MOORESVILLE, N.C. — If you’re going to drive a race car at Darlington Raceway, you’re going to earn a “Darlington Stripe.”
It is a rite of passage at the South Carolina track, not just for rookie racers in their first visit to the 1.366-mile oval, but also for veteran wheelmen who have logged thousands of laps around its iconic egg-shaped layout.
The ubiquitous red-and-white scrape marks that eventually appear across the right-rear quarterpanel of drivers’ race cars are Darlington’s seal of approval. If you have them, you’re doing it right. If you don’t, you’re leaving speed on the table. Known as the track “Too Tough to Tame,” Darlington is where drivers literally earn their stripes.
“Riding the wall is the fast way around Darlington. It’s always been that way around turns one and two, and now it’s that way in turns three and four,” said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Jacob Construction Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing.
“There’s a lot of risk versus reward there, but if you want to make lap time and you want to be fast, it’s right by the wall, almost kissing it. It’s the place to be, for sure.”
It is a delicate balance, trading speed for security.
“There’s no room to give yourself any cushion if something goes wrong,” Ware said. “At a lot of other tracks, you have a couple of car widths to kind of catch it and collect yourself. But a single mistake at Darlington will have you up in the fence, where the whole right side of your car is damaged, not just some scrapes on the quarterpanel. You’ve definitely got to be on your ‘A’ game from start to finish.”
Darlington is one of NASCAR’s oldest venues and arguably its quirkiest. Built in 1949 by Harold Brasington, the track has hosted NASCAR Cup Series races since 1950, and Sunday’s Goodyear 400 will mark its 130th Cup Series race.
Its egg shape, where turns three and four are definitively tighter than turns one and two, came from when Brasington plowed up fields formerly bearing peanuts and cotton and purposely shaped the track narrower at its west end so it wouldn’t disturb a minnow pond belonging to Sherman Ramsey, the man who sold Brasington the property.
The layout that debuted on Sept. 4, 1950 when 75 stock cars took the green flag three-wide for the inaugural Southern 500 is essentially the same layout today.
“They call it the track ‘Too Tough to Tame’ for a reason,” Ware said. “The way that place is built, it’s just tough, no matter how many times you’ve been there.”
Darlington’s asphalt is aged, and its gritty surface places a premium on tire management, a concept that’s easier said than done while barreling 180 mph into the track’s corners, where turns one and two are banked at 25 degrees and turns three and four are banked at 23 degrees.
“It’s always brutal,” Ware said. “There’s never a time where you unload off the trailer and fire off for practice and qualifying that you feel comfortable. Even if you have speed and you’re competitive, you’re still on edge. And when your car isn’t where you want it handling-wise, you’re even more on edge. You’re always white-knuckling it, sawing at the wheel, manhandling the race car every lap.”
The Goodyear 400 will be a race within a race. Drivers will be racing each other while racing to keep up with track conditions.
“This year, for sure, is going to be more about racing the track and racing the tire. We have more horsepower, less downforce, and the tires are going to wear out faster. It’s going to make for a wild Sunday afternoon,” Ware said.
“Just focusing on what we need to manage our tires, where we have as little tire degradation and lap-time falloff as we can throughout a run, that’s going to be the key to having a successful day at Darlington. And, of course, being smart when you’re up against that wall, and also navigating restarts. Turn two is always a pretty tricky place, and getting through those first couple of laps on the start and on restarts is going to be very important to having a good day.”
