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Kelly Bires will make his Darlington Raceway debut at the ‘new’ track in the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 in Darlington, South Carolina this weekend.

Bires will be running his first race at the famous track on a special weekend in the history of the circuit known as ‘Too Tough To Tame’.

Darlington’s famous surface has been repaved in the off-season, presenting drivers and teams with a new challenge this weekend.

With Darlington already known as a fast and narrow track, the new surface is expected to provide even faster speeds, giving young drivers like Bires a big challenge in this Friday night’s race.

The new surface will be an exciting challenge, giving Bires confidence that the repaving will level the playing field somewhat as veterans and rookies alike seek to find their way at Darlington, although the Wisconsin native still believes that he has much to learn on his first visit to the tough venue.

Kelly Bires - #47 Clorox Ford Fusion

“It is an interesting time for me to make my debut at Darlington,” said Bires.

“I never ran on the old surface, so the new surface for me will be all I know.

“The guys that have run here before are still going to have something of an advantage, but with a new surface hopefully that will level the playing field a little bit.

“Everything I’ve heard about Darlington is that it’s a real tough track. It looks good and the speeds are fairly high.

“We are taking a really good intermediate track car there and we ran well last time we used this Clorox car. It drives really well and it’s got a good body on it.

“So the big thing will be me getting up to speed and getting in the groove at Darlington. That will be the main thing but Darlington is one of the tracks that I’m really looking forward to running so it will be great to finally get out there.”