2025 Cook Out Southern 500

2025 Cook Out Southern 500

Race details[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Race 27 of 36 in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series
Date	August 31, 2025 (2025-08-31)
Location	Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	1.366 miles (2.198 km)
Distance	367 laps, 501.322 mi (806.666 km)
Average speed	130.148 miles per hour (209.453 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing
Time	28.694
Most laps led
Driver	Chase Briscoe	Joe Gibbs Racing
Laps	309
Fastest lap
Driver	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing
Time	29.039
Winner
No. 19	Chase Briscoe	Joe Gibbs Racing
Television in the United States
Network	USA
Announcers	Leigh Diffey, Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte
Nielsen ratings	1.88 million
Radio in the United States
Radio	MRN
Booth announcers	Alex Hayden, Mike Bagley and Todd Gordon
Turn announcers	Dave Moody (1–2) and Kurt Becker (3–4)

The 2025 Cook Out Southern 500, the 76th running of the event, was a NASCAR Cup Series race held on August 31, 2025, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina on the 1.366-mile (2.198 km) speedway, it was the 27th race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, first race of the playoffs, and the final Crown Jewel of the year.

Chase Briscoe won the race. Tyler Reddick finished 2nd, and Erik Jones finished 3rd. John Hunter Nemechek and A. J. Allmendinger rounded out the top five, and Bubba Wallace, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Carson Hocevar, and Chris Buescher rounded out the top ten.

Darlington Raceway is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is nicknamed "The Lady in Black" and "The Track Too Tough to Tame" by many NASCAR fans and drivers and advertised as "A NASCAR Tradition." It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that is effective at both ends.

• (R) denotes rookie driver.
• (P) denotes playoff driver.
• (i) denotes driver who is ineligible for series driver points.

Michael McDowell was the fastest in the practice session with a time of 29.007 seconds and a speed of 169.531 mph (272.834 km/h).

Denny Hamlin scored the pole for the race with a time of 28.694 and a speed of 171.381 mph (275.811 km/h).^[7]

Stage One Laps: 115

Stage Two Laps: 115

Stage Three Laps: 137

• Lead changes: 24 among 10 different drivers
• Cautions/Laps: 7 for 37
• Red flags: 0
• Time of race: 3 hours, 51 minutes and 7 seconds
• Average speed: 130.148 miles per hour (209.453 km/h)

USA covered the race on the television side. Leigh Diffey, two–time Darlington winner Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte called the race from the broadcast booth. Dave Burns, Kim Coon, Parker Kligerman and Marty Snider handled the pit road duties from pit lane.

MRN had the radio call for the race, which was also simulcast on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 7 1 Chase Briscoe 2,070 1 2 Denny Hamlin 2,067 (–3) 2 3 Kyle Larson 2,062 (–8) 10 4 Tyler Reddick 2,059 (–11) 4 5 Bubba Wallace 2,049 (–21) 4 6 William Byron 2,049 (–21) 3 7 Ryan Blaney 2,046 (–24) 3 8 Ross Chastain 2,045 (–25) 1 9 Austin Cindric 2,036 (–34) 5 10 Christopher Bell 2,035 (–35) 4 11 Chase Elliott 2,033 (–37) 6 12 Shane van Gisbergen 2,027 (–43) 1 13 Joey Logano 2,024 (–46) 1 14 Austin Dillon 2,019 (–51) 1 15 Alex Bowman 2,008 (–62) 3 16 Josh Berry 2,008 (–62) Official driver's standings

Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos Manufacturer Points 1 Chevrolet 992 2 Toyota 960 (–32) 3 Ford 899 (–93) Note: Only the first 16 positions are included for the driver standings.