Finish this phrase: “Bright lights, …”

“Big city,” right? Las Vegas. New York. Hollywood.

Not necessarily Darlington, South Carolina.

On the other hand, if you ask a NASCAR driver to connect artificial luminescence and the South’s first big racetrack, their response usually is, “Great!”

“Darlington is a very fun track to drive at night,” said Jimmie Johnson, who swept both races in 2004 when the track switched from day to night racing. “The track has a little more grip and is a little more forgiving than what you have during a day race.”

Racing under the lights has always been a staple at small tracks, where vast numbers of bulbs weren’t needed. But when the movers and shakers in racing figured out how to illuminate a big track, the phenomenon of racing after dark took a giant leap forward. This year, nearly a third of NASCAR’s Nextel Cup races will take place after the sun goes down.

Darlington Raceway joined that party in 2004, and Johnson ate it up. He won both the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 in the spring and the last Southern 500 in November.

Greg Biffle put his name above the other night riders last spring, winning the Dodge Charger 500. If you’re looking for disciples of night racing at Darlington, look no further.

Darlington Raceway runs almost completely under the lights during the 2005 Dodge Charger 500.

“It kind of gives me goosebumps,” Biffle said. “I see a replay of it, I replay it in my head over and over, and it gets the blood flowing.

“With all the history this place has, this was one track I really wanted to win at. I’d won here twice in the Busch car, and wanted to win in a Cup car.”

It doesn’t matter to any driver what time it is when he takes the checkered flag, as long as he takes it first. But most prefer racing at night because it’s cooler, and most Nextel Cup night races are run on Saturday, not Sunday, which gives them an extra day off.

And as Johnson said, it is marginally easier. Track temperatures are cooler, which slows tire wear, and engines perform more efficiently in cooler air temperatures.

But night racing brings its own set of problems. The lighting system developed by Musco Lighting directs the light horizontally from the infield across the racing surface instead of from above. It eliminates most shadows but, according to Biffle, it is different.

Especially at Darlington, where running close to the outer wall is the rule, not the exception.

“It was kind of different at night because the shadow (during the day) is about 12 inches from the base of the wall,” Biffle said. “At night, the same thing happens in some spots, and it was hard to tell.

“We run really close to the wall, and it’s critical to see what we call the ‘cushion,’ where all the rubber is built up. At night, it made it challenging to do that.”

That said, both drivers agree that the key to Darlington is not whether races are run in the afternoon heat or cool of the evening, it’s the tires. Tire wear is greater at most tracks during the day, but at Darlington it makes no difference. As far as tires are concerned, the rough racing surface is an equal-opportunity destroyer.

“It just tears the tires off, regardless,” Johnson said. “It’s like racing on a cheese grater. It doesn’t matter whether the sun is out or not. It’s going to tear ’em up.”