Called “The Track Too Tough To Tame,” Darlington Raceway offers little comfort for even the most prolific NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competitors.
But some shrug off the intensity. Or at least – somehow – deal with it.
Those specific few need to fight the good fight with Darlington this Saturday night, lest their season continue its standings descent. Those few – namely Mark Martin, Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin – own solid statistics, and finishes, at Darlington but are teetering on the brink of a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup miss. Could this be the week where their season gets righted?
Let’s take a look…
Mark Martin, 13th in points, 19 points outside the top 10: Martin only has one top-10 finish in the last four Darlington races, but it was a big one – a win in 2009.
Greg Biffle, 14th in points, 25 points outside the top 10: Biffle won consecutive races in 2005 and 2006, the last driver with a repeat Darlington victory. (There have been five different winners in the last five Darlington races.) His Darlington pre-race Driver Rating of 113.8 ranks second in the series. Biffle’s average finish of 14.8 should be even better – he finished last in 2008 because of a blown engine, but led 95 laps that event.
Jeff Gordon, 16th in points, 35 points outside the top 10: A seven-time winner, Gordon ranks third all-time in Darlington wins behind NASCAR Hall of Famers David Pearson (10) and Dale Earnhardt (nine). Enjoying an incredible hot streak at the track, Gordon has finished in the top five in seven consecutive races, leading in each of them. He leads the series in Darlington Driver Rating at 117.6, and has scored a Driver Rating of at least 111.3 in each Darlington race since the inception of Loop Data in 2005. For all race-by-race driver logs, click here. One other historical nugget: With a top-five finish, Gordon will break a tie for fifth on the all-time Darlington list, and move into a fourth-place tie with Dale Earnhardt at 19 top fives.
Denny Hamlin, 17th in points, 37 points outside the top 10: The defending champion at Darlington, Hamlin boasts an outstanding average finish at the 1.366-mile track – 6.6. Four of his six starts have resulted in top-10 finishes, and his Driver Rating of 109.1 ranks third. He is coming off a runner-up finish last weekend at Richmond.
| 
|