Happy Hour Racing

09/06/2026

Daytona is the worst race track of William Byron's career. A 21.0 average finish over 18 starts, eight of them DNFs, and a 34.3 percent retirement rate across all superspeedways.

It is also where his win rate is highest, 8.6 percent, ahead of every other kind of track, and he has won the Daytona 500 back to back.

Full breakdown on our YouTube channel. Gear at HappyHourRacing.com

09/06/2026

Sheldon Creed opened the O'Reilly Series Chase the best way possible, winning the Fleetio 200 at Darlington and leading the final 53 laps in the No. 00. His pit crew got him out front off the stage-two stop and he never gave it back, beating Corey Day by 2.961 seconds. Justin Allgaier led a race-high 60 laps and looked like the class of the field until he found the wall with 23 to go and fell to 17th. A 35-point championship lead is now seven points with eight races left.

Sheldon Creed Wins O'Reilly Series Chase Opener at Darlington Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing race recap - the day-after breakdown of what actually decided the race, told fan to fan. Sheldon Creed's No. 00 Chevrolet earlier in the 2026 NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series season. (Photo: Nascar9919, C...

09/06/2026

Chase Briscoe wins the Southern 500 tonight. He has won the last two, he led 309 of 367 laps here a year ago, and nobody in the field got a single practice lap this weekend. That helps the guy who already knows this place better than anybody. Green flag at 5pm ET on USA. Follow if you think Chase Briscoe is going to win Sunday.

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09/06/2026

The Chase starts Sunday at Darlington, and it starts with the guy who has won more races than anybody who never won a title. Denny Hamlin is the top seed at his best track, in the first format that actually rewards being steady. Chase Briscoe is going for three Southern 500s in a row, which nobody has done since Jeff Gordon. Ten races, no eliminations, and the Lady in Black gets first crack at all of them.

Southern 500 Sunday at Darlington: Denny Hamlin's Best Shot Yet and Chase Briscoe's Shot at History Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Race Preview - where we skip the numbers and talk about the stories you will actually be arguing about Sunday night. Darlington under a setting sun. The Southern 500 s...

09/06/2026

Zero. That is how many laps anybody turned at Darlington this weekend. Lightning wiped out practice and qualifying, so NASCAR handed Tyler Reddick the Southern 500 pole on a formula, 70 percent last week's finish and 30 percent owner points. Sixteen Chase drivers open the biggest ten races of the year at the hardest track on the schedule with zero data. Follow us for live race day takes.

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09/05/2026

William Byron does not have a speed problem, he has a holding problem. In nine Cup seasons he has never once finished the year where he qualified it. Career average, minus 2.88 positions a race.

The closest he came was 2023 at minus 0.08, and that is the season he won six races, a series high, and posted the only average finish under 12 of his career.

Full breakdown on our YouTube channel. Gear at HappyHourRacing.com

09/05/2026

Here is what everyone got wrong about Austin Cindric this week. Penske took his 10th ranked pit crew and handed it to Ryan Blaney, and Cindric said out loud that it is not my race team. Jordan Bianchi now reports the 2 and Penske already agreed to an extension, so the guy they stripped for parts is the guy they are keeping.

Follow us for live race day takes all weekend.

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09/05/2026

NASCAR Cup Series race week at Darlington, and we are taking Chase Briscoe to win the Cook Out Southern 500.

Darlington runs the short track package, and Briscoe's last four short track runs are 5th, 3rd, 6th and 2nd. He ran an 8.97 average running position here in March and finished 12th from 25th on the grid. Tyler Reddick is the problem: he won the Goodyear 400 here from the pole and leads the series with five wins.

Who you got for the Southern 500? Comment your winner.

09/05/2026

Southern 500 pick 2026: Chase Briscoe at Darlington.

Everyone is on Denny Hamlin this week and the case is easy. Five Darlington wins, an 8.0 average finish, the No. 1 seed in the Chase. We are going the other way. Chase Briscoe has won the Cook Out Southern 500 two years running, and he did it with two different teams and two different manufacturers, the No. 14 Ford at Stewart-Haas in 2024 and the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2025. Last September he led 309 of the 367 laps. Change everything around the driver and the result stayed the same.

Nobody has won three Southern 500s in a row since Jeff Gordon won four straight from 1995 to 1998. Briscoe opens the Chase as the No. 5 seed, 45 points behind Hamlin, and under the new format a win pays 55 points with no elimination rounds across the 10 races.

Green flag Sunday, September 6 at 5:00 p.m. ET on USA.

Who is your pick for Sunday?

Chase Briscoe gear: https://happyhourracing.com/products/checkered-flag-sports-chase-briscoe-14-nascar-2024-southern-500-at-darlington-9-1-2024-win-t-shirt

Photos: Wikimedia Commons / TaurusEmerald (CC BY-SA 4.0), Zach Catanzareti Photo (CC BY 2.0), Nascar9919 (CC BY 4.0), Brycenrichter (CC0), formulanone (CC BY-SA 2.0), Randall Stewart (public domain). Graphics: Happy Hour Racing.

09/05/2026

The Chase opens Sunday at Darlington, and the Lady in Black does not care that it is race one. 367 laps, 501 miles, and the roughest tires on the schedule. Chase Briscoe has won the last two Southern 500s and led 309 of 367 laps here a year ago, so he is our pick to make it three straight. Only Jeff Gordon has ever done that.

Full data breakdown, past winners and the pick are on the blog.

https://happyhourracing.com/blogs/news/southern-500-pick-2026-chase-briscoe-at-darlington

Southern 500 Pick 2026: Chase Briscoe at Darlington, By the Numbers Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Friday Track Preview - the data side of the weekend. We dig into the numbers, the track history, and the one driver the stats point to. Saturday's preview handles the storylines and the drama. Darlin...