At Darlington, Trouble Lurks Around Every Corner

At Darlington, Trouble Lurks Around Every Corner

From any angle, whether you’ve been there once or 20 times, Darlington Raceway is a challenge.
The racing line is narrow, the asphalt aged and the chassis set-up that works well in one set of turns is a compromise – at best – in the other.
Competitors in Saturday’s 63rd Bojangles’ Southern 500 will be racing at speeds of more than 180 mph on a track where the pole speed was 85 mph for 1950’s inaugural event.
A Darlington Stripe – the ubiquitous scrape on the ‘passenger’s’ side – can be a badge of honor or the beginning of abject horror. A split-second’s inattention can produce a slide into SAFER barrier, another competitor or both. The last seven races have seen the caution wave an average of 10.7 times. The record, 17, was set in 2009.
Denny Hamlin, with two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories this season, won his first Southern 500 in 2010 and can’t wait to roll his No. 11 Toyota onto the 1.366-mile layout. "I just strive on harder race tracks to try to figure out – the Poconos, the Martinsvilles – tracks that just some people love and hate," said Hamlin, whose Joe Gibbs Racing team has won two of the past four Darlington races and three overall. "It just seems like we have adapted to it and found a way to get around the track." For others, well:
Brad Keselowski has both momentum and a pleasant Darlington history. Keselowski won at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, his second victory of the year. He finished third at Darlington a year ago and seventh in 2009. Owner Roger Penske hasn’t been to the South Carolina track’s Victory Lane since 1975, when NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison swept both races in an AMC Matador.
A year ago, Regan Smith became the sixth driver to post his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at Darlington, joining inaugural winner Johnny Mantz, two-time champion Terry Labonte, Larry Frank, Lake Speed and Nelson Stacy. Smith needs a pick-me-up. He’s finished among the top 15 just once in this season’s first 10 races.
Danica Patrick hasn’t seen NSCS racing until she’s witnessed firsthand the perils of Daytona. She’ll do that this weekend, also competing in Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race. She’s locked into the race based on Tommy Baldwin Racing’s No. 10 Chevrolet ranked 33rd in Owners’ Championship points.
Kurt Busch and Phoenix Racing need a good showing in a home state race. James Finch’s team is based in Spartanburg, S.C., the hometown of NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson, whose 10 victories are the most by any driver at Darlington.
Darlington Raceway was NASCAR’s first paved superspeedway. Its construction in a cotton field by Harold Brasington presaged the organization’s path to national prominence. By the beginning of the next decade, similar tracks were built in Daytona Beach, Fla., Atlanta and Charlotte.
Eight NASCAR Hall of Fame members – Pearson, Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson – won a combined 39 Darlington races.