After a rain-delayed start to the Bojangles’ Southern
500, the historic race kicked-off a little after 10:00 p.m. eastern-time on
Sunday night. Erik Jones captured his second career victory in the Monster
Energy NASCAR Cup Series, clinching his spot in the 2019 playoffs.
With the NASCAR Playoff bubble points being close
going into 500-mile event, drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, and Daniel
Suarez all had high hopes of finishing strong.
Unfortunately for Johnson, the driver of the No. 48
Ally Chevrolet Camaro was involved in a multi-car accident on Lap 275.
Finishing the race in the 16th position, Johnson sits 18 points outside of the
playoffs and faces a must-win scenario heading into Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The eye-catching story of the Southern 500 was the
events between Newman and Suarez. The Ford Performance rivals had an incident on
Lap 140 causing Newman to spin off Turn 2 bringing out the fourth caution of
the night.
Newman became highly irate after the incident, telling
his team that Suarez has one coming for him. As for Suarez, he just saw it as
hard racing and stated that he did not even touch the No. 6 Oscar Mayer /
Velveeta Ford Mustang.
“That’s a racing thing,” Suarez said after the race. “I
didn’t touch him. As a driver it’s very, very easy to know that the guy behind
you is very, very close and to feel that air, but he’s experienced to know.
Once he sees the race he’s going to realize that we didn’t touch. It was
everything aero and just hard racing, that’s it.”
Whether Suarez touched Newman or not, the altercation
became the post-race talk of the night as both drivers are trying to race
themselves into the playoffs.
“I have to watch the replay,” Newman said after the
race. “They said he hit me, but I don’t know. He had me jacked up sideways
going into the corner, so do I owe him? Probably a little something.”
Suarez ultimately placed 11th while Newman brought
home his Ford machine in the 23rd position. Suarez recorded his highest
finishing position at the South Carolina oval and is looking forward to the Big
Machine Vodka Brickyard 400 this upcoming weekend.
“We were confident in our car all weekend, but with
the big weather changes and things like that, we had to work on it quite a bit
during the race to keep up with the track,” Suarez said. “With the playoffs, I
think we’re putting on a good show for all the fans, and now being tied heading
to Indianapolis that makes things even more interesting, so I’m really looking
forward to the challenge.”
Newman heads back to the track where he won back in
2013. The Cup Series veteran has far more experience than Suarez but is seeking
to overcome his eventful weekend at Darlington Raceway.
“We got spun and we came back, and we did not have a
top 10 finish, so it’s unfortunate,” Newman said. “We lost some points today,
but we’ve got a lot of fight in us and we’ll go into the last one here in the
regular season and fight.”
The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
schedule is the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, Sept. 8 at Indianapolis Motor
Speedway. The race starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC and
SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
