Regan Smith

This time there was no yellow line standing between Regan Smith and his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory.

Smith and his crew gambled and won, using pit strategy to grab the lead and then holding off Carl Edwards in a green-white-checkered finish to score the Denver, Colorado-based Furniture Row Racing team their first victory in Saturday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. 

Smith grabbed the lead with 11 laps to after his team elected not to pit when the rest of the field came to pit road under caution and held the top spot through as the final yellow flag came out with five laps to go to set up the overtime finish.

Brad Keselowski finished third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman

Smith leads Edwards down the stretch

It was Smith’s best finish since finishing seventh in the season-opening Daytona 500, and a final vindication for a victory that slipped through his fingers nearly two years ago

“I don't really know how to put it in words right now. It is so surreal right now,” said Smith.

It was Talladega in October of 2008 where Smith rocketed past Tony Stewart on the last lap to cross the finish line first for what seemed like his first win, but shortly after the checkered flag, NASCAR ruled Smith had passed Stewart below the yellow line.

Smith was penalized and moved back to 18 place, and was left spending the next few months trying to figure out how he would ever find vindication.

“I didn't know if I was ever going to get it back,” said Smith. “To get it back at Darlington, absolutely it's vindication.  Winning here to me means more to me than that win could have ever meant.  I don't think I'll go to bed tonight thinking about Talladega, that's for sure

“This is a lot cooler race than Talladega to win, no offense. It just goes down different and it feels different at the end of the day. It feels a lot different at the end of the day when you say 'Hey, I won a race at Darlington'. The names that have won here...the Pearsons, Yarboroughs and on and on, you name it. I was sitting behind some of those guys today and I was thinking 'Man, these guys are pretty awesome. They are legendary'. I don't know if my name deserves to be next to them, but after tonight, maybe it does."

Late in Saturday’s event, it looked like Edwards race to lose.

After trading the top spot with Kasey Kahne for much of the last half of the race. Edwards was leading when Jeff Burton’s engine let go on lap 359, which brought Edwards and most of the field to pit road.

Smith and Keselowski decided to stay out and gain track position, moving up to first and second, respectively.

It was a gamble Elliott Sadler and his team had tried, unsuccessfully, in the Nationwide Series race the night before, as Kyle Busch rocketed past on fresh tires to win the race.

On the restart with five laps to go, Smith spun the tires and looked like a sitting duck, but Keselowski checked up, holding off Edwards before finally getting up to speed. Half a lap later, Edwards darted inside of Keselowski to take second began to close in on Smith when the real fireworks began.

Running three-wide in the middle of the pack, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer made contact, sending Bowyer head-on into the inside wall. Busch and Harvick continued to make contact coming down the front stretch, with Harvick spinning and hitting the outside wall.

The incident set up a three-lap shootout with Edwards on the outside of Smith. On the restart, Smith managed to get a good jump that proved to be just enough to hold onto he lead.

Edwards closed right in on Smith’s bumper on the final lap, with everyone anticipating a bump-and-go maneuver, but Smith just managed to stay ahead of Edwards to the finish, winning by half a car-length.

“Man, I really felt like that was our race to win,” said Edwards. “We had a great lead that we earned all night and it was unfortunate we had that yellow.  Regan is a heck of a guy.  That’s NASCAR racing and as upset as I am to have lost that race, I’m happy for Regan and his accomplishment, but I’ll run that one back a few times in my head.”

Following the race, Harvick and Kyle Busch stopped on pit road with Harvick climbing out of his car to confront Busch.

Before he could reach Busch’s window, Busch hit the gas and pushed Harvick’s car out of the way and continued to the garage, while Harvick’s unmanned no. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet careened into the pit wall.

“When he pulled up next to me, I tried to back up.  I put my car in reverse and tried to back up and I blew reverse out of the transmission,” said Busch. “My choices were limited, I was either going to get punched in the face and then wait for Harvick to get back in his car for me to go or just drive through his car and push it out of the way so I could get out of there and try not to get hit or anything like that.  I hate it that somebody could have gotten hurt, but I was just trying to get away from it and get back to my hauler and go on with my own business.”

