(photo credit Leon Hammack)

It was a race that didn’t follow form—not anywhere close.

The presumptive favorites for the NASCAR Cup Series championship didn’t perform like favorites in Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500, the opening race in the 2025 Playoffs.

Defending series champion Joey Logano, whose Fords typically spring to life in the postseason, drove a lethargic No. 22 Mustang at to a lackluster 20th-place finish at Darlington Raceway.

“Yeah, it was surprising,” conceded Logano, who heads for next Sunday’s Playoff race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway three points below the current elimination line for the Round of 12.

“I thought we would be able to run in the top 10, just because off of history and because we’ve been there in the past, but when everyone got better, we didn’t.”

If there was a positive side to Logano’s performance in the first Playoff race, at least he kept his car out of harm’s way for most of the evening.

“We just had no grip,” Logano said. “There isn’t much to say outside of that. It wasn’t good enough. This has been a good track for us in the past, but I don’t know. Some of our cars were decent at times, but not like we have been here.

“It’s a bit of a head scratcher to try to understand. I don’t know where we are in points, but it’s obviously not the day we wanted. We just did a good job of not making a bad day worse.”

Clearly, it was an inauspicious start to Logano’s title defense and to Team Penske’s hopes of winning a fourth straight championship for the organization.

The night was perhaps even more disappointing to Hendrick Motorsports, which entered the postseason with the top two seeds on the Playoff grid—2021 champion Kyle Larson and Regular Season Champion William Byron.

It was Chase Elliott, however, who led the Hendrick contingent with a 17th-place finish. Byron never recovered from a slow pit stop, and Larson faded in the final 48-lap green-flag run. Larson finished 19th and Byron 21st. Neither performed like a champion.

“It was a good thing we were able to get those stage points early” said Larson, who finished sixth in Stage 1 and fourth in Stage 2. “I felt pretty average all night. We had a lot of stack-ups on the restarts. I’m not sure why, but we had a big one there in the final stage and we just struggled after that.

“I’m not sure if the splitter got bent up or what happened, but it just took all my problems and made it all worse. We also had radio issues and all sorts of other problems, so to have a bad race and still gain on the cutline is rewarding…

“It’s typically a good track for us, so I’m not sure, but we’ll regroup and hopefully rebound in the next two races.”

Larson did gain 12 points on the elimination line and is now 38 points to the good. But neither he nor Byron nor Elliott turned in a performance that suggests a championship may be in the offing.

Their efforts stood in sharp contrast to those of race winner Chase Briscoe, who led 309 of 367 laps and swept the first two stages. Thanks to the victory, Briscoe knows he’ll be racing in the Round of 12. There are no other guarantees issuing from Sunday night’s race.

There was a silver lining to the relative disappearance of a handful of favorites. It allowed others to shine, notably Bubba Wallace, who overcame one slow pit stop to finish sixth.

Fifth in the first stage and seventh in the second, Wallace climbed to fifth on the Playoff grid, tied with Byron at 25 points above the cut line.

Then again, it was a night for Toyotas to excel at the expense of the Chevrolets and Fords. Behind Briscoe and runner-up Tyler Reddick, non-Playoff drivers Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek of LEGACY Motor Club were third and fourth, as Toyota drivers occupied six of the top seven finishing positions for the first time in Cup Series history.

Byron summed up the outlook for the teams that didn’t perform up to potential.

“As good as we normally are (at Darlington), it’s definitely a bummer,” he said. “…We’ve definitely got some work to do. We’ll go to Gateway and try to be better there.”

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!