Fathers and Sons at Darlington

Dale Earnhardt and Dale Jarrett suddenly find themselves cast in a new role as the 1998 Busch Series gains momentum. The two Winston Cup stars have become anxious coaches.

Earnhardt was at Darlington Speedway to test his car for next weekend’s TranSouth Financial 400 and to work with his son, who was testing a Busch Series car. Jarrett didn’t even bring his Winston Cup car. He was simply at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway to oversee the test of his son’s Busch car.

Next weekend will be the debut for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jason Jarrett at Darlington, which is considered one of the toughest tracks in stock car racing.

Earnhardt Jr. has a full-time Busch ride this season and already has turned in a runner-up finish, two weeks ago at Las Vegas. Jarrett is sharing his first regular Busch ride with his dad, splitting the schedule.

“I’ve been preparing for this for a number of years,” said the younger Earnhardt, 23. “I’ll let him (Dale Sr.) get on the track in front of me and I’ll follow him. I’m just making laps, learning where to back off and get back on the gas. This place is tough.”

The elder Jarrett, who won last spring’s race at Darlington, said: “I told Earnhardt if I knew he was going to be here, I would have gotten him to coach Jason.

“I’ll be glad when Jason learns the place so I won’t have to be biting my fingernails. I know what he’s going through. It’s a tough track to learn.”

The younger Jarrett, 21, said Darlington is the toughest track he’s ever been on.

“I keep trying to get a rhythm, but it’s hard to do,” he said. “I’ll be running OK, then all of a sudden I’ll almost hit the wall. I’m glad my dad was here because he knows how to get around this place.”

Another youngster hoping to make his first Darlington Busch race is J.D. Gibbs, son of Winston Cup team-owner and former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs. It would be his Busch Series debut.

COMMUNICATIONS LAG: A lot was expected of rookie Kenny Irwin Jr. when he took over the No. 28 Robert Yates Ford at the beginning of this season.

After a slow start, Irwin showed flashes of brilliance Monday when he led the most laps and finished a solid fifth in the rain-postponed race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“The biggest problem that I’m having is not communicating to the guys what the car is doing,” said Irwin, a former U.S. Auto Club short track star and last year’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck rookie of the year. “I know the car is loose or pushing or whatever, but so many of the drivers in Winston Cup can tell their crews how to fix it, and I’m not at that point yet.

“That’s why I think you’ve seen us struggle in a few races. I’ll tell them it’s pushing or getting loose or whatever. But the driver needs to be able to tell them, ‘Well, maybe we need a pound of right front air, or we need to go softer on the rear spring.’ And I just can’t do that yet.”

STRING SNIPPED: When Sterling Marlin failed to qualify for the race at Atlanta, it ended a string of 332 consecutive Winston Cup starts for the two-time Daytona 500 winner.

Part of the problem was that rain washed out the scheduled second round of time trials and the entire 43-car field was set on the basis of the first qualifying session.

“The competition in qualifying is even tougher than in the race,” Marlin said. “A tenth of a second or less and you can find yourself in trouble. That’s what happened to us at Atlanta. But we just have to put that behind us now.”

Also missing the cut was Chad Little, who had finished 10th the previous week in Las Vegas and was ninth in the points. After missing the Atlanta race, Little fell all the way to 25th. Marlin is 34th in the standings.

CASH STAKE: The 76 Racing bonus that goes to a driver winning from the pole will be $82,600 for next week’s race at Darlington. The bonus grows at $7,600 a race until somebody wins it.

Nobody has won from the pole since Mark Martin at Dover last September, but Darlington is a track know for drivers winning from the top qualifying spot. In fact, races at the South Carolina track have been won from the pole 19 times.

Jarrett won from the pole last year, earning a $38,000 bonus from 76 Racing.

STATISTIC OF THE WEEK: Despite the controversy over aerodynamics in NASCAR’s top series, each of the three makes in Winston Cup racing has won at least once in the first four races of the season. Chevrolet Monte Carlos won the first two events, while a Ford Taurus won at Las Vegas and a Pontiac Grand Prix at Atlanta.