What to Watch Out for in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Race at Darlington

What’s Happening?

The unofficial NASCAR throwback weekend continues this evening at the Track Too Tough to Tame as the stars of tomorrow, the greats of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, take to Darlington Raceway for the annual Sports Clips Haircuts 200. It’s a hot night in South Carolina with a lot of storylines heading into tonight’s race. Here’s what need to keep an eye on ahead of tonight’s event.

Pre-Race Fast Notes

• Starting on the pole is Kyle Larson, driving the JR Motorsports No. 88 HendrickCars.com entry. Larson wasn’t originally scheduled to run the race. Instead, it was supposed to be Larson’s Cup Series Hendrick teammate, Alex Bowman. However, with Bowman continuing to face vertigo symptoms, Larson was tapped to run. Young Money, as he was dubbed, won last week’s race in Las Vegas in dramatic fashion and enters today undefeated in the JRM No. 88. More than that, he’s currently going for JRM’s fourth win in a row to start the 2026 season. Can he do it? He’s off to a great start!
• Sharing the front row with Kyle Larson is fellow Cup Series driver Christopher Bell. Bell is running triple duty this weekend as he also ran last night’s Truck race. Bell has been good at Darlington in the past. Look for him to try to take the win away from Larson.
• Though throwback weekend is technically a thing of the past, race teams definitely showed up to the Lady in Black carrying the same throwback tradition of years past. The “theme” this weekend seems to be throwbacks to the late, great Greg Biffle. The 2002 O’Reilly Series champ has a lot of great throwbacks across the three series this weekend at Darlington. But perhaps the best is the livery on the No. 44 of Brennan Poole. Throwing back to Biffle’s iconic mid-2000s National Guard scheme, the No. 44, with its neon yellow numbers, is sure to look sharp beneath the lights at Darlington Raceway.
• The stage breakdown for this evening’s Sports Clips Haircuts 200 is: 45-45-57 for a total of 147 laps. Teams will be given 5 sets of Goodyear Eagles and the pit window is expected to be within 64-67 laps.
• Coverage for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Darlington begins at 5:30 PM EST on The CW.

Starting Lineup

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