| | DARLINGTON, S.C. -- It is, in its most basic sense, the beginning of this sport as we know it.
Before cars went mach speed at Talladega; before the high-banks of Daytona shot cars onto the backstretch at blazing speeds;
before the splendiferous special effects of Lowe's Motor Speedway and its promoter, Humpy Wheeler, turned superspeedway racing a spectacle, there was Harold Brasington's wild little blueprint for speed called Darlington Raceway.
Cut out of the Pee Dee River Valley of South Carolina, Darlington was the sedan of its time. No one had ever seen such a massive facility constructed for stock car racing. In the days of the bullrings, Darlington was the Roman
Coliseum.
Closing in on its 60th birthday, Darlington pales in comparison to its peers. It is showing signs of age. In the era of more, Darlington is refreshingly less -- still captivating in the way it highlights driving skills over aerodynamics, rewarding those who put handling over speed and pay respect to the elder superspeedway.
Ask any driver today where they'd like to win. All will say Daytona. Most will say Indianapolis. A handful will say Charlotte. Everyone's second choice is Darlington. At one moment in history, back when David Pearson and the Wood Brothers were dominant on Darlington's egg-shaped layout, it ranked second only to Daytona in stature.
There's something magical about the place, even though there is nothing especially eye-catching about it. Darlington is not a Rembrandt in pavement. It is the most basic finger-painting, designed for the imagination instead of the trained eye of an art critic.
Part of the aura surrounding Darlington Raceway is the skill with which
its winners possess. If Darlington were platform diving, the degree of
difficulty at the track would send second-thoughts racing through the head of
Greg Louganis.
Darlington is part short-track, part superspeedway. It incorporates the
skills of age into one package.
It is difficult because it is different. Thanks to a local farmer, the track is shaped like an egg. It may have been a perfect oval had the farmer not refused to give up his pond on the adjacent property. The track was
rerouted in what is today's Turn Three to avoid the livestock watering hole.
That farmer made Darlington "The Track Too Tough to Tame," and sent crew chiefs into a frenzy trying to decide how to tackle the two distinctly different corners that it presents.
The track also was built, unlike most today, for racing instead of grandstands. For this reason, expansion is difficult. That's where Darlington is showing its age. A recent expansion caused the frontstretch and the backstretch to flip-flop to accomodate a new high-rise grandstand. More expansion is difficult at the track.
Therefore, when talk of schedule pressures arise, Darlington is marked for banishment every time. The old track, built exclusively as a RACE track, cannot keep up with the marketed world that NASCAR is moving towards.
"Personally speaking, I think Darlington has such tradition that it would be a shame to pull a race away from there and take it to some other area," says Winston Cup car owner Larry McClure. " Although NASCAR does a great job
with marketing and placing, or getting race tracks in areas that we need for
marketing purposes, Darlington is such a terrific race track and a good
race for the fans. I certainly would hate to see us go somewhere else.
"Most of the teams are located pretty close to Darlington, and it sure is a lot
less expensive to go there than it would be to the state of Washington or
somewhere. I kind of like the idea of having two races at Darlington.
"You look down the line, and it's always been the race track that's too hard to tame. It's got a little bit of everything in it, and it's different than any other place we race. I think it's a big challenge, and I think a couple of years ago when we had Burton and Gordon running for that million dollars, it was a terrific race. It's real exciting. I think the fans like
Darlington, and we certainly like it because we've been successful there."
Darlington hosts another Southern 500 this weekend. It goes on display for the world to see and appreciate. In an era of big business, Darlington is a start-up operation with basic facilities in a zoo of conglomerates that made good.
What's the degree of difficulty on that?
Phil Furr, a freelance writer based in Charlotte, N.C., writes a weekly auto-racing column for ESPN.com. | |
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