Pity John Darby, the Nextel Cup division's top cop.

Why? Because he has a severe case of selective amnesia.

Back in the day -- waaaay back -- Darby was the drummer for a band called Flight during his high-school and early college years. Mostly, Flight was a cover band, belting out tunes made famous by other, better known groups. Still, Flight wrote maybe 10 to 12 original songs during its six-year run between 1969 and 1975 or so, and by gosh, the band even recorded a few of those originals for a demo project.

That's where Darby's forgetfulness starts coming into play.

What were the names of some of the songs the guys in Flight wrote?

Darby can't remember.

Surely, the tracks still exist, right?

Nope ... or so Darby, a native of Rockford, Ill., says.

"Nah, I don't believe they do," he said. "All the recordings got lost in the fire."

What fire?

"I don't know what happened," Darby concluded.

Don't even bother to ask about pictures from his hey day as a rock-and-roll drummer. That's as taboo a subject to Darby as a 400-cubic-inch engine would be. Publicity stills of Flight and shots of Darby in action on stage have existed ... you can bet your last high-hat on that. But they were evidently lost in that same tragic fire.

Either that, or he just doesn't want anybody to see them. No, that couldn't be the case. Could it?

OK, so it's probably best to try a different approach with Darby about his musical career. Who, at the very least, did Flight sound like? Finally, Darby says that Flight was influenced by Cheap Trick "before they were Cheap Trick." That band, also based out of Rockford, was in its formative stages at about the same time as Flight.

"It was that type, not hard rock, really, but it was rock and roll," said Darby, describing Flight's sound.

The band came up with its name, Darby said, because it "was back in the days when one-syllable zingers were the cool thing to name a band. You had Styx. I think that's when even The Rolling Stones were just called The Stones."

"It was a ball. It really was. All my buddies were out washing cars at used car lots or bagging groceries to get gas money through high school, and we were banging on drums on the weekends, making just as much money as they were working all week. It was cool."

Darby is decidedly low-key about his time in Flight. He insists that they never reached "that level of stardom" to tour extensively, saying instead that the band remained "pretty local" by playing high-school dances, bars and college dates.

Nevertheless, there was a time when it must have seemed to the band's members that success was oh-so close. There is no more legendary a name to those who love the blues than B.B. King, and Flight backed him during "two or three" shows in the Midwest.

"That was neat, because I like the blues," Darby said. "He's a pretty unique individual in the backstage area."

Flight also played a couple of outdoor shows, including one summer festival that also featured Three Dog Night and Leon Russell on the bill. He estimates the crowd at about 30,000.

Surely, playing in front of that many people was a rush.

"It's really no different than walking out on pit road on a Sunday and listening to the crowd when the national anthem finishes," Darby said. "You get that same kind of feeling. If there's a difference at all, if they're cheering or booing [at a concert], you know it's because of what you did."

Darby's racing career began emerging in the mid-1970s, and the rest of the band found other things to occupy their time. Flight was finished.

"We grew up, I guess," Darby said. "Everybody started looking at different directions to go. We all got together one day and said, 'Well, guys, enough's enough.'"

To this day, Darby loves music.

"I've always been a blues fan," Darby said. "Actually, in fairness, because of playing around with music for a long, long time, I don't think there's any kind of music I don't like. I appreciate all forms of music, but if I'm gonna sit down and listen to something, it's gonna be a blues or a '70s classic rock-type deal."

Out there somewhere are the pictures and recordings of Flight's time in the limelight. Maybe someday, both could be featured on NASCAR.COM.

Or not.