The new Mother’s Day weekend race tradition offers up its fourth installment at Darlington on Saturday night. Once a two-event fixture on the NASCAR circuit, Darlington Raceway has been relegated to just a single race in recent years. Still, the venue is loaded with history and offers a brand of racing beloved by traditionalists. The racing here is unlike any other track. The banking is steep, it offers some tricky corners and prior to this year, the track surface was extremely abrasive. For an added flavor this season, the track has been repaved and drivers have raved about its “raciness” in tests. It remains to be seen what affect this major change will have on the outcome and strategy used and in the Dodge Challenger 500, so Saturday’s race could bring anything. One thing to watch for however is falling records in terms of speeds in qualifying, as cars were topping the 200 MPH mark in practice sessions.

Darlington is one of the more difficult tracks on the circuit for drivers and crew chiefs to master. The changing surface and the egg-shaped highly banked track layout provide challenges unlike any other venue. In previous years when the circuit came here and Rockingham, a similar track, twice, teams would be much better prepared. Now, as just one of 36 season stops on the yearly slate, setups can become more of a roll of the dice. We do know it takes skill and horsepower to reach victory lane. Known to be as tough on drivers as it was on tires, Darlington has been nicknamed the “The Track Too Tough to Tame”.

A number of top drivers like Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Carl Edwards, and even series points leader Kyle Busch, have yet to win here despite their overall series success. On the other hand, some drivers have enjoyed their time at Darlington. Jeff Gordon is one of those, as he has tamed this raceway seven times in his career, including last May’s race. Teammate Jimmie Johnson also has two wins and four top 5’s in nine starts. Those two Hendrick Motorsports drivers should be contenders again, but the favorites figure to be Edwards, Busch, and Denny Hamlin, the hottest drivers on the circuit in 2008.

Last week’s race at Richmond produced one of the most newsworthy events in recent NASCAR memory. Hamlin thoroughly dominated the Crown Royal 400, leading 381 of the first 382 laps, but coming out of his last pit stop he fell victim to a tire losing air. After surrendering the lead to Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Hamlin then caused a caution when the tire gave way. What ensued afterwards will be talked about for the rest of 2008, as Junior and Kyle Busch got entangled while battling for the lead. The end result was Earnhardt, Jr. spinning out, much to the dismay of his loyal fans. Considering Junior is driving the car formerly piloted by Busch, the incident was seen as both fascinating and controversial. There seems to be a rivalry budding between the two drivers, one that should be good for the sport. In any case, Busch wound up finishing second to Clint Bowyer, but the effort was good enough to vault him past Jeff Burton into the series lead.

When looking at the contenders for Saturday, the only thing we can really do is analyze who has fared well at Darlington historically. Greg Biffle is a two-time winner of this race and can be had at an attractive 15-1 price at Sportsbook.com. Johnson, second in average finish at 6.8 to Hamlin’s 6.0. is the favorite at 5-1, while Busch and Earnhardt, Jr. are 6-1. Busch brings some ugly stats in however, with an average finish of just 22.3 at Darlington, having led just one lap in three prior starts. Gordon’s seven wins come accompanied by 8-1 odds. In terms of other underdogs to consider, Hamlin is fairly priced at 10-1, and Ryan Newman, who boasts five Top 5 finishes in nine starts, could prove to be a solid pick at 25-1. On the opposite side, be careful with Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick, as between the two, they have led just 24 combined laps in 26 starts.

This week’s schedule fires up on Friday with qualifying, slotted for 5:15 PM ET. The driver that sits on the pole Saturday will probably own himself a new track speed record. Qualifying is very important at Darlington, with 99 of 104 winners starting from within the top 15 spots. Of those, 67 started in the top 5. This race is scheduled for Saturday night at 7:30 PM ET. Get prepared for all the race action with the StatFox NASCAR FoxSheet below. Also, make sure to stay up to speed on your head to head wagers with the StatFox NASCAR Matchup Analyzer and individual driver pages…"