The 2012 Bojangles' Southern 500 was the 63rd running of the event, and the eleventh stock car race of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on May 12, 2012, at the Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. The 368-lap race was won by Jimmie Johnson for the Hendrick Motorsports team. It was Johnson's first win of the season, and Hendrick Motorsport's 200th in NASCAR; Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing finished second and Stewart–Haas Racing driver Tony Stewart took third.
Greg Biffle led the Drivers' Championship by seven points over his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Matt Kenseth in second. He won the pole position by posting the fastest lap in qualifying, and led the first 48 laps until the first round of green flag pit stops in which Kyle Busch emerged in the lead. Biffle retook the lead on the 73rd lap and again lost it after the second pit stop cycle. Johnson took the lead for the first time on lap 101, and led a total of 134 laps, more than any other competitor. At the final restart on lap 367 for a green–white–checkered finish, extending the race to 368 laps, Johnson led the field and maintained it to win the race. Hamlin finished second after passing Stewart who had problems with his car's fuel pressure. There were eight cautions and 22 lead changes among eight drivers during the race.
The result of the event advanced Johnson from eighth to fifth in the Drivers' Championship, 39 points behind Biffle, who led the standings going into the race, but his teammate Matt Kenseth reduced his lead to two points. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, eight points ahead of Toyota in second place. Ford continued to hold the third position over Dodge in the battle for the place with 25 races left in the season. The race attracted 5.716 million television viewers.
Background
The 2012 Bojangles' Southern 500 was the eleventh stock car race out of thirty-six of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was scheduled to run for 367 laps over a distance of , and was held on May 12, in Darlington, South Carolina, at Darlington Raceway, an intermediate oval track which began hosting NASCAR races in the 1950 Grand National Series; The standard track is a paved egg-shaped four-turn oval superspeedway. Its first two turns are banked at 25 degrees, while the final two turns are banked two degrees lower at 23 degrees. The front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the back stretch are banked at three and two degrees, respectively.
Before the race, Greg Biffle led the Drivers' Championship with 378 points, and Matt Kenseth stood in second with 371. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was third with 369 points, 18 in front of Denny Hamlin and 36 ahead of Kevin Harvick in fourth and fifth. Martin Truex Jr. with 332 points was four points ahead of Tony Stewart, as Jimmie Johnson with 324 points, was 16 points ahead of Kyle Busch, and 22 in front of Clint Bowyer. Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski completed the top twelve drivers. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet was leading with 63 points, five ahead of Toyota. Ford, with 53 points, was seven points ahead of Dodge in the battle for third. Regan Smith was the race's defending champion after winning it in 2011.
The start time of the race was moved from 7:30 pm local time to 7:00 pm following a successful request made by Darlingon Raceway president Chris Browning to NASCAR to accommodate fan surveys asking for the race to end at approximately 11:00 pm. There was one driver change going into the race. BK Racing announced that driver Travis Kvapil would compete in its 73 car starting from the Darlington event. Kvapil said in a media release that he was looking forward to working with the team, and his crew chief Ben Leslie at the track, "The guys at the shop are working really hard to prepare the car and get everything ready for this weekend. We're proud of what we've accomplished so far and hope that this race is another step in our growth."
Practice and qualifying
Two practice sessions were held on the Friday before the race. The first session lasted 120 minutes, and the second 45 minutes. In the first session, Harvick was quickest with a time of 27.769 seconds, around one-tenth of a second faster than Biffle. Kurt Busch was third, followed by Edwards, Stewart, Truex, Johnson, Ryan Newman, Joey Logano, and A. J. Allmendinger in positions four to ten. Aric Almirola spun 360 degrees leaving the fourth turn, but he avoided contact with the wall beside the track. In the second practice session, Allmendinger was fastest with a lap of 28.097 seconds. Biffle followed Allmendinger in the second position, with Edwards third quickest. Johnson, Travis Kvapil, Paul Menard, Landon Cassill, Josh Wise, Michael McDowell, and David Stremme rounded out the session's top ten fastest drivers.
There were forty-seven cars entered in the qualifying session on Friday evening, due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, forty-three were allowed to race. Each driver ran two laps, with the starting order determined by the competitor's fastest times. Biffle clinched his second pole position of the season, his second at Darlington Raceway, and the eleventh of his career, with a time of 27.281 seconds, the only qualifying lap to go below 27.300 seconds. Johnson and his teammate Kahne qualified 0.105 seconds behind, but Johnson joined Biffle on the grid's front row because of a better Owner's Championship position compared to Kahne. Newman took fourth place, ahead of Kyle Busch and Truex in fifth and sixth. Edwards qualified in seventh place, while Hamlin followed in eighth. Smith and Jeff Burton completed the first ten starting positions. The four drivers who failed to qualify were Scott Riggs, McDowell, Stephen Leicht, and Mike Bliss.
Once the qualifying session concluded, Drivers' Championship leader Biffle stated, "This is what a race car driver looks forward to, showing up every weekend and having a really fast car to drive. They're making me look good so far." Afterward, he described his qualifying lap as "pretty uneventful", adding, "The car just had a ton of grip — it stuck to the race track really, really well. I felt like I was a little bit light down in Turns 1 and 2 — I should have been a little bit quicker down there — but I got a lot out of it in 3 and 4, so it was a great lap."
