This weekend the NASCAR Sprint Cup series heads to Darlington Raceway. After a very exciting and at times tense race at Richmond International Raceway, drivers will be back at it on Saturday night.
Darlington Raceway is the most historic track on the circuit. Also, it is one of the most challenging tracks that the teams come to.
For one driver Darlington arguably is one if his best tracks especially in the last few years. Jeff Gordon has seven wins, 18 top fives and 21 top 10’s at the track.
Last year he had one of the best cars all night but a mistake heading onto pit road cost him a chance at the win.
Gordon’s worst finish since 2004 was a fifth place finish in 2009. He has one win in that time span and that came in 2007 where he ran the final 50 laps of the race with a car that was overheating.
Gordon talked about the tricky track and riding that fine line of running so close to the wall.
"You have to race the track," said Gordon, who will drive the No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet in Saturday night's Showtime Southern 500. "It's just one of those tracks where you can be riding around by yourself but make the slightest little bobble and end up in the wall. Because the track can just reach out and bite you so easy, you must race the track.”
Another driver who has run very well at Darlington is Greg Biffle. While his up and down results don’t prove it Biffle has found success here.
In 2008 he had the car to beat and led 95 laps but engine troubles led to a 43rd place finish. At Darlington he has two wins, two top fives and four top 10 finishes. Leading 558 laps with an average start of 7.2 and average finish of 15th.
This weekend Biffle heads to Darlington sitting 14thin the standings and searching for his first win of the season.
AJ Allmendinger is looking to turn his results around at Darlington this weekend. In four starts here his best finish was 17th in 2009.
Allmendinger talked about this past week about “hitting the wall” every lap.
“Well, my first time was before they repaved it and honestly I walked in the place and looked at it and I thought somebody just completely messed up on the design. It's an insane racetrack. For how narrow it is and how fast we are around there, it's unbelievable. And I remember them telling me, just like everybody even when I was a rookie that 'you're going to hit the wall when you get there,' but I didn't understand like what it meant to hit the wall every lap. And that was -- it was tough to do.”
Drivers will be hitting the walls all night long. It’s finding the right balance with the race cars. Also, pit road is very tricky at Darlington.
Gordon was running in the top five and challenging for the win when he attempted to make a green flag stop and missed pit road.
Green flag stops at Darlington can cost you a chance at the win. Communicating with your crew chief and your team here is very important.
Darlington’s nickname is “too tough to tame” and on Saturday night one driver will look to not only tame the lady in black but also their competitors.
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