NASCAR Report – Regan Smith Wins At Darlington

There were fireworks in the air and on the track following Saturday’s Sprint Cup race at Darlington Speedway.  The biggest story was Regan Smith finally won his first career Cup race after starting a season-worst 23^rd.  And so often it’s pit strategy that puts a driver in position to win a race and that’s exactly what happened.  Smith was one of 18 lead lap cars when the final caution came out and when the other cars in front of him pitted for tires it put him in the lead.  All he had to do was hold off Carl Edwards in a green-white-checkered finish and he did for not only his first win, but his first top-5 finish and only his second top ten.

Smith came close to his first Cup win in 2008 when he crossed the finish line first in the fall race at Talladega, but NASCAR ruled he made an illegal pass below the yellow line coming to the line giving the win to Tony Stewart and pushing Smith all the way back to 18th.

Edwards settled for second but increased his points lead over Jimmie Johnson to 23.  Edwards has five top-5’s and two victories. 

Brad Keselowsi, Kasey Kane and Ryan Newman completed the top-5. 

The fireworks on the track came while Smith was taking his victory lap.   Kevin Harvick got out of his car and approached Kyle Busch’s car while Kyle was still behind the wheel and threw a punch.  While driving off Kyle bumped Harvick’s car into the inside wall.  Both ended up in the NASCAR trailer to talk over not only what happened after the race but about a couple of incidents during the race.  They’ll find out on Tuesday if any fines or suspensions will come out of it.

Juan Montoya and Jimmie Johnson also got tangled up but Montoya apologized and Johnson accepted.  There was also word that Ryan Newman threw a punch at Montoya after an incident they had the week before at Richmond.

Next up on the schedule is Dover next weekend.