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William Byron won the latest NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway, his third victory of the season and the seventh of his career.
Byron was near the front all day and took advantage of the shenanigans between Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain to take home the victory.
Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s (May 14) NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
#3 Truex’s resurgence
After missing the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs last year despite being top 5 in the points standings, many wondered if Martin Truex Jr. was on the decline.
However, Truex won the opening Busch Clash at the Collegium and followed it up with some strong performances before finally pulling off the victory at Dover a couple of weeks ago.
At Darlington Raceway, Truex was close to his best, even leading 137 consecutive laps at one point. While his car wasn’t the same after an incident with Ross Chastain and getting involved in a late race wreck, he showed flashes of the Truex of old to claim victory.
#2 Carl Edwards is a natural in the booth
While this may not be a takeaway from the on-track action, it is a takeaway that NASCAR fans will agree is important.
The FOX Sports booth rotated drivers for the three stages of today's race — Richard and Kyle Petty in Stage 1, Carl Edwards in Stage 2, and Bill Elliott in Stage 3. While the Pettys and Elliott were good, Edwards was the standout.
Since his surprise retirement at the end of the 2016 NASCAR season, fans have wanted to see him around the sport more and today was his first proper television appearance.
Edwards brought tons of energy and insight into the booth, which some of the other drivers FOX brings in don’t do. That, along with how popular he still is with fans, makes Edwards someone people would want to see more of in the booth.
#1 Chastain vs Larson
The biggest takeaway from the race at Darlington Raceway was the growing feud between Ross Chastain and Kyle Larson. This began a couple of weeks ago at Dover when Larson was taken out due to Chastain making contact with Brennan Poole.
This week's beef began on late race restarts. On the first restart, Larson rode Chastain into the wall. There was no damage and the two restarted on the front row again for the next restart with Chastain the control car.
Chastain then rode Larson into the wall and this time there was heavy contact between the two and both were soon out of contention.
It will be interesting to see if this continues or if it’s just another case of Chastain getting away with minimal to no damage.