Qualifying results Grid Driver Team Manufacturer Time (s) Speed1 16 Greg Biffle Roush Fenway RacingFord 27.281 2 48 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 27.386 3 5 Kasey Kahne Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 27.386 4 39 Ryan NewmanStewart–Haas Racing Chevrolet 27.402 5 18 Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 27.404 6 56 Martin Truex Jr.Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota 27.424 7 99 Carl Edwards Roush Fenway Racing Ford 27.427 8 11 Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 27.444 9 78 Regan Smith Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet 27.451 10 31 Jeff Burton Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 27.458 11 1 Jamie McMurray Earnhardt Ganassi RacingChevrolet 27.459 12 24 Jeff Gordon Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 27.461 13 43 Aric Almirola Richard Petty Motorsports Ford 27.474 14 27 Paul Menard Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 27.484 15 2 Brad Keselowski Penske RacingDodge 27.500 16 22 A. J. Allmendinger Penske Racing Dodge 27.506 17 14 Tony Stewart Stewart–Haas Racing Chevrolet 27.515 18 55 Mark Martin Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota 27.551 19 17 Matt Kenseth Roush Fenway Racing Ford 27.592 20 83 Landon Cassill BK Racing Toyota 27.613 21 20 Joey Logano Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 27.630 22 47 Bobby Labonte JTG Daugherty RacingToyota 27.631 23 29 Kevin Harvick Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 27.635 24 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr.Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 27.642 25 51 Kurt Busch Phoenix Racing Chevrolet 27.651 26 15 Clint Bowyer Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota 27.661 27 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Chevrolet 27.735 28 9 Marcos Ambrose Richard Petty Motorsports Ford 27.794 29 79 Scott Speed Go Green Racing Ford 27.802 30 26 Josh Wise Front Row Motorsports Ford 27.823 31 13 Casey Mears Germain Racing Ford 27.825 32 30 David Stremme Inception Motorsports Toyota 27.845 33 73 Travis Kvapil BK Racing Toyota 27.847 34 36 Dave Blaney Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet 27.857 35 52 Mike Skinner Hamilton Means RacingToyota 27.957 36 38 David Gilliland Front Row Motorsports Ford 27.978 37 34 David Ragan Front Row Motorsports Ford 28.004 38 10 Danica Patrick Tommy Baldwin RacingChevrolet 28.021 39 74 Cole Whitt Turn One Racing Chevrolet 28.021 40 87 Joe Nemechek NEMCO Motorsports Toyota 28.097 41 93 David Reutimann BK Racing Toyota 28.196 42 32 Reed Sorenson FAS Lane RacingFord 28.307 43 49 J. J. Yeley Robinson-Blakeney Racing Toyota 28.125 Failed to Qualify23 Scott Riggs R3 Motorsports Chevrolet 28.129 98 Michael McDowell Phil Parsons Racing Ford 28.144 33 Stephen Leicht Joe Falk Chevrolet 28.155 19 Mike Bliss Humphrey Smith Racing Toyota 28.157 Sources:
Race Live television coverage of the race began at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (UTC−04:00) in the United States on Fox. Commentary was provided by Mike Joy, with analysis given by retired driver Darrell Waltrip and former crew chief Larry McReynolds. Around the start of the race, weather conditions were cloudy but dry, with the air temperature projected to reach the upper s range, and fall to the s range once darkness fell. Mark Jones, pastor of First Baptist Church of Darlington, began pre-race ceremonies with an invocation. Singer-songwriter Casey Weston, one of eight finalists of season 1 of The Voice, performed the national anthem, and the mothers of the drivers commanded them to start their engines. No driver moved to the rear of the field during the pace laps.
The race commenced at 7:18 local time. Biffle maintained his lead on the first lap. Allmendinger moved into 13th by the start of lap two. By the fifth lap, Biffle held a lead of half a second over Johnson in the second position. On the tenth lap, Kyle Busch overtook Newman to move into fifth place. Three laps later, Newman fell to seventh after Truex and Edwards passed him. Hamlin was running in the seventh position by lap 25. 17 laps later, Jeff Gordon made heavy contact with the wall, but he continued with some damage to the right-hand side of his vehicle. One lap later, Johnson got ahead of Biffle for the lead temporarily, but he did not hold it at the start/finish line. As the front of the pack got tighter in slower traffic, Kahne passed his teammate Johnson to move into second on lap 47. Green flag pit stops began on the same lap, and Biffle made his pit stop on the next lap, handing the lead to Kahne. Johnson and then Cassill each led a lap as they staggered their pit stops between the 50th and 51st laps.
After the pit stops, Kyle Busch took over the lead, with Biffle in second, and Kahne third. Although Biffle closed on Kyle Busch, the latter responded to increase his lead to more than half a second by the 59th lap. Five laps later, Johnson caught and overtook Kahne on the inside lane for third place. Keselowski lost ninth to Johnson on lap 66. Biffle took the lead from Kyle Busch seven laps later, as Johnson then passed the latter for second. On the 76th lap, Kurt Busch overtook Keselowski for tenth place. Eight laps later, Kahne fell behind Truex who passed him for fourth place. Hamlin overtook Kahne for the fifth position on lap 89. In the meantime, Biffle's lead over Johnson grew to nearly a second. Stewart was passed by Kenseth for the ninth position on the 95th lap. The second round of green flag pit stops began three laps later. On the 99th lap, Biffle made his second pit stop, and Hamlin led the lap, until Gordon took the lead for lap 101. Johnson took over the first position after all the pit stops had been completed.