Tony Stewart heads into Dodge Challenger 500 on a mission to learn as much as possible about the characteristics of the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile speedway which has been made even more daunting and unpredictable by 15,000 tons of new asphalt.
“At Darlington, I’ll use all of the practice time they’ll give us,” he said. “It’s just a matter of going out and using the track time as if you were testing. You go out and sneak up on it, steadily improving yourself with each lap.”
And there’s much improving to be done for Stewart, who sits eighth in Sprint Cup points, 198 behind leader and teammate Kyle Busch. Stewart is winless so far in 2008 in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, but then again, he has established a pattern of not winning until the dog days of the season.
But based on past Darlington performances, two-time Cup champion Stewart will need more than luck.
“I could probably run backward and run about the same as I do going forward,” Stewart said. “That’s how close I feel like I am to figuring out Darlington. We’ve run decent at Darlington. I mean, I’ve run in the top five there before, but every time I think I have something figured out, I normally whack the wall and go, ‘Oh boy, I really did figure it out, didn’t I?’ I don’t know that I’ll ever feel like I’ve got Darlington totally figured out.”
That being said, Stewart believes the new pavement will even things out.
“Nobody knows the secrets at a new race track unless they’ve tested, and even then they may not know the secrets,” he said. “And for everybody that’s going to Darlington, we all pretty much have the same amount of track time on the new layout. It’s a whole new ballgame and it’s totally up for grabs. It’s really anybody’s race.”
