Warning: Respect the Lady

Fans of NASCAR should really appreciate watching a race at a track that has truly earned the name "Too Tough To Tame." After all, it has been on the schedule since 1950, meaning it has taken on the best the sport has to offer. Petty, Pearson, Earnhardt and Yarborough have all had good days at the South Carolina track, taking home the trophy and first-prize check, but probably never claiming victory.

Darlington is the only track on the schedule we refer to as "she" instead of it, and I think that speaks volume.

I listened Wednesday night during ESPN's "NASCAR Now" as Ned Jarrett described how Darlington was the greatest test for a driver and how significant winning there was for him and all other drivers back in the mid 1960s. I also listened to Cale Yarborough give rookie Joey Logano some advice, the most valuable of which was, "Good luck!" Yarborough followed with a chuckle and said, "You'll have your hands full."

I laughed and laughed hard because I saw the expression on Cale's face when he said it, coming from one of the best the sport has ever seen, from a driver having been tossed from the track – literally while strapped in his race car. Yarborough was implying to the 18-year-old the greatest insight possible – that you've never experienced anything like what you will Saturday night.

I understood it completely, although I would not have prior to racing there for the first time in 1992, as a rookie in the Busch Grand National Series and ignorant of certain manners that must be used at Darlington. I would later learn that she is intolerant of arrogance, oblivious to confidence, always mysterious, and that you'll never have her totally figured out.

Like no other track on the circuit, Darlington challenges a driver's skill, focus and patience. It is the one track on the circuit that tempts you – dares you – to push a little harder. Lap after lap, the track speaks to you, and what she's saying is, "Is that all you got?" And you take it personally, maybe drive three feet deeper into Turn 1 than the lap before, only to realize you've made a critical error. Brace for impact … pop!!

Score one for the Lady in Black.

I honestly believe that before you can be allowed to celebrate at Darlington, you are first required to experience a high level of humility. In fact, the race I won in 2003 was in the same car I won the pole position for the year's previous race. My expectations for race day 2002 were to run top five all day and save my best for the end. Instead, I ran too hard early and swept into a wreck with Steve Park and a lapped car.

I sat in my car in the garage area steaming for being such an idiot. Part of my frustration was not identifying my level of aggression. In other words, to succeed at the 1.366-mile track you need an above-average ability for waiting for things to unfold in front of you, as opposed to forcing the issue.

This is most difficult to do when you have an exceptional car with a great balance and great speed, as I did for that race in 2002. You truly have to pull back on the reins much the same as famed jockey Calvin Borel displayed in last week's Kentucky Derby on top of 50-1 long shot Mine That Bird. Watching him shoot from the rear of the field in the last quarter of the race looked perfectly executed. I wondered after that race, how long it took for him to understand and utilize that strategy.

It took me a while. In the spring of 2007, I woke the morning of the Darlington race convinced I was going to have my first Cup win that day. I had had that premonition before, but not like this; it felt more like I had her permission. I started on the front row, alongside Dale Jarrett, but from there I slapped the wall early in the race and went on to destroy the car. It was a race that stuck with me for years. It was another memory I was reliving as I sat in my wrecked Tide car five years later punishing myself for failing, again.

Darlington takes the best you have to offer and then responds with her own version of trash talking, something along the lines of, "Regardless of who you are, or how good you think you are, when you race here, I am the one in control. The only one!"

So in 2003, I arrived a humbled man, with the same car that was fast enough to qualify first a year earlier, but it was only good for 31st on that day. That poor qualifying was representative of the majority of the weekend, but I was not concerned, even though every one around me appeared to be. I honestly felt good about my chances that race day, providing Darlington would change moods like she always does as the race rolls on and rubber builds up leaving less grip.

Race day went exactly as I hoped. We were passed early, but by Lap 100 the pendulum had swung our way and we got better and better with every lap around the track.

One of the drivers between me and the lead late in the race was Jeff Gordon. Jeff had won six times at Darlington, but I passed the No. 24 as he was fighting to regain control after hitting the wall between Turns 1 and 2.

When it came down to the end, when Kurt Busch and I battled for the win, it was as though we both had committed the ultimate sin and disregarded where we were racing, concentrating too much on one another, not enough on her. The track allowed us to finish what we had started, perhaps only for entertainment purposes.

After four laps of beating and banging on one another, and after we crossed under the checkered and after I was able to confirm our winning at the track Too Tough To Tame, I experienced what Ned Jarrett described – the pure elation. I had won at Darlington.

I really enjoyed Ned sharing his view on Darlington. It confirmed that the track has the same effect on us all, regardless of what era we raced in. And I've continued chuckling at Cale's comments, though Joey Logano may not have completely appreciated or understood his wisdom about the Lady in Black. But, like us all, he will.