Top Row Seat - Darlington
Dateline: 03/23/98This week the Winston Cup drivers made their way to one of the legendary stops on the NASCAR tour, Darlington Raceway. But all hype and history aside, this place sure knows how to put on some great racing. The last 30 laps of Sunday's race were some of the most exciting since... well, since the Southern 500 right here last fall. For some reason Darlington Raceway continually hosts great racing, so naturally it's going to lose it's spring race date to the Homestead Motorsports Complex.
Now a normal person would think that my last sentence was strange, but anyone who's followed NASCAR over the last 5 years or so would fully understand that it's not about the racing anymore. Homestead can seat more people and it's closer to a major population center (Miami) than Darlington is so it is going to get a race date. If great racing on a quality race track were a criteria for getting a Winston Cup date then NASCAR would not go back to Texas Motor Speedway until it is fixed.
DJ Instant Replay
Last year DJ held off a faster Ted Musgrave to take the checkers. This year the TransSouth Financial 400 featured Dale Jarrett holding off a faster Jeff Gordon in the closing few laps to take the win. As Jeff Burton's car faded with about 30 laps to go Jarrett and Gordon closed up and the three of them put on a fantastic show for about 5 laps.
Then Jarrett got past Burton and tried to check out in lapped traffic. DJ played hide and seek with Gordon for the last 15 laps as slow cars made the difference. Just as Gordon caught him and made his move, Jarrett found a seem between two lappers and Gordon couldn't get through. Jeff caught him again for the last 2 laps but made the (correct) decision to take his second place finish rather than risk wrecking both of them.
The final 30 laps of this race made it an instant classic. You'll be seeing clips of this finish in the year end wrapup shows. Congrats to Dale for the win but congrats as well to Gordon for making an intelligent decision and taking second.
Next Up...
The next stop on the circuit is Bristol Motor Speedway. I've been fortunate enough to attend races at most of the tracks on the east coast and I can say without a doubt that the best place to attend a NASCAR Winston Cup event is at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was once described as "Jetfighters in a gymnasium" and that sums up the feeling pretty well. It's fast and tight. Anything can happen at any moment and frequently does.
I'm pumped up for the race and it's still 6 days away. Let's go short track racing! WooHoo!
Agree? Disagree? Want to throw hot spark plugs at me? I'm available in the chat room every Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern to answer questions and defend my opinion.
