When an emotional Lake Speed finally reached Victory Lane after winning the 1988 TranSouth 500, he couldn't help but think about seeing Darlington Speedway for the first time.

''The first time I ever came here, Darel [Dieringer] brought me,'' Speed said. ''When we first drove onto the frontstretch in 1980, I looked at him and said, 'You have got to be kidding. That looks like a sidewalk. We aren't going to race here?' He said, 'Sorry, son. This is it. There is no way I would take a rookie here without him practicing first. It would be like a sacrifice if I did.'"

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But Dieringer, fighting liver cancer, was not there for Speed's lone Cup victory.

''He did a lot for me,'' Speed said. ''I wish he could have been here. I hope he was able to watch it on television or listen to it. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be here.

''He told me this was the most prestigious and meant more to drivers to win here than anywhere else. I wanted to master this place because if I ran good here, no one could tell me I couldn't drive.''

Speed, a Jackson, Miss., native who once beat Ayrton Senna for the World Championship of Karting, was on a 163-race winless streak over eight seasons -- and was campaigning his own No. 83 Oldsmobile, having lost the RahMoc ride four races into the 1986 season.

''There have been a lot of people involved to make this happen,'' Speed said. ''In my case, it was my faith in the Lord that brought me to this. If it hadn't been for that in 1986, I would have packed it up and gone back to Mississippi.''

But Speed thought there might be something special about this trip to Darlington.

"It was good right off the bat," Speed said. "We never had to change anything on the car since we've been here. We just brought our setup and didn't have to do anything, just change the tires and adjust the stagger.

"It was running really, really good, but I knew that didn't make any difference if you don't finish the 500 miles. At the beginning of the race, they told me, 'Whatever you do, don't let those guys wreck you. Just stay out of the way and wait 'til things thin out and then show 'em your stuff.' So that's basically what we did."

Good advice, but it almost backfired when pole-sitter Ken Schrader hit the wall in Turn 3 on Lap 16, setting off the second multi-car accident of the day. Schrader had led the first 14 laps but was running fourth, just in front of Speed, when he lost it.

"I thought I was in it," Speed said. "It was that close. I had to jam on the brakes just for a second and then it looked like it was going to open up, and I just nailed the throttle and shot through before it could get me."

The crash involved Terry Labonte, Brett Bodine, Darrell Waltrip, Harry Gant, Rick Wilson and Morgan Shepherd. After extensive repairs, Labonte, Schrader and Wilson returned to the track many laps down.

An earlier accident, stemming from Kyle Petty's blown engine, eliminated father Richard Petty and damaged several other cars. Benny Parsons spun in the oil and collected Neil Bonnett, Bobby Hillin Jr., Ernie Irvan, Alan Kulwicki, Michael Waltrip and Greg Sacks.

“

I always told myself I wanted to master this place -- that if I could win here, can't anybody tell me I can't drive anywhere. If I have had any place I've really, really concentrated on ... it's always been here.

”

LAKE SPEED

The race finally settled down to a duel between Geoff Bodine, Davey Allison, Mark Martin and Speed. Bodine led the next 18 laps, handing it over to Allison, who took the point until Lap 67. Martin and Bodine then traded the top spot for the majority of the next 100 laps before Speed grabbed the lead for the first time on Lap 170.

From that point on, Speed stayed in control, giving up the advantage only for pit stops and short periods. But it was anything but a Sunday drive.

"I just knew with 20 laps to go a caution was going to come out and then it would be a mad scramble," Speed said.

But the caution never came out and it was just a matter of concentration from that point on.

''I bobbled one time and I said, 'All right, idiot. You had better bear down,''' Speed said. ''[Crew chief] Darrell Bryant called me on the radio and told me I had nine laps to go. I thought gosh, so much can happen in nine laps.

"I didn't pay any attention to the [leader] board and then he called me and told me I had four laps. Then I thought, well, if a caution comes out, I think I can win under the yellow. The last three laps were the only ones I was not concentrating on.''

Speed beat Kulwicki to the line by 19 seconds and took home $49,435, making him the 30th driver to amass $1 million in earnings. When Sterling Marlin ran out of gas on the final lap, Allison wound up third and Bill Elliott fourth. Marlin was credited with fifth.

Dale Earnhardt, who had won three consecutive Darlington races, was never in the hunt. He fell off the pace with tire issues, then was involved in an accident and wound up 11th, four laps down.

It was only the third time -- Cale Yarborough in 1978 and Buck Baker in 1953 were the others -- that an Oldsmobile had won at Darlington. And in Victory Lane, Speed had a chance to finally silence his critics.

"I always told myself I wanted to master this place -- that if I could win here, can't anybody tell me I can't drive anywhere," Speed said. "If I have had any place I've really, really concentrated on ... it's always been here.

"I've always looked forward to it, ... especially because so many of the drivers avoid it. If they could take it off the schedule, they'd not come here. To me, that just adds to the odds. It just makes it that much easier for me to beat them, if they don't like it here, if they're scared of it, if they're intimidated by it. It makes it that much easier for me."

Speed would record seven more top-five finishes before an accident at Sears Point in 1998 left him with a broken sternum and led to his eventual retirement. Dieringer, who won the 1966 Southern 500 for Bud Moore, died in October of 1989.

And Speed's prophecy about Darlington was partially correct. The track's annual Labor Day race, a fixture on the NASCAR calendar since 1950, was given to California Speedway in 2004 and Darlington's second date was eliminated the following season. However, significant track improvements -- including a complete repaving of the Lady in Black -- were completed in time for Sunday's Dodge Challenger 500, and the existence of Darlington Raceway appears safe for the immediate future.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.