Harvick says Darlington race will be 'made for TV'
By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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Chris Trotman / Getty Images for NASCAR
DARLINGTON, S.C. – When the green flag drops on tonight’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Darlington Raceway, it’s impossible to know who will bring out the first caution or wind up in victory lane.
But Kevin Harvick is pretty sure about one thing.
“It’ll definitely be made for TV for sure,” the Richard Childress Racing driver said on Friday. “It’ll be exciting and fun to watch.”
Exciting. Fun. Exhilarating. Maybe for the paying customers in the stands.
As for Harvick and the other 42 drivers who will attempt to survive 367 laps around the egg-shaped Darlington oval, painful might be a more appropriate adjective for tonight’s proceedings.
So far this weekend, portions of the garage area have resembled something of a noisy junkyard as cars, one by one - several at a time in the case of Friday night’s Nationwide Series race – have limped gingerly behind the wall for repairs.
Drivers normally prone to avoiding havoc have been victimized by a newly paved surface that has left crew chiefs scratching their heads and hammers pounding away on dented sheet metal.
At least six drivers, including two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, have rolled out backup cars after forceful collisions with the concrete.
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“You’re riding on the edge and when you go over the edge there’s no warning,” Harvick said. “It just goes and that’s just the hard tire and the new race track and the high speeds and it’s magnified at this place because you run right against the wall.”
With speeds higher because of the new surface, hits have been harder. And the room to make a mistake has thus been smaller.
“It’s fast,” said Harvick, who will start the Dodge Challenger 500 from the 11th position. “It’s gonna be tough to race on. I think if you look through the garage there’s more cars that have hit the wall than not and I’m in that category. I hit it twice. It’s still Darlington, still can reach out and grab you. It’s just the consequences are a little bit bigger.”
Roush Fenway Racing’s Greg Biffle, who won the pole with a lap of 179.442 mph, completely shattered the old track record of 173.797 set by Ward Burton in 1996.
And Biffle wasn’t the only one.
The top 41 qualifying speeds all eclipsed Burton’s speed, which had been the longest-standing qualifying record at an active, non-restrictor-plate track.
So are the speeds too high?
Probably not, considering the alternative, Harvick says.
“You’re kind of in a catch-22 situation here,” he said. “I was on the other side of the fence here when the track came up and went through the radiator, so you are at a point where you have to do something with the track and any time we have new race tracks, the track is really fast.
“This is no exception. ... It’s going to be tough to make it all right this time and that’s probably not a fair situation to be in but it is what it is and there’s nothing you can really do about it because you got to repave the racetrack in order to keep stuff from flying out of it. “
Another concern for tonight’s event is passing. With the fresh surface, some drivers have said they believe it will take a few races for side-by-side racing to become widespread.
Harvick shares that fear.
“Passing is going to be hard,” he said. “It’s going to be all about track position and keeping yourself out of trouble.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Kevin Harvick
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2 responses to "Harvick says Darlington race will be 'made for TV'"
Timothy Schultze said:
May 10, 2008 at 10:29 AMThe whole schmear is "Made For TV " joke.
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» Confirm Abuse ReportTimothy Schultze said:
May 10, 2008 at 10:29 AMThe whole schmear is "Made For TV " joke.
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