wins at the track, but the last one came at the hands of Jimmie Johnson in May of 2012. Larson, who starts 2nd tomorrow, has finished 2nd in each of his last three Darlington starts. The record for most consecutive runner-ups at one track is four, set by Harvick and Dale Jarrett.

The weekend got off to a rocky start for the race winner last week at Dover. Chase Elliott spun in the second group practice and made heavy contact with the wall. His Chevrolet was beyond repair and the organization will be using their only backup car for the No. 9 team.

"I felt the left rear going down there about three-quarters of the way down the backstretch," said Elliott, who starts 34th tomorrow. "Hopefully that’s not a trend that continues tomorrow. It’s kind of a concerning thing. Obviously, it puts you in a terrible spot, missing qualifying. It kind of sets you up for a long day, so hopefully we get lucky with some kind of decent pit pick and can climb our way out."

Denny Hamlin leads all active drivers with four Darlington wins. He also has five victories at the track in the Xfinity Series. Hamlin will start 22nd after a power issue slowed him during his qualifying run. The JGR driver did participate in the March 15 Goodyear tire test, which could help him tomorrow.

"Darlington has been a great track for us, and we feel like we learned a lot at the tire test, so that gives us confidence going back," Hamlin said. "Like all season, our biggest thing is just eliminating mistakes, whether that’s me or on pit road or something happening with the car. It seems like every week has been something, but our speed has been good most weeks if we can just put everything together."

Kyle Busch will have Trevor Bayne on standby both this weekend and next, as he and his wife Samantha (baby watch) may need to leave the track at some point. Bayne is running a limited schedule for JGR in the Xfinity Series, with a best finish of 3rd earlier this year at Fontana. His last Cup start came in November 2018 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Four teams were penalized in pre-qualifying inspection yesterday. Those were the cars of Harvick, Larson, Alex Bowman, and Michael McDowell. Each team loses their car chief and pit selection for tomorrow's race. Things got much worse for Harvick this morning.

Harvick had a tire issue during practice and while he was able to catch it before entering a turn, the team had to replace a diffuser on his No. 4 Ford Mustang. Because of that, he was not able to participate in qualifying and will start 35th tomorrow.

Coverage for tomorrow's Goodyear 400 begins at 3:30 PM ET on FS1.