William Byron Captures Pole for Darlington Throwback Race, Preece 2nd

Driving a silver Axalta paint scheme adorned with flames, reminiscent of the car that Jeff Gordon piloted in the 2015 NASCAR Cup Series season finale, William Byron took the pole position at Darlington Raceway on Saturday afternoon.

The driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet turned a lap time of 28.774 seconds (170.904 mph) around the 1.366-mile egg-shaped speedway to secure his second pole of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and the 15th pole position of his young career.

Byron, who considers Darlington Raceway his best track, says that his team, led by crew chief Rudy Fugle, did a great job honing in the handle on his No. 24 Chevrolet in practice, which put him in a position to snag the pole position.

"Yeah, I felt good about it today. I felt like we had a good plan going into practice," Byron said in his post-qualifying press conference. "I feel like we're always strong here. It's a really good track for our team, and myself. Just tried to find a decent balance there to start. We were a little bit tighter than we wanted to be, so, we pitted and worked on it, and got a lot better."

Byron was able to narrowly defeat Ryan Preece, the driver of the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse by 0.084 seconds on his pole-winning run.

STARTING LINEUP: Goodyear 400 at Darlington

For Preece, he is on the biggest hot streak of his 194-race NASCAR Cup Series career heading into this weekend's event at Darlington Raceway. Preece captured a career-best third consecutive top-10 finish a weekend ago at Martinsville Speedway, and he'll look to extend that streak to four races in Sunday's Goodyear 400.

Denny Hamlin, who picked up his first win of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season a weekend ago at Martinsville, will start from the third position Sunday at Darlington.

Chase Briscoe, who won last Fall's Southern 500 at Darlington -- the most recent NASCAR Cup Series event at the track -- will start alongside his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate as he was fourth-fastest in the qualifying session in the No. 19 Joe GIbbs Racing Toyota.

Bubba Wallace, who has recorded third-place finishes in each of the last two races, will chase his first win of the season from the fifth starting spot.

Austin Cindric, driving a throwback paint scheme to Dale Earnhardt's 1979 and 1980 No. 2 Osterlund Racing machine, will start from the sixth position, and he'll be followed by Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Michael McDowell to the green flag in Sunday's race at Darlington Raceway.

Ty Gibbs, who picked up his first top-15 finish of what has been a frustrating start to the 2025 season, will start from the 11th position.

John Hunter Nemechek spun out in Saturday's NASCAR Cup Series practice session, but aside from flat-spotting his tires, Nemechek was able to avoid damage to his car. Nemechek was able to participate in qualifying on Saturday, and will start from the 27th position on Sunday afternoon.

Other notables in the starting lineup include Chase Elliott (15th), Joey Logano (18th), Kyle Larson (19th), defending race-winner Brad Keselowski (20th), and former Southern 500 winner Erik Jones (34th).

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