Speeds soar at Darlington

In the opening Sprint Cup practice session Kyle Busch lapped at 28.017 seconds, with an average speed of 175.522 mph.

A few hours later, AJ Allmendinger topped the timesheets running at 27.522 second, with a speed of 178.679 mph, which is nearly 5 mph or seven tenths of a second faster than the existing track record. The third practice showed a similar picture.

Even more so, the Nationwide Series cars have also lapped under the existing benchmark, set by Ward Burton in qualifying nearly twelve years ago. That is despite these machines running with a tapered spacer, which reduces horsepower.

"The speeds are pretty insane," said Dale Earnhardt Jr. "The grip is good. It's going to be interesting to see, really, how the cars are on 40 and 50-lap runs.

"Everybody is out there running three and four laps and doing okay, but it's going to be interesting to see who falls off a lot and who don't and who can maintain that kind of a pace.

"I think it's possible for somebody to be able to maintain a really fast pace. It's going to be very physical just driving that hard and that fast. It's going to be very physical on your body. It's different. It's pretty neat though."

Some drivers suggest that the rise in speeds will change completely the nature of racing at one of NASCAR's most traditional venues, as the higher speeds mean it is more and aero-dependant track than it was before.

Two-time winner at Darlington Greg Biffle still believes that despite the extra grip coming from the new abrasive surface, the track remains as tough as it has ever been, if not tougher due to the higher cornering speeds, which give far less room for making mistakes.

"I talked to a couple of drivers yesterday and they're like, 'It's tougher now than it has been,' and you think, 'How can it be tougher?'" said Biffle. "But when you run that fast that close to the wall, even before they re-paved it, it's not very forgiving.

"And now we're running three seconds a lap faster - or whatever we are - and it's less forgiving. So it's hard, it's really tough. It'll be the same old Darlington."

Ryan Newman, who tested tyres for Goodyear at Darlington back in March, praised the job done by the track to improve the racing surface not only adding grip but also getting rid of a number of bumps in the corners.

"I think the racetrack and the tire combinations are in good condition, respectively," Newman said.

"I felt the speeds were very close to what we had anticipated from the tire tests and the fact we purposely were slower at the test and were going to pick up the speed here at the track competition wise. I thought everything was good.

"The track, I feel, they did a great job. Keeping the old traditional Darlington shape and the character with the exception of the bumps that was the reason for the repave."

Clint Bowyer claimed pole for last year's Sprint Cup Series race at Darlington with a lap of 29.806 seconds at an average speed of 164.897 mph.

The pole position lap for Sunday's race is expected to be around 15 mph faster in average, and more than two seconds below last year's benchmark.