Once Around the Track

you are not sliding, then you work up to the top groove, aiming for as close to the wall as you can get…

Why?

Because the traction is at the top part of the track. As you enter the corner, you apply the throttle. See, I’m going up the hill…

She sees him going down the front stretch wide open. As he sets himself up for Turn One, he dives low near the white line, backs off the gas, grabs a little brake, drifts the car up the banking until it is almost touching the wall. (This is called “walking up the track.”) Then as he comes off Turn Two, right where the wall wants to reach out and grab him, he eases the car a little to the left and points the nose down the backstretch.

I’m at the top of the hill now…full throttle…There is a bad dip at the top of Turns One and Two. If the car is not pointed straight, the back end will come around. You got a push-loose condition…

Which is?

When the damn car is so tight in the front end that I have to turn the wheel so far left that it makes the back end of the car want to turn around on me. Sometimes the car is so tight that I have to put so much wheel into it when I get back to the gas that I lose the back end, and because of the car not being straight, I end up chasing the car up the hill.

So you fight your way through the Turn Two apex, balancing the turning of the wheel against back end’s tendency to slide, so that you don’t skid into the wall… Then what?

Now the track gets really narrow, coming out off Turn Two…I’m going downhill…easing out of the throttle… Then I hit the apex. I’d not keep it out. I aimed right for it.

Early apex. Use bottom groove to make your car turn left.

Another big bump off of Turn Two the whole back end squats down…going into Turn Three-a lot of guys would stay up high. I’d go down to the bottom, drive in really deep, and for the most part straight.

Heavy braking until you hit the apex, then ease off the brake…Then a second or two later, I apply the brake again just to slow the momentum. Now the car is walking up the track.

And that means…Drifting up the bank toward the wall, right?

Uh-huh. So you ease back on it, next to the wall. When the car is almost straight, go to full throttle…twenty or thirty yards on full throttle…Sharp turn…Ease up a little…then full throttle again…Oh, and the braking technique is used more in Turn Three than in Turn One.

Good to know.

Aggressive on entry…aggressive all the way around…if the car is set up right, you are sitting wasting time if you’re not aggressive. Burning daylight.

Okay. Okay. I get it.

When the car is right, just before the middle of the corner, I go to the throttle hard…Also, when the car is right, you throttle up and go to the inside to pass…

On the inside? Why?

The inside is the preferred groove there. Because everybody else is running close to the wall, so most of the passing is done on the inside.

And the other cars have to get out of your way?

Look, Darlington is hell on tires. After about twenty laps the good cars shine. If the set-up is right it cuts down on tire wear. When your car is not right, every lap can feel like an eternity; but when the set-up is perfect, the other cars just become obstacles in your way. When I’m running good, I can average passing one car per lap. Do you get it now?

Well, no. You might as well be saying the Lord’s Prayer in Comanche. But I’ll take your word for it. Aim for the wall and miss.

But only if your race car is perfectly set up, and only if you have the reflexes of a tiger, the courage of a teenaged rhinoceros, and the focusing ability of an electron microscope.

Badger Jenkins was a superb driver-better than his win-loss record would have showed, because he had always driven on underfunded one-car teams, where talent was almost the only weapon he had against the corporate giants of the sport. He may have been hell on owners, sponsors, and people who loved him, but he drove like an angel of light. For 367 laps at Darlington that day, he etched his diamonds, double apexed his turns, aided by augmented shock absorbers that didn’t overheat, and his engine held up, while he dodged the wrecks and lucked out on the caution flags, which always came just as he was in need of fresh tires or more fuel. The pit crew was in top form at last-hopeful, confident, and comfortable in their roles in the intricate ballet that was a thirteen-second pit stop.

Sometimes the universe simply aligns itself in such a way that things go absolutely right for one person, and this was Badger Jenkins’s day. Two of the superstars had engine trouble, and another one lost a lap on a tire blowout. Another golden boy got caught up in somebody else’s wreck, damaging his car so badly that he was out of contention. What it all boiled down to was the fact that everybody who could have beaten Badger had a bad day, while he had a phenomenally good one.

By the time the race had wound down to a ten-lap shoot-out between Badger and the driver that the pit crew referred to as the “Prairie Dog,” the 86 team was hovering between elation and the fear that even taking a deep breath could break the spell. Eight laps…Badger was holding his own, diving into every corner as if he were going to plow straight through the wall, and then at the last second cutting the diamond in the opposite direction, blasting down the straightaway, and then repeating the maneuver at the next turn. Five laps…He was keeping a one-second lead over the Prairie Dog, which didn’t sound like much, until you consider that races can be won by thousandths of a second. Three laps…The Prairie Dog scrapes the wall in Turn Two, which costs him a fraction of a second.

“Prairie Dog’s shocks are going,” said Tuggle. “Yours are holding, though, right?”

“Doin’ fine,” said Badger. “I think we may be gonna win this sum bitch.”

“Bring it home, boy,” said Tuggle, trying to keep the catch out of her voice.

And he did.

Some of the younger drivers these days mark their wins in theatrical ways. The affable Carl Edwards does a backflip off the hood of his car. Two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart climbs the fence to collect the checkered flag from the official on the tower. Many drivers celebrate by cutting doughnuts in the infield or doing burnouts on the track. But Badger was an old-school driver, and mostly the old-timers did not believe in showing off.

So Badger’s victory was celebrated in the restrained tradition of his predecessors. He let down the window net, collected the checkered flag, and took his Victory Lap, while the pit crew sprinted off to Victory Lane to join in the celebration, which was as much theirs as his. He couldn’t have done it without them.

He drove the car into Victory Lane, climbed out the window, and hugged whoever was closest to the car. Tuggle. Christine. Sigur. Reve. Sark.

With microphones and television cameras thrust in his face, Badger managed a grin, and launched into a carefully worded sound bite: “Like to thank my crew, and all the folks at Team Vagenya. We had a really good car, and they really came through for me out there. They’ve all worked hard to get this team up to speed, and I’m glad I didn’t let them down today.”

A simple speech. A variation of what everybody else said, week after week, from one Victory Lane to the next. But if the one who says it this week is your driver, and if it is you that he is thanking, then the words are more eloquent than Shakespeare.

Shortly after he exited the car, Badger was given something to drink-never mind what he wanted. He would be given the officially sanctioned beverage, whose makers have paid dearly for their product to be the one approved drink to be imbibed in Victory Lane.

As team publicist, Sark finally had the chance to assist for real in the Victory Lane ritual called The Hat Dance. The winning driver is photographed over and over in the aftermath of the race, and each of the team’s sponsors wants a shot of the driver wearing their insignia. The purple and white Vagenya hat went first. Pose. Smile. Click. And then he swapped the first hat for another sponsor’s cap. Pose. Smile. Click. On and on.

Then he posed with the trophy. The last time Badger had won at Darlington, the trophy had featured a crystal globe, but the track had recently rethought that design, and now they presented the winning driver with a layout of