NASCAR tempers could be flaring as the tires are wearing at Darlington Raceway

By Canadian Press on March 21, 2026.

“The Track Too Tough To Tame” somehow is expected to get even tougher this weekend, and that’s just fine with NASCAR drivers who have lobbied for bigger challenges.

It’s also probably fine with NASCAR executives, who have a crowd-pleasing feud brewing in the Cup Series circuit at Darlington Raceway, the egg-shaped oval in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina that has given top drivers fits for 76 years.

Anger and frustration often flare at the tricky 1.366-mile track, and all eyes will be on how Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez race each other Sunday. The former teammates at Trackhouse Racing had a brief but animated confrontation after their cars made contact last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and they’ve continued taking swipes at each other this week.

Suarez accused Chastain of being two-faced and later told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that “if I want to fight Ross, and he knows this, it’s not going to last 5 seconds.” Chastain said he regretted sideswiping Suarez’s car before lightly shoving him in the pits, but added “I don’t agree with the way he handles things. What made me so mad was just that there was no accountability.”

With the ill will festering, conditions at Darlington will be ripe for prolonging that rivalry and possibly igniting other fresh squabbles.

A 12% increase in horsepower and a 25% decrease in downforce (the physics that keep cars glued to the track at a high rate of speed) are expected to cause excessive tire wear on an already abrasive surface that’s infamous for chewing up rubber.

Lap times are expected to drop by 4 to 5 seconds over the course of a run — a second more than traditional falloff — as drivers wrestle with tires punished by heavier acceleration from 750 horsepower, heat from higher braking loads and power slides from the lack of traction. A forecast in the high 80s also will make the asphalt slippery.

“It’s going to be crazy,” Suarez said. “Honestly, I’m actually looking forward to it. I’m super excited for the challenge.”

Indeed, many drivers relish the idea of being out of control for 400 laps because they believe the difficult conditions separate the field and provide the most talented with a better chance to shine by managing their tires.

Chase Briscoe, who has won two of the past three races at Darlington, said he was “crashing every corner of every lap” recently testing the track on Toyota’s driving simulator.

“It’s going to be the hardest track we run on all year long,” said Briscoe, who has won two of the past three races at Darlington. “The whole weekend is going to be must-see because of how drastically different this thing drives.”

On what NASCAR is hailing as “Alumni Weekend,” several dozen former Cup drivers are expected to be on hand at the historic track Sunday for a race that fittingly will be old school.

It’s so much of a throwback that concerns have been raised about its unknowns.

NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst said teams have asked for extra tires (beyond an allotted 10 sets) and permission to enhance brake cooling.

Probst said NASCAR declined to grant their requests because unpredictability usually means better racing — presuming the entire field doesn’t exhaust its tire supply or suffer systemic brake failures.

“This isn’t just a regular event where everything is known, and everyone’s comfortable,” Probst said. “That uncertainty is usually the recipe for a very compelling race. If you’re a team, you want to minimize the opportunities to make a wrong decision. We feel when there are opportunities to make bad decisions, it improves the entertainment of our events.

“But there is a slippery slope that if we err too much on the side of not enough tires or brake cooling, then you kind of ruin the sporting side of the event. So we’re trying to thread the needle between the entertainment and sporting side.”

Probst said NASCAR is confident the curveballs won’t be too big to handle at Darlington.

“We have the best drivers and engineers in the world, and they want to show their skills,” Probst said. “Anytime that we can put decisions that have profound effects on the outcome in the hands of our teams, that’s when we see our best racing. This is what our fans have been asking for, and we hear them loud and clear.”

Respecting Dale

Carson Hocevar will be sporting a blue and yellow paint scheme on his No. 77 Chevrolet to honor seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt’s early 1980s livery. The Spire Motorsports upstart has drawn comparisons to Earnhardt because of his aggressive driving style, but Hocevar wants to dispel the notion that he is the imitator of “The Intimidator.”

“I mean, I think I’ve hit enough people already,” said Hocevar, who bought a 1997 Chevy pickup truck last year that is modeled after Earnhardt’s famous No. 3. “I’m just driving how I want to drive. I don’t really love the comparisons of what they turn into. It started by just not apologizing after running into people to turning into kind of ‘I’m as good as him.’ I don’t know where that came from. I’m just hoping I’m fast enough that we can actually be up front and be relevant, especially with that scheme.”

Odds and ends

Denny Hamlin (+550) is favored by Bet MGM Sportsbook, followed by Kyle Larson (+600), William Byron (+700), Briscoe (+700) and Tyler Reddick (+700). … Hamlin has the best average finish (7.9) in history at Darlington, where he leads active drivers with five wins. … The last four 400-mile races in the spring at Darlington have featured a lead change in the final 10 laps.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Nate Ryan, The Associated Press

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