The Chase opens Sunday with the Cook Out Southern 500, 367 laps at Darlington. Denny Hamlin is the favorite at +425, the shortest price on any driver at any book. Our 10,000 runs of the race give the most wins to Tyler Reddick. Reddick wins 19% of them. Hamlin wins 16%.
Hamlin leads the most laps in our runs
We run the race 10,000 times before the green flag, and every number on the table comes out of those runs.
Projects to finish 7th is a driver's median finish across the 10,000 runs: he finishes 7th or better in half of them and 7th or worse in the other half.
Win 18.8% is the share of runs he won. Top 10 84% is the share of runs he finished inside the top 10.
The table is ordered by average finish, which is why 2 drivers who project to the same finish can sit in different rows.
Hamlin projects to finish 5th, the best number in the field. He finishes inside the top 10 in 84% of our runs. He is projected for 47 laps led, the most of anyone entered. Reddick projects to finish 6th. He is projected for 26 laps led, and he comes out of the runs with the highest win rate in the field anyway. Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe both project to finish 7th.
9 of the last 11 Southern 500 laps leaders lost
Since 2015 the driver who led the most laps in the Southern 500 has won it 2 times in 11 tries. Hamlin did it in 2017. Briscoe did it in 2025 by leading 309 laps, the most any driver has led in a Darlington Cup race since 2005. In 7 of the 11 races the winner led fewer than 60 laps. Larson led 284 laps in 2018 and finished 3rd, then led 263 in 2024 and finished 4th. Brad Keselowski has been on both sides of it, leading 196 laps in 2015 and finishing 2nd to Carl Edwards, who led 15, then winning in 2018 with 24 laps led.
The laps pay anyway if you play daily fantasy. On DraftKings a driver scores for laps led and for fastest laps on top of his finish, and the Southern 500 pays a bigger share of its points that way than the rest of the schedule. Since 2015, 19.8% of the DraftKings points scored in the Southern 500 came from laps led and fastest laps. The spring Darlington race pays 15.8%. Every other Cup track pays 15.4%. DraftKings prices Hamlin at $11,000, the highest salary on the slate, and he is projected for 45% ownership, meaning close to half the lineups entered Sunday are expected to include him. Reddick costs $10,500 and is projected for 41%.
Larson's Southern 500 average finish is 7.0
Larson has made 10 Southern 500 starts, and his average finish in them is 7.0, the best of anyone entered Sunday. He has led 976 laps in the race, the most of any driver in the field. His 1 win came in 2023, from 18th on the grid. Only 3 drivers entered Sunday have won the Southern 500 more often than Larson, and none of them has led as many of its laps. This season he has no wins in 26 starts. His average finish is 17.2, the worst of the 8 drivers priced at +1000 or shorter. The books have him at +700, the fourth choice. He projects to finish 7th. He wins 7% of our runs. He costs $10,000 on DraftKings and is projected for 29% ownership.
William Byron projects to finish 9th. He wins 11% of our runs, and only Reddick and Hamlin win more. The best price on him is +1000, and DraftKings prices him at $9,400 with 22% projected ownership. His Southern 500 average finish in 8 starts is 19.8. Ryan Blaney is the other disagreement. He projects to finish 8th. He finishes inside the top 10 in 69% of our runs, and only Hamlin does it more often. In 11 Southern 500 starts Blaney has 1 top-10 finish.
The projections page re-runs 10,000 sims every time driver news hits the wire or a session wraps up, for both Darlington races.
See the numbers as they moveThe Fleetio 200 on Saturday
Saturday's Fleetio 200 runs come back with Justin Allgaier winning 32% of them, and the next-best rate in the O'Reilly field is 11%. Allgaier projects to finish 4th. He finishes inside the top 10 in 88% of our runs. DraftKings prices him at $12,000, and he is projected for 45% ownership. Carson Kvapil and Brandon Jones both project to finish 6th. Corey Day projects to finish 7th. Sheldon Creed projects to finish 8th. Creed wins 9% of our runs. Austin Hill projects to finish 9th. He wins 11% of our runs, and only Allgaier wins more. Hill runs the Fleetio 200 and the Southern 500 this weekend, and his Cup entry projects to finish 27th.
The Fleetio 200 goes green Saturday, Sep 5 at 7:30 pm ET on The CW. O'Reilly Series practice runs Saturday, Sep 5 at 1:30 pm ET, with qualifying right after it. Allgaier is the only driver in either race this weekend who wins more than 20% of our runs.
The Cook Out Southern 500 goes green Sunday, Sep 6 at 5:00 pm ET on USA Network, streaming on Peacock. Cup practice runs Saturday, Sep 5 at 4:00 pm ET on truTV, with qualifying right after it. Hamlin has 2 Southern 500 wins since 2015, in 2017 and 2021, and the market has him the favorite for a 3rd. Reddick has no Southern 500 wins in 6 starts, with 3 top-5 finishes. Saturday's qualifying sets the starting spots, and 8 of the last 11 Southern 500 winners started 8th or worse.
Full projections for both Darlington races, re-simmed through qualifying and driver news, right up to the green flag. The dynamic projections page is $5 a month; Pro opens the whole site.
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