Friday 5: Will Darlington finish change how drivers race on big tracks?

Three times in the last seven Cup races, contact among the leaders in the final laps changed who won.

Joey Logano’s shove, which knocked William Byron out of the lead and into the wall last weekend at Darlington Raceway, was different. Previous duels at the end of races were at short tracks or a road course, not an oval more than 1 mile in length. 

With 10 winners in the first 12 races and eight of the remaining 14 regular-season races at tracks more than 1 mile in length, is the game changing? Is contact becoming acceptable on tracks more than 1 mile in length?

Typically, contact is limited at bigger tracks because of the speeds and the potential for injury. As drivers continue to emerge from cars after big hits without serious injury, their aggression escalates. Add that a victory puts a driver in a playoff position and drivers become more daring.

Eight of this season’s 12 Cup races has had an incident either coming to the white flag, on the final lap or as the field crossed the finish line. The Daytona 500, Auto Club Speedway, Atlanta, Talladega and Darlington — all tracks more than 1 mile in length — had such late-race contact.

As the series hits the halfway mark of the regular season this weekend, eight of the 16 drivers who won a race last year have yet to win, which adds to the building pressure.

“If you get a run and you can get a guy up the track, you probably do it,” said Austin Dillon, who holds what would be the final playoff spot heading into Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile track.

“It’s much tougher at a mile and a half not to take yourself out of the race as well. I feel like there’s usually plenty of room at a mile and a half. You’ve seen some slide jobs go wrong at mile and a halves. Those