Around The Track: Lady in Black about accuracy

Darlington Raceway is considered by many drivers as the toughest track on the Winston Cup Circuit. Ricky Rudd describes a lap around the legendary track.

You exit pit road and blend up on the race track. You get up to speed on the backstretch and go up against the wall. If it is a qualifying lap, you have to keep your momentum up and you have to work pretty consciously to be able to get up to speed on your first lap.

You exit Turn 4 down the front straightaway -- nothing real unusual until you get down into Turn 1. You back off the gas, apply light brake pressure and square off the corner. You go deep and turn real aggressively -- a lot more aggressively than you think the car can handle. You go from leaving the wall to letting your left front tire actually come across the flat of the racetrack.

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You'll go below the white line that separates the banking from the flat of the track. You actually go down into the corner with your left front tire on the flat. At that point, you let your car drift up. You're only out of the throttle there for about a second, two seconds maximum. Apply light brake pressure, and let the car drift right up against the fence. You are in the corner with the gas wide open before you even get up against the wall. Darlington is one of the unique tracks where you drive in low and let the car drive right up against the wall in Turns 1 and 2.

Against the wall it is almost like a straightaway right there and you catch yourself counting, "One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three," and about the time you get to "one-thousand-three" you turn again. Darlington is probably the trickiest track that we run where timing is as critical as it is.

When you leave that little short straightaway between the corners, you turn back down to clip the inside corner of the track. If you wait a split second too long and turn, you're going to be late and you'll find yourself in that corner real wide and possibly in the wall. If you turn too early, you'll run across the flat of the track and that tends to shove you out against the wall when you finally do enter the straightaway.

When you drive it into Turn 1 and let it drift up to the fence, I'm talking about maybe a foot away from the fence. Sometimes you hear about the "Darlington stripe." When people misjudge, you end up drifting up too far and slap that wall.

In the old days there was a steel guardrail. I don't think I ever drove it when it was steel, but in the early era it used to be steel and you would let the car ride on the steel. It would make it like a slot-car track. In modern times, the guardrail has been changed to concrete, and if you touch that wall it tends to grab the car and suck it into the wall. Even though it seems to be a minor brush, it tends to flatten out the whole right side of the car.

Again, into Turns 1 and 2, clip the apron, and let the car drift high. The track drives like a straightaway between the two corners, counting to about "one-thousand-three" and it's time to turn again. You come down and clip the inside corner on the exit of Turn 2. The trick is to carry as much momentum, as much throttle as you can through there. In the qualifying lap you'll be wide open with your hands full. In the race, you'll be running through that section about three-quarter throttle. The key is to carry the momentum down the backstretch.

Entering Turn 3, it is a very different end of the track, but you drive the two somewhat similar. Drive in, clip the apron with your left front wheel and let the car drift up, but not as high as you do in Turns 1 and 2. Let it drift up about three-quarters of the way up the track. When the car quits sliding, stand back in the gas. When your car is really right, you can flat-foot it. The majority of the time you are modulating between three-quarters and wide open all the way through that corner until you hit the straightaway.

Ricky Rudd drives the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus owned by Wood Brothers Racing.