Before Tuesday, Lake Tahoe, Nevada native Scott Pruett didnt even know where Darlington, SC was on a map. But he met the infamous wall of Darlington Raceway face-to-face after coming to town for the first time. Pruett, a long-time racer, is making his debut in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series next year, and he chose Darlington Raceway to be the place of initiation for his 2000 Winston Cup ride with PPI Motorsports. On Tuesday and Wednesday he tested at the track Too Tough To Tame, (which is not known for a friendly welcome to rookies), and actually, other than a brief encounter with the Turn 4 wall, he faired pretty well. At the end of the day Wednesday he was running a 29.40, which converts to 167.265 mph, and would have been barely quick enough to enter him into the field of 1999 Pepsi Southern 500 competitors. Not bad when you consider he wasnt even running on a qualifying set-up. The performance is not all that surprising when you consider Pruetts racing background. He has been involved in motorsports for more than 18 years, and has excelled in the CART series in the last decade. He is a two-time SCCA Trans-Am champion, and has experience in virtually every type of race car. On top of that, he has some of the best in the business by his side with Cal Wells of PPI Motorsports as team owner, Doug Richert as crew chief, and long-time Winston Cup sponsor Tide backing him up. But even so, why start out at Darlington, the toughest track on the NASCAR circuit? Well, Pruett just figured that if he could drive at Darlington he could drive anywhere. Team Manager Joe Garone said that the crew was pleased at the end of testing Wednesday, and that Pruett has a natural feel for driving Darlington Raceway and a Winston Cup car. Its amazing how quickly he has adapted to the differences of open-wheeled driving to that of Winston Cup, he said. We feel like hes just a natural. We were just hoping to leave here with the cars in tact, he laughed. Veteran Winston Cup driver Ted Musgrave was on hand both days to give Pruett some pointers on driving the track(Darlington PR)
