Each arguably needing a win to make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs on the eve of the regular season finale, the Southern 500 at Darlington will be led to green by Bubba Wallace, Carson Hocevar and Chase Briscoe on Sunday.
Wallace, who put together a series of furious on the edge laps across practice and qualifying on Saturday posted the fastest time during the pole round with a 29.421 second lap around the venerable South Carolina speedway but put together an even more ragged lap just to get there.
He bounced off the wall twice over the course of the afternoon.
Martin Truex Jr. + 58
Ty Gibbs + 39
Chris Buescher + 21
—
Bubba Wallace -21
Ross Chastain -27
Wallace doesn’t need to win the race to make the playoffs, and certainly starting up front gives him a lot of chances to make ground through stage points over Chris Buescher, who starts 10th, but the pole certainly opens up two pathways.
“Us coming in on the bubble, 21 points out, ton of pressure, now the pressure has switched,” Wallace said. “We’re not here to mess around. I showed up with a more open, calm demeanor, more relaxed. But at the same time, I don’t want to be messed with.
“It’s a fine line to walk.
“I just appreciate the team. We made some changes during the spring race here and it just didn’t respond so I told Bootie (Barker, crew chief) I needed this to have a good qualifying lap so credit to everyone at the 23 team, everyone at AirSpeed for bringing two good cars to Darlington.”
Wallace said Sunday is an ‘elephant in the room’ and a ‘whole different day’ but that he’s excited to see what Sunday brings. He also has a swagger, saying that he was ‘pissed off’ with just the sixth fastest practice lap and 26th on the 10 lap consecutive chart.
“I was like ‘only sixth, after that,’ and so I wanted to go make a statement in qualifying,” Wallace said. “It’s good to be where we’re at. This level is really hard. I don’t know where (Buescher) starts but it’s in the top-10 and all I can tell you is there’s no free lunch.
“That’s one of the Bootie’s favorite sayings, nothing is guaranteed. I said it after Richmond that this was going to be a dogfight to the end and that’s what makes Cup drivers so great.”
Briscoe will leave for Joe Gibbs Racing next season but hopes that he can send out the shuttering Stewart-Haas Racing team will a playoff berth for one of its four cars but he’s going to need to win to do it.
He wasn’t sure he had that kind of car until qualifying.
“We were not that great in practice,” Briscoe said. “We were really tight but we got on the other side of it. We are pretty free now, which is a little nerve-wracking for tomorrow. If we can get it somewhere in the middle, I will feel really good about it. I was surprised that lap was third. I am kind of kicking myself because I feel like I definitely could have put it on the pole, but we will see what we have for tomorrow.”
Southern 500 starting lineup
Bubba Wallace
Carson Hocevar (R)
Chase Briscoe
Kyle Larson
Martin Truex Jr.
Tyler Reddick
Ryan Blaney
William Byron
Christopher Bell
Chris Buescher
Austin Cindric
Brad Keselowski
Ty Gibbs
Denny Hamlin
Josh Berry (R)
Austin Dillon
Kyle Busch
John Hunter Nemechek
Corey LaJoie
Chase Elliott
Justin Haley
Ross Chastain
Joey Logano
Harrison Burton
Daniel Hemric
Zane Smith (R)
Alex Bowman
Erik Jones
Noah Gragson
Ryan Preece
Michael McDowell
Daniel Suarez
Todd Gilliland
Shane van Gisbergen
Kaz Grala (R)
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Timmy Hill