Quarter Break: It's Anybody's Game

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule is a quarter of the way finished. We’ve had nine of the 36 races, two multiple winners (neither one named Johnson), a boat-load of leaders and lead changes…and a lot of unfinished business.

Kyle Busch won at Bristol and Richmond, taking the mantle of short-track star from Denny Hamlin. Kevin Harvick won at Auto Club and Martinsville, then promptly fell off the planet in terms of contention.

Jimmie Johnson won at Talladega by the slimmest of margins, but hasn’t been the guy he was the past five years. Not that it matters just yet, but already folks are looking to say that Five-Time is looking mighty…peaked.

Jeff Gordon won earlier in the season, then set about finding every spot on every track that doesn’t have a soft wall on it. Richmond was a tangle that put him in a bad spot on the inside of the corner.

And it seems like everyone is ticked off at each other. Richmond was a treasure-trove of one-liners, most of which would be victims of the seven-second delay. See the iNSIDE SCOOP for details.

Now we go to Darlington, where men are men and the women are dang glad for it. It’s a tough old place, even robbed of its abrasive old asphalt. It’s tough to drive, tough to pass, tough to get to…just tough all around.

It, along with Martinsville, is the throwback that remains on the NASCAR schedule. If you think about it, you can see Cale Yarborough flipping out of the place back in the day, drivers pitting 10-15 times and the 88-car starting field they had one year.

It doesn’t have the glitz of Daytona, the panache of Las Vegas or the grooming of Indianapolis. Its amenities are…adequate. But it’s my supposition that folks don’t go to Darlington for the amenities. They go for the racing and the history.

That’s what I go for. I grew up at a place called Winchester Speedway in Indiana. It was the third-oldest continuously operating track in the country at one time, and it was a pip. Think old Bristol with a ‘tude. Rough, bumpy, 36-degree banking and killer transitions, it was responsible for a lot of drivers leaving in the back of an ambulance…or a hearse.

Amenity-wise, it wasn’t much. Until an upgrade in the 1990s, the “facilities” in the infield were…holes. Until they got the wall all the way around it, there was the possibility that you could crash through the guardrail and into the heavily wooded bankside. I saw Don Higgins do that in a stock car…twice.

Darlington reminds me of that old Winchester. Rough, hard-edged, unforgiving…and a whole lot of fun. If you haven’t plans for Saturday and you’re close, take a drive over and see what I’m talking about. Tickets are still available…and that’s a shame.