Plenty of history could be made at Darlington

The old master will be everywhere this weekend at Darlington Raceway, a fitting prospect given that the one race so connected to him will be making its return. A monument to Cale Yarborough, a native of nearby Timmonsville, S.C., who won the Southern 500 five times, has been added outside the frontstretch grandstand. Saturday night before the revived classic goes green once again, it will be Yarborough leading the field over that one-year-old blacktop, behind the wheel of the pace car.

Literally and figuratively, Jeff Gordon will be right behind him.

At Darlington, a place where the walls alone can tell six decades' worth of stories of triumph and tragedy, the Southern 500 is coming back with a bang. One of NASCAR's most revered race names -- "the Kentucky Derby and the Masters of our sport," according to series VP and former raceway president Jim Hunter -- returns with the opportunity to make more history of the kind for which the 60-year-old facility is famous.

And how appropriate that the players this time around are drivers tightly bound not just to the race track, but the event itself -- a race missing from the Cup schedule since 2004, after which Darlington was cut down to one race. Gordon enters Darlington tied with Yarborough with five Southern 500 victories, the most ever in one of racing's more iconic events. He also has 82 career victories on NASCAR's top level, one shy of the old South Carolina legend, and with a good Saturday night can catch Yarborough in one statistical category and surpass him in another.

"I was able to spend some time with Cale a few years back at an event at the track," said Gordon, who has seven total career victories at Darlington, the most recent in 2007. "It was neat to hear him tell stories about racing here during that era. The cars have changed, the speeds have changed and the asphalt has changed, but I don't believe the driver's thinking has changed one bit. You race the track here, not the other competitors."

How good are Gordon's chances Saturday night? Consider that the four-time champion has finished no worse than third in each of his last five starts at Darlington. That streak includes his victory in 2007, where steam was belching out of his No. 24 car over the final laps, but the engine inside hung on. This time, Gordon is driving the same car he used to finish second at Fontana and sixth at Las Vegas earlier this year.

If Gordon ties Yarborough, next up are Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip, whom the NASCAR record books have tied for third on the all-time victory list with 84 wins apiece. (Continued)