By Roy J. Akers — www.skyviewsports.net
Darlington, SC — The first round of the NASCAR Cup playoffs starts at the “Track too tough to Tame,” at Darlington, and while you cannot win the championship in race one, you can all but eliminate yourself barring a win. Drivers have received DNF’s and then cannot overcome it in time to continue to the Round of 12.
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Denny dishes on Darlington
What is the importance of qualifying well at this race?
“Well, we saw in the Spring the 24 (William Bryon) was hard to pass until he got in traffic and that is when it changed. Luckily, we have that type of an advantage at the race. It could end on lap one, and we could be second, but you just never know. I feel like it gives you the advantage to set the pace and then once you get the lap cars, hopefully, you have something left.”
What is you and your team’s achilles heel going into the Playoffs
“Just execution. That is the only thing that I can think of. If it is going to be posted on speed, pit crew, all of those things. We are at the top of the list, certainly in the upper echelon that are going to be racing for the championship, but there is all the variables that we just don’t know about. Ill-timed cautions, you pit, green flag cycle and someone crashes coming onto pit road, and a yellow comes out. It changes the complete complexion of the race, so it is some of the things we can’t control and some the things we can. It is all of the other stuff. It is not speed. It is not qualifying. It is not long run speed. We have all of those things. It is just other things involved in NASCAR racing that can take you out.”
Josh Berry and Austin Cindric on Qualifying
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I’m super proud of that effort. Our big focus was trying to qualify better here and the guys did a great job. I feel like our car is really strong and I’m excited for tomorrow. The biggest thing I feel like I’ve fought here is starting position, so starting up front I think we can just manage the race easier and obviously score some stage points. That’s going to be important, so just having a mistake-free day by taking care of the car and having good pit stops will help keep us in the hunt.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It was a solid day. I feel like I left a little bit out there for my qualifying lap, but, overall, I had really good long run speed. I feel like we have a good window of where to work on our Discount Tire Ford Mustang for 500 miles. It takes total focus and total execution for the whole race. It’s one of our longest and most mentally challenging of the year, so we were able to step through everything today with good execution. I’m happy with that, but tomorrow is a big goal.”
Ryan Preece on what he learned in 2025
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU LEARNED ABOUT YOURSELF THIS YEAR? “There’s a lot of things, but, at the same time, it’s just been a nice change. I feel like there’s a whole bunch of things. I feel like Derrick’s done a great job leading this team. Brad did a great job, along with Josh Sell and everybody over there to put together a solid team for us. We went out and I feel like, for a first year team, we executed really well. Outside of winning right now, I feel like we’re hitting lot of the things that we need to hit on and I would say the last 10 races is all about continuing to build momentum for next year. We’ve put ourselves in position to capitalize, it just didn’t work out.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS SEASON CAN STILL BE VIEWED AS A SUCCESS FOR THE 60 TEAM? “First off, I think it’s really challenging with the way the format is. Look at Chris, he was top 10 in points and didn’t make the playoffs because he didn’t win a race yet. If you looked at Dale Jarrett or Bobby Labonte in the 2000s and said, ‘Hey, man. You finished 10th in points, would you consider this a successful year?’ What would you say? I don’t know. It just depends. For me, I think we have goals that we want to accomplish and, don’t get me wrong, going into the season we all said it wouldn’t be successful if we didn’t make the playoffs. We had to win, but this is the situation we’re in and we still have 10 races moving forward to do that.”
Roy J. Akers covers NASCAR for www.skyviewsports.net
