Darlington Raceway has apparently not lost a single bit of its dangerous edge.At least three backup cars rolled off Sprint Cup haulers Friday afternoon after no less than 9 drivers had an incident in the practice sessions leading up to both qualifying on Friday night and Saturday night's Dodge Challenger 400. For the third week in a row, the cars will be impounded immediately after qualifying until the race.
Most notably of the four drivers heading to a backup car was Hendrick Motorsports' Jimmie Johnson, who used his primary No. 48 in the early session, and then in the final practice, spun again. The damage to the backup will be repairable, though.
Additionally, Reed Sorenson and Paul Menard will head to a backup car before the qualifying session.
The wrecks came Friday on a weekend schedule for the Sprint Cup Series that differed quite a bit from the norm. Instead of simply practicing and qualifying on Friday and racing Saturday at Darlington, the teams were given extra track time Thursday afternoon and evening after the legendary speedway was repaved over the off season.
Last week's winner at Richmond Clint Bowyer, Kyle Petty, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, and Robby Gordon all got a piece of the wrecking action as well on Friday. Numerous other cars earned a "Darlington Stripe" after scrubbing the wall. Hamlin ended the final session with the top posted lap speed.
Qualifying starts at 5:00pm/ET Friday live on SPEED.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-09-2008 @ 7:07PM
drgrcr601 said...
Kudo's to Jimmy Johnson for a helluva qualifying run (3rd)after wrecking twice in practice. Took stones to put that car on the line that he did after that. No fear!
Ron
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5-10-2008 @ 1:59AM
Peaches said...
Great job to Jimmy Johnson & Chad for working so hard to get this car back out there to Qualify 3rd.
Congrats to Biffle for breaking Track record and taking the pole.Because as we all know "THE LADY IN BLACK" will reach out and grab you,she mangled up quite a few cars.
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5-17-2008 @ 12:37PM
Bernie said...
Jimmy is one of the guys Kyle should be worried about as we head into the second half of the season. He and TS have been making late surges the last two years. On another note, maybe you all can shed some light on this new Dodge engine package we are hearing mentioned. I wonder if Dodge makes a turn for the better after running with the new engine will others follow suit? This can be seen as the final part of the COT tranitional period.
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