by Dwight Drum at Racetake.com

NASCAR’s next big race, the Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, is on the 1.366-mile oval steeped in stock car tradition on southern turf. The 25 degree banking on an egg-shaped track has challenged NASCAR drivers since 1950 and was a vision accomplished by owner Harold Brasington after attending the 1948 Indianapolis 500.

Long known as the “Lady in Black” and “The Track Too Tough to Tame”,the historic track is now a Mother’s Day destination in Darlington, S.C. for many racing families.

Much of the track difficulty is the tight shape owing to a nearby land owner who refused to relocate his minnow pond. That pesky pond is no doubt the father of “Darlington Stripes” a name for the damage caused by frequent slamming into unforgiving walls.

So will drivers need lady luck to survive the Lady in Black?

Luck in sports is always an element. A ball bounces the right way or the wrong way. A race car misses a crash or gets collected. A part holds together after a run or it fails during competition and causes engine failure.

Driver Mark Martin shared his thoughts. “Good luck charms.” Martin said. “I don’t like them at all.”

Martin has good reason to doubt charms as he recalled a fan long ago giving him a four-leaf clover that he taped to the dash of his car. His car was promptly back-ended and tore up for the night after a green flag.

Most drivers and teams won’t be counting on luck to excel or win during the night race that starts at 6:30 p.m. ET on May 12. Fans not able to journey from their residences for the night-time banging and bumping can go to FOX for coverage.

NASCAR’s strongest drivers to date, the top five in points including Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick had comments heading into tough lady territory.

Greg Biffle (No 16 Ford)

“I’m really excited about Darlington,” Biffle said. “It’s been a good track for us and we always run well there. We run inches off the wall at speeds we run at mile and a half tracks. It’s a tough race track, which may mean a little bit more for us in the points if we can have a good night.”

Matt Kenseth (No 17 Ford)

“Darlington is a challenging track since you get so much speed going into the turns that many cars throughout the weekend end up with “Darlington stripes” down the side after brushing the wall,” Kenseth said. “Darlington is just a great race track with a lot of history surrounding it where we race fast with narrow lanes, and track position near the end of the race is really important.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No 88 Chevrolet)

“Darlington is a slick track and can be tough to get around,” Earnhardt said. “I hope we can go there and have a great run. We were good there last year, and I hope we can keep our consistency going. We feel confident we can win pretty much anywhere when we get it right.”

Denny Hamlin (No. 11 Toyota)

“I just strive on harder race tracks to try to figure out,” Hamlin said. “I was there (at Darlington) not too long ago and it’s amazing to see how much the surface has aged just since last year. The surface was white as snow and basically that’s the rock starting to come up through the asphalt again, which I think is great for that race track. You’ll see a little bit more tire wear than what we had in the past. Whatever they paved that race track with seems to be pretty good stuff. I think you’ll see great racing there again.”

Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Chevrolet)

“As you go to Darlington, obviously you see the deep history of the sport and it’s probably the place highest on my list to try to get my first win there,” Harvick said.

“Any lap around Darlington is a lap where you have to be paying attention to what’s going on because you can get yourself in trouble at any point on the race track. You carry a lot of speed into Turn 1 and you run right up the banking right up next to the wall and right back into the throttle. As you come back down the hill you might have to breathe the throttle a little bit, but it’s a lot of fun coming out of Turn 2 as it kind of shoots you down the backstretch. Turns 3 and 4 are probably the hardest because you carry so much speed off of (Turn) 2 into (Turn) 3 and the line kind of moves around a bit there. It’s probably the easiest place to get in the wall. Well it’s pretty easy to get in the wall anywhere, but definitely the easiest place to get into the wall is the middle of (Turns) 3 and 4.”

FYI WIRZ is the select presentation of topics by Dwight Drum at Racetake.com. Unless otherwise noted, information and all quotes were obtained from personal interviews or official release materials provided by NASCAR and team representatives.