 | | Tire wear and pit-crew performance will play a big role in the outcome of Saturday night's race. Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images |
By Dan Beaver, Special to NASCAR.COM
May 11, 2005
10:17 AM EDT (14:17 GMT)
Darlington Raceway is so special it has two nicknames: "The Track Too Tough to Tame" and "The Lady in Black". Neither of these monikers evokes warm, loving feelings between the drivers and the track that has taken a toll on so much equipment through the years. Until two seasons ago, NASCAR traveled to two rough track courses for a total of four events per year. In addition to the two races at Darlington (held until last year), North Carolina Motor Speedway -- Rockingham to its admirers -- also held two races per season through the end of 2003. These two tracks are geographically centered in the sand hills of the Carolinas and the blowing dust has taken a toll on the track surface, making it more akin to sandpaper than asphalt.  |  | DODGE CHARGER 500 | |
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Tires wear very quickly on these tracks. The adhesion is past its prime before the car even rolls off pit road and the difference in lap times between cars with fresh tires and worn rubber is immense. A race at Darlington is a balancing act with fast lap times countered by the time it takes a driver to pit. Practice on Thursday will be about looking for that perfect equation. Instead of trying for a fast lap, the top 35 in owners' points will be working on a mathematical formula to find the optimum speed at Lap 10, Lap 20, Lap 30 to show the least amount of fall-off in times. Compounding the problem for 14 drivers who will vie for the remaining eight positions is they have to work on qualifying setups for at least part of the two practice sessions. These cars will be a lap down to the field before the green flag ever waves. The privileged 35 will monopolize track position in the practice sessions working on long runs, and at less than 1.5-miles in length, the track will fill up quickly, making it difficult to find that one perfect lap. The Favorites |  | | Jimmie Johnson |
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The drumbeat is already familiar, thumping out on the rib cage of your favorite dead horse, but this week's green flag drivers are the same ones who have dominated the top of the predictions all year. The rationale is always a little different from track to track, but in the end it boils down to experience and driver records, and for that reason Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing are likely to dominate the front of the pack again at Darlington. This rough old track is one that encourages driver streaks. From Spring 1997 through the Spring 2001 race, Dale Jarrett earned three Darlington victories and eight top-fives in a span of nine races. In roughly that same span of time Jeff Burton earned two victories and a perfect streak of eight top-fives in four years. Jeff Gordon (six victories and 13 top-10s in 15 races), Sterling Marlin (five consecutive top-fives and six consecutive top-10s in as many races) and Mark Martin (10 top-10s in 11 races) all prove the assertion. This week's favorites come from last year's dominators. Jimmie Johnson has been the track-tamer since he began to compete on this rough track. Traditionally Darlington hates rookies, and of 46 drivers who have already visited this track two-thirds finished outside the top 20 in their first attempt. Of them, 20 drivers finished 30th or worse, so when Johnson swept the top-10 in his rookie season, he turned a few heads. In the Spring 2003 race he was slowed by crash damage and limped home 27th, but he was back in form immediately in that year's edition of the Southern 500 when he finished third behind teammate Terry Labonte and Kevin Harvick. Last year he began laying claim to Gordon's title of lady-killer by sweeping the season. |  | | Kurt Busch |
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Kurt Busch has been more consistent at Darlington than Johnson, if not as strong. After finishing 28th or worse in his first three attempts, he broke into the top-10 for the first time in the 2002 Southern 500 and he hasn't finished worse than 13th in the four races that followed. A five-race top-15 streak is just the kind of consistency that Darlington so often rewards with another front-of-pack finish. An equally important consideration when handicapping Busch is the fact that he has a three-race streak of top-10 finishes in the 2005 season to boost the team's confidence. Primary in this streak is the dominant performance under the lights at Phoenix International Raceway three weeks ago. If that were not enough, he can sit and watch the highlight reels of his near-victory in the spring edition of this race when he and Ricky Craven literally crashed beneath the starter's stand while taking the checkers on the final lap to finish 1-2. Jeff Gordon has fallen on hard times recently at Darlington, and if your competition is looking only at the raw numbers of his last four races they will run from him like frightened children from a dentist. After winning his fifth Southern 500 in 2002 and his sixth race overall at Darlington, Gordon experienced a run of bad luck on the track. In consecutive races he was slowed by crash damage and simply missed the setup in another attempt to string together three races with finishes outside the top-30. That doesn't mean he lost his notes, however, and Gordon was back in form last fall with a third-place finish behind his teammate Johnson and Mark Martin. |  | | Jeff Gordon |
