NASCAR: They didn't learn from my pace laps around the Lady

DARLINGTON — Zipping around 'The Track Too Tough To Tame,' the entirety of pit row was a blur, like 43 birthday cakes wiped along a canvas.

'So,' I asked Dodge Challenger 500 pace car driver Brett Bodine. 'How many times have you hit the wall here?'

Thankfully, the former NASCAR cup series regular didn't take his eyes off Darlington Raceway's newly paved blacktop and glance into the backseat while responding.

'Hard to tell,' Bodine said as he very purposely almost kissed the wall in Turn 1.

Our official Dodge Challenger 500 pace car — I'm pretty sure it was a Dodge Challenger and I know it was bright red — was going a mere 120 mph. Obviously, however, not enough NASCAR Sprint Series contestants were paying attention to those precious few laps around a track that always has demanded smart focus.

Because had they learned what I learned a few hours before Saturday night's race about the potentially dangerous nuances of the slick surface, maybe the scramble wouldn't have been as sloppy. Maybe more guys would have given winner Kyle Busch a run for his money.

'They did a great job,' Bodine said of the paving effort.

They didn't learn from my pace laps

Yes, no doubt. Great enough to make a 1.366-mile lap go by faster than you can say: 'Hey, whatever happened to Dick Trickle?'

The inside wall

Race fans are well acquainted with 'The Darlington Stripe,' a dark streak of car part rubbed across outside corner walls when drivers are more or less in control.

'But you usually don't see bad wrecks here,' Bodine said. 'And if you have a major problem, it's usually on the inside wall.'

Still, you see wrecks. There were 25 crashes here this week prior to the start of Saturday night's race.

From the back seat of the pace car, it looked fast enough in corners with 25-degree banks to wonder how in the name of Junior Johnson these guys run so fast with 42 other cars on the track.

'Imagine doing this for three hours,' one of our fellow travelers said as Bodine accelerated.

'Four,' Bodine shot back.

‘I apologize'

Bodine, 49, had 61 top 10 finishes and one win (the 1990 First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro, N.C.) in a cup series career that ended in 2003. Some things haven't changed at Darlington since Bodine raced here, or since Johnny Mantz won the inaugural event in 1950. The oddly eggish-shaped oval still brings out a driver's superspeedway best.

Other things are very different, thanks to the fresh surface.

'The strategy for this race has changed completely,' Bodine said on the frontstretch. 'It used to be tire management. Now it's just run wide open and hope you don't make a mistake.'

Errors, of course, increase with speed.

'The Lady In Black' — newer black — claimed Tony Stewart and Elliott Sadler right away.

'I just made a huge mistake,' Sadler said. 'I just went in too low into Turn 1. I was actually trying to give Tony more room and I just got loose under him and spun into him. ... I apologize to all of his fans.'

As Darlington's fourth consecutive sellout crowd watched, there were lots more mistakes and apologies.

Could have told them so.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com.