Partly cloudy and chilly in the evening; with temperatures hovering around 64.3°F (17.9°C) and wind speeds climbing up to 8.9 miles per hour (14.3km/h)
Darlington Raceway is the second oldest speedway on the NASCAR schedule next to Martinsville Speedway. From above, the track has been long described as being shaped similar to an egg. Consequently, the track's banking is also affected by its shape. The frontstretch and backstretch are banked at 3° and 2°, respectively. Turns 1 and 2, which have a wider radius, are banked at 25° and turns 3 and 4, which are much tighter than the first two, carry 23° of banking.
In the owner points battle, Tommy Baldwin Racing moved into the top-35 in owners' points for the first time on the heels of a 13th-place finish at Richmond, leading to a 3-way tie for 35th between the #32 team of FAS Lane Racing, the #13 team of Germain Racing, and the #71 team of TRG Motorsports.
Kasey Kahne would win the pole with a 27.131. Meanwhile, Scott Riggs would blow an engine coming into his second lap of his qualifying run. While he had set a time, it was not enough to get Riggs into the race, as Joe Nemechek would beat his time.
Regan Smith pulled off an upset and won the Showtime Southern 500 after holding off Carl Edwards on a late restart. There were 11 caution flags, the wildest one happening with 4 laps to go. During a 3 wide situation, Harvick got into Kyle Busch, who in turn got into Bowyer, who slammed the inside wall. He was not injured. Kyle Busch then turned around Harvick in Turn 1. After the race finished Harvick wanted to get Kyle Busch out of the car. After that didn't happen, Harvick went to Busch's car and threw a punch inside Busch's driver window, but Busch then drove off and Busch's car pushed Harvick's #29 car into the pit road wall instead. Tempers flared, and the incident further inflamed the tensions between the two men. After the race Busch and Harvick were both fined $25,000 and placed on probation for 4 races including the All Star Race.
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