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Last week at Talladega, Gordon turned in one of the most emphatic efforts seen at that track in the last half-decade, recalling his championship-season form, which suggests he will run strong on tracks that have previously been very kind to him. With six career victories, he stands head and shoulders above active competitors; only one other driver has half his total with three trophies and several have two. Racing is often a mental game, and his record gives him immediate confidence. The key to Gordon's success will be a good qualifying run. In 24 previous attempts he averages a start of sixth, on the first three rows, so he doesn't have to worry with traffic. Two of his recent failures to finish came when he started outside that mark in 14th in the 2003 Southern 500 and ninth in this race last year. In that running, he was circling the track behind a "less-than-patient" Tony Stewart, who attempted to encourage a lapped car to give up the groove. When the slower machine spun at that insistence, he blocked the path of a hapless Gordon who retired in 41st. Dark Horses When the NASCAR world turned its head to gawk at the rookie who swept the top 10 in 2002, their jaws already were agape. Ryan Newman not only swept the top 10, but the top five as well in his freshman campaign. In fact, he nearly won in 2002 before being overcome by destiny when Gordon claimed his fifth Southern 500. |  | | Ryan Newman |
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Newman finished 14th in the spring race of the following year, and in the latest three events he has finished outside the top 20 in two events, but when he is on -- like he was in this race last year -- he is exceptional. The No. 12 team brought its Dodge home third in this race last year, which makes him a driver to watch very closely in the preliminary sessions. Darlington's love of streaks could play into Bobby Labonte's hands. The Texas native nearly had the monkey off his back at Talladega after breaking back into the top 10 in Phoenix. That front-of-pack finish was his first in nine events, and he was destined to make it two in a row before he was swept into the Big One crash. Somehow he survived on the lead lap, and if he had outlasted the wreck at the end of the race he still would have earned a decent finish, but a blown engine sent him behind the wall. Drivers and teams have selective memories, however, and they are more likely to concentrate on the potency of the run than the paucity of finish. Even while he has struggled on other tracks, Labonte enjoyed coming to Darlington. He won here in the 2000 Southern 500 and was the runner-up in two more races. Labonte has also won at Rockingham, the other rough track course, and has the right personality to tame this track. Darlington rewards patience. |  | | Jeff Burton |
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Jeff Burton is on the verge of a veteran resurgence. Since joining Richard Childress Racing late last season, he has improved the performance of this team by a great deal, and he is bringing his notes for tracks where he has previously excelled. Burton swept victory lane in 1999 and added a third consecutive rough track victory later that fall at Rockingham. Even when he suffered, Burton has brought his best equipment to Darlington, and in the last five years he has finished outside the top-15 only twice in 10 attempts, including his runner-up finish in fall 2000 to your other dark horse Labonte. Avoidance Principle Avoid the rookies at Darlington as if your season depends on it, because in all likelihood it does. Darlington is not kind to freshmen, and with the notable exceptions-to-prove-the-rule already mentioned, more than two-thirds of the field on Saturday experienced frustration in their first ever attempts. Superstars like Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Matt Kenseth were slapped by the Lady in Black the first time they asked her to dance; it took Busch three attempts to woo the woman and Gordon failed to finish on the same lap with the leader for more than two years. (The first time Gordon finished on the lead lap, however, he went to Victory Lane for the first of three consecutive wins.) Where Travis Kvapil and Kyle Busch have performed the best so far in 2005 are on the high-speed, high-torque tracks measuring 1.5 miles or greater. The skills required to go fast there are actually a detriment here at Darlington, where there is no such thing as patient aggression ... it just takes patience. Climbing up on the wheel can boost a driver's performance on many tracks, but a go-for-broke attitude on the rough-surface tracks will leave a driver in just that condition: broken and behind the wall. Dan Beaver's fantasy analysis appears weekly on the afternoon prior to Nextel Cup qualifying. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. | 
