A Closer Look at Darlington Raceway
With the return of NASCAR to turning and burning around the asphalt in the coming days and weeks, it only makes sense to take a look at where drivers are going to get back to some semblance of normal at to give an idea of what to expect when you tune in to watch the races, whether you’re a bettor or not. This weekend, racing returns to Darlington on Sunday afternoon, with a second race on Wednesday night. With that said, let’s take a closer look at Darlington Raceway in order to give you a little more background about the track.
Darlington has been a staple on the NASCAR circuit since it opened in 1950. Nicknamed “The Lady in Black” and “The Track Too Tough to Tame,” the races there are a tradition of the NASCAR schedule. The track is an egg-shaped oval that is narrower at one end than at the other, making it a bit of a challenge to configure the vehicle to be as effective when it comes to handling on both ends of the track. According to historians, the track is narrower in what is now turns 3 and 4 because the farmer that original designer Harold Brasington bought the land from had a pond there where he farmed minnows. It runs 1.366 miles in length, so the 400-mile race scheduled for Sunday will run a total of 298 laps.
The track has held at least one NASCAR race every year since 1950, when the Southern 500 became a staple of the circuit on Labor Day weekend. In the first-ever Southern 500 back on September 4, 1950, it was Johnny Mantz emerging victorious in a race that featured 75 cars after starting in the 43rd position. The track has seen its length vary a little bit over the years as it started at 1.25 miles for races between 1950 and 1952, before lengthening to 1.375 miles in 1953. It stayed at that length until 1970, when it was slightly reconfigured to its current state of 1.366 miles.
When it comes to racing at Darlington, this marks the first time that NASCAR has raced here in the spring since 2014. That year saw Kevin Harvick earn the victory from the pole position on April 12, 2014. He led 238 of the 374 laps in the race and bested Dale Earnhardt Jr. by .558 seconds with Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle rounding out the top five. In the most recent race overall on the track, it was Erik Jones cruising to a comfortable victory, prevailing by a 4.058 second margin over Kyle Larson on September 1, 2019. Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski finished up the top five in that race. Jones led 78 laps, which was the third-most in the field as Kyle Busch led a league-high 118 laps while Kurt Busch, who finished seventh, led 94.
Among current drivers, Kenseth leads in all-time starts at Darlington with 25 while Harvick and Kurt Busch each have 23. Harvick and Busch are the lone drivers to record multiple pole position wins at the track as each have two. Eight different drivers that currently are active have won here with Jimmie Johnson (three) and Denny Hamlin (two) the only racers with multiple victories. Martin Truex Jr., Keselowski, Jones, Harvick, Kyle Busch and Kenseth have each won once. Twenty of the 116 races that have been held at Darlington have been won from the pole while 17 more have been won from the second spot. Only six times in the history of the track has a driver started outside the 15th position and emerge victorious.
For those of you looking to jump in on the early odds on the track, Kyle Busch is a 5-1 favorite with Keselowski sitting at 8-1, Hamlin at 13-2 and Truex Jr. at 15-2. Hamlin has had a lot of success at the track, winning twice, finishing in the top-five seven times and in the top-10 11 times in 14 races. Joey Logano, who won two of the first four races before NASCAR went on pause, is also going off at 8-1 for this race. It marks the first time that NASCAR is racing since the March 8 race in Phoenix.