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Tuesday, March 20
Darlington done? Here comes Bristol
By Stacy Compton
Special to ESPN.com
You don't earn the name "Track Too Tough To Tame" without reason. Darlington Raceway is one of the most unique racetracks I've ever raced on. If you're a rookie, you don't look forward to the two annual visits to the daunting 1.366-mile speedway.
There's this thing called the "Darlington Stripe." I got a heck more than a stripe during the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400. We got into trouble on lap 69, and despite a ton of work by my Melling Racing crew, we finished 43rd. It was so disappointing because we knew that the Kodiak Dodge was a great race car.
|  | | Compton is currently 35th in the Winston Cup points standings. |
Qualifying was canceled due to fog on Saturday morning. NASCAR and Darlington implemented a two-day format for this weekend's event, which left no time to reschedule qualifying in the event of inclement
weather.
The fog never lifted, so NASCAR scratched qualifying and gave us practice Saturday morning instead. We finished off our preparations with a 60-minute happy hour practice Saturday afternoon.
I tell ya', we were very pleased with the Kodiak car after happy hour. We ran with some fast cars, and we were able to pass some fast cars. I could run low or high, which is crucial in order to pass.
At the end of practice, we were posted third fastest of the 43 cars. I was pumped. I knew that we were in position for a solid day on Sunday.
The starting lineup was determined based on 2001 car owner points standings, so we started 29th. Once the green flag fell, we found out that we had some handling issues to work out, but we were getting better.
I was talking with my crew chief, Chad Knaus, about how to fix the setup. We were really tight getting into the turns, meaning that the nose wanted to drift up towards the wall. Then, when I picked up the gas heading out of the turn, I'd get loose -- the rear of the car wanted to shoot out towards the wall. At Darlington, you run inches from the wall, so there's very little room to be slipping and sliding around.
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All of the hard work went without reward as (Ron) Hornaday pulled out of the garage. There was no way to catch him, so we parked it. We worked way too hard to finish 43rd, but that's just racing at Darlington Raceway. ” |
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— Compton |
Unfortunately, we didn't get an opportunity to get our car back to the racy piece it was Saturday afternoon. On lap 69, we got together with another car and got turned around. The car was hurt pretty bad. It broke the rear end housing, the trailing arms, the right front upper and lower control arms, the right front spindle, the hub, the break caliper, the tie rod, the center link.
The impact even broke the motor mounts. It was ugly.
I took the car to the garage, where my crew went to work to try to get back into the race. Usually, there are a lot of accidents at Darlington, so if you get back you can pick up several positions. But, as luck would have it, there was only one other car that had significant problems. After rebuilding almost the entire right side of the car, we made it back on the track on lap 185. We were 45 laps behind Ron Hornaday, who was behind the wall repairing damage from his accident on lap 114.
All of the hard work went without reward as Hornaday pulled out of the garage. There was no way to catch him, so we parked it. We worked way too hard to finish 43rd, but that's just racing at Darlington Raceway.
Hopefully we can redeem ourselves this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway. Speaking of tough places, man, Bristol is something else. It's intense. It's probably one of the coolest places we go to -- definitely one of the
best races of the year.
Things happen so quick. If you're not focused, you're subject to get caught up in some trouble. If you blink at the wrong time, you could get caught up in it -- things happen that quick at Bristol.
If Darlington is "The Track Too Tough To Tame," then I don't know what to call Bristol.
Drivers, crew chiefs and car owners involved in Dodge's return to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 2001 will provide weekly features to ESPN.com throughout the season.  Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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