Following the incident, both drivers and their team owners were called to the NASCAR hauler, and afterwards Harvick had little to say about what was discussed.

“I don’t have anything really to tell you other than not much,” said Harvick.

When asked if anything had been settled between the two drivers, Harvick simply said, “You saw the end.”

Results

FIN	ST	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	SPONSOR	PTS/BNS	LAPS	STATUS
1	23	78	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	Furniture Row Companies	47/1	370	Running
2	4	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	Aflac	43/1	370	Running
3	10	2	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	Miller Lite	41/0	370	Running
4	1	4	Kasey Kahne	Toyota	Red Bull	42/2	370	Running
5	2	39	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	Tornados	40/1	370	Running
6	3	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	Sport Clips	38/0	370	Running
7	9	14	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	Office Depot / Mobil 1	38/1	370	Running
8	22	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	3M	36/0	370	Running
9	12	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	Bass Pro Shops / Tracker	36/1	370	Running
10	29	56	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	NAPA Auto Parts	35/1	370	Running
11	14	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	Wrigley's Doublemint	34/1	370	Running
12	5	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	Drive to End Hunger	32/0	370	Running
13	6	9	Marcos Ambrose	Ford	Stanley	31/0	370	Running
14	30	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	Amp Energy Sugar Free / National Guard	30/0	370	Running
15	19	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	Lowe's / Kobalt Tools	29/0	370	Running
16	36	00	David Reutimann	Toyota	Aaron's Outdoors Mossy Oak	28/0	370	Running
17	13	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	Budweiser	28/1	370	Running
18	15	47	Bobby Labonte	Toyota	Lance Snacks / Tom's Snacks	27/1	370	Running
19	28	5	Mark Martin	Chevrolet	GoDaddy.com	25/0	370	Running
20	7	43	A.J. Allmendinger	Ford	Best Buy	24/0	370	Running
21	11	6	David Ragan	Ford	UPS "We Love Logistics"	23/0	370	Running
22	18	27	Paul Menard	Chevrolet	Turtle Wax / Menards	22/0	370	Running
23	16	42	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet	Target	21/0	368	Running
24	41	36	Dave Blaney	Chevrolet	Golden Corral	20/0	367	Running
25	20	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	Wiley X Sunglasses	19/0	366	Running
26	21	38	Travis Kvapil	Ford	Long John Silver's	0	365	Running
27	25	22	Kurt Busch	Dodge	Shell / Pennzoil	17/0	364	Running
28	40	32	Ken Schrader	Ford	H&B Railroad / U.S. Chrome	17/1	364	Running
29	27	09	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	Thank A Teacher Today / Security Benefit	0	364	Running
30	32	13	Casey Mears	Toyota	GEICO	15/1	364	Running
31	26	33	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet	BB&T	13/0	363	Running
32	37	34	David Gilliland	Ford	Taco Bell	12/0	362	Running
33	24	31	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet	Caterpillar	11/0	358	In Pit
34	8	83	Brian Vickers	Toyota	Red Bull	10/0	332	Running
35	17	20	Joey Logano	Toyota	The Home Depot	9/0	318	Running
36	35	37	Tony Raines	Ford	Front Row Motorsports	8/0	172	In Pit
37	42	7	Robby Gordon	Dodge	Fast Five / Speed Energy	7/0	87	In Pit
38	33	150	T.J. Bell	Toyota	Bandit Industries	0	67	In Pit
39	31	46	J.J. Yeley	Chevrolet	Red Line Oil	5/0	34	Out of Race
40	34	60	Mike Skinner	Toyota	Big Red	0	29	In Pit
41	38	30	David Stremme	Chevrolet	Inception Motorsports	3/0	27	Out of Race
42	43	87	Joe Nemechek	Toyota	NEMCO Motorsports	0	22	Out of Race
43	39	66	Michael McDowell	Toyota	K-Love	1/0	7	In Pit

* Denotes Rookie