From a NASCAR Fan’s View
Darlington… The Track Too Tough To Tame. It also goes by another name and that is “The Lady In Black.” Any name you call it and any way you look at it this is one track that is a challenge to every driver and it will challenge them all race long. Many say the reason for that is that it changes just about every lap and there are a lot of challenges to the handling as the race goes on. Conserving tires is a must but conserving can only carry a driver so far. The best strategy for tire wear is to put on four new ones every chance they get.
Once again this weekend it is obvious from the practice and especially the qualifying that passing is going to be difficult and a quick look at the qualifying times tells us the lap times are very close. Well, that is for the ones up front and that just about covers the first ten rows or so and then it gets a bit more interesting.
Although there are several reasons for some drivers’ qualifying poorly, the biggest reason from this fan’s view is that they are having to run close to the wall much like Homestead a couple of weeks ago. Because they know that is really the fastest way around Darlington, they took their chances with running up close to it and either brushed the wall or hit it hard enough to slow them drastically.
Because of that, there could be a few drivers that can run quite a bit faster than their one qualifying lap. At any rate, it could make for some very interesting racing.
There are several drivers running back in the middle of the field that could put on quite a show as the race wears on. Some of them are good ridge runners but, for whatever reason, they just didn’t make a good lap in qualifying. During the race, they could very well be the ones to watch when it comes down to crunch time.
In his one qualifying lap, William Byron ran an almost perfect lap and, though some came a little close, no one could top his run that made him the pole winner. Ryan Preece came the closest but even his lap wasn’t enough to overshadow Byron’s run.
One thing that’s been pretty obvious about the last several races is how close the speeds, especially the qualifying speeds have been. That’s another reason I say no matter how you look at it, winning at Darlington can be a very tough road. When the speeds are so close it makes it tough to pass and it makes it hard to catch up. The leader will likely have an advantage for a while but that advantage will likely go away as the tires wear out and the track gets slicker. And that’s another thing about “The Track Too Tough To Tame.” Darlington is already known as a track that eats up tires and tire wear could make all the difference in which of them manages tire wear the best and possibly wins.
If all we had to look at was just the better tire managing drivers, there are several that come to mind. Well, at least to my mind anyway.
Yeah, Denny Hamlin is one of the best tire managers and a couple of others are Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson. Between those three and several others could make for a very different race when it comes down to the final laps. The problem is that Denny is starting near the front in third and Brad and Kyle are starting much further back. Kyle is starting nineteenth and Brad is starting twentieth. I don’t know that either one of those two will move close to the front by the time the race is over but, with the roll Denny is on with his win last weekend at Martinsville and his third place starting position, he could be up front a lot. There are several others that didn’t qualify all that well for having run-ins with the wall but they could also be up front and even win when this one is said and done.
Since this is Darlington “The Track Too Tough To Tame” I honestly do not know which of the contenders will win this won but I do know there are a lot of possibilities for either an expected or an unexpected winner. I’ve only mentioned a few but there are more than a few that could surprise us all.
So, I guess the final question this fan has to ask is does anyone think William Byron has a shot at winning this one from the pole position? I think it is a possibility but you and I both know that fast qualifiers don’t always win and they often drop like rocks early on in the race.
Would you care to make any suggestions for the possible winner?
Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought you would say…
Hey, this is Russ and that’s my view… See ya next time…
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
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Rusty Norman, Nascarfansview.com and Justafansview.com
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