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Jeff Blake/jblake@thestate.com
Teammates Jeff Gordon, and Jimmy Johnson talk in the garage as Johnson's crew works on his car following his second crash of the day during practice for the Dodge Challenger 500 at the Darlington Raceway.
Posted on Sat, May. 10, 2008
Racing: testing their metal
Tough practice day dents drivers’ nerves and cars
By PATRICK OBLEY - pobley@thestate.com
Dodge Challenger 500
When: 7 p.m. SaturdayWhere: Darlington Raceway
TV: Fox (WACH-57, cable channel 6 in Columbia)
Tickets: darlingtonraceway.com/tickets, (866) 989-7223
Darlington schedule
THURSDAY-- 3 p.m.: Gates open; Nationwide Series practice
-- 4 p.m.: Sprint Cup practice
-- 5:40 p.m.: Nationwide practice
-- 7 p.m.: Sprint Cup practice
-- 8:10 p.m.: Nationwide practice
FRIDAY
-- Noon: Gates open; Sprint Cup practice
-- 3:10 p.m.: Nationwide qualifying
-- 5:15 p.m.: Sprint Cup qualifying
-- 7:30 p.m.: Nationwide Diamond Hill Plywood 200
SATURDAY
-- 2 p.m.: Grandstand and gates open
-- 7:20 p.m.: Sprint Cup Dodge Challenger 500
DARLINGTON — The Lady in Black dined on a steady diet of sheet metal Friday afternoon.
By the time qualifying for the Dodge Challenger 500 began, 24 cars (including both of Jimmy Johnson’s rides) had sustained significant damage as Darlington Raceway once again proved it was too tough to tame.
In fact, the newly repaved track was so fearsome a Nationwide driver, Terry Cook, asked to drop from Row 16 to the last row prior to the start of Friday’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200.
Into this situation roared two-time Darlington winner Greg Biffle, who destroyed Ward Burton’s 12-year-old track record with a 179.442-mph lap. It was his first pole of the year and the fifth of his career.
So fast were the conditions that every qualifier save one — Reed Sorenson — surpassed Burton’s former record speed of 173.797.
Yet by day’s end, all the talk centered on how this egg-shaped oval demanded ultimate respect. Leave it to a fan of Darlington’s quirkiness to set the pace for today’s race.
“The fatality rate is fairly high. I walked through the garage and everybody I’m parked around has had their side wiped off a little bit, but that’s the nature of Darlington,” Biffle said. “You know it’s tough when the 48 wrecks twice. This place is tough. It’s always gonna be tough and it’ll never get any easier.”
Johnson was the man sitting in the No. 48 Chevy. To say his Friday was eventful would be an understatement.
The day began with a wreck in turn one during the first practice. His team scrambled to ready his backup chassis for the second practice.
The new car lasted a few laps before Johnson’s splitter was impaled in the wall.
His team installed a new splitter, pounded sheet metal and got the car back on the track in time for qualifying, where he managed a top speed of 179.206, good for third best.
“Fortunately today, we were fast the whole time, but I kept hitting things,” Johnson said. “Track position is going to be very important in the race. The faster you go, the more room you need to run side-by-side. This is a very narrow track to begin with and with the speed in it now, it makes it even more difficult.”
Here’s how the rest of qualifying went:
• Elliott Sadler: “It’s frustrating. There was something rubbing real bad, and it filled the car up with smoke.”
• Juan Pablo Montoya: “We ran a good number with a crashed car.”
• Sam Hornish Jr.: “It’s been a tough weekend so far.”
• Kyle Petty: “I wrecked this morning, and we were so bad all day long.”
• Robby Gordon: “All of us were scratching our heads when Jimmy Johnson put two in the fence, and now we’ve put two in the fence as well.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr., will join Biffle on the front row today after clocking in at 179.357. He sounded impressed.
“That was a pretty good lap,” he said. “I’m real happy with how that all went and hopefully we’ll have some luck tomorrow night because we’ve got a car that can win.”
Sprint Cup drivers were keeping an eye on the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 in the hope of gleaning a little more track knowledge. With two caution flags in the first 10 laps, they learned their first lesson.
Driver beware.
“You’ll have to have a lot of nerve because you’re going to have to run a lot of hard, fast laps,” Earnhardt said.
“You’re gonna see cars slow down a bunch when they do get side-by-side,” Biffle said. “I think you’re gonna see some passing, but it is gonna be difficult to get side-by-side. For guys to try to race each other lap after lap side-by-side, that’s probably not gonna be the smartest move you could make.”
Reach Obley at (803) 771-8473.
