It’s time once again for those of us who follow NASCAR and are traditionalists to break out the black arm bands.
We will be mourning once again the passing of one of stock car racing’s greatest, most colorful shows, the storied Southern 500 on Labor Day Weekend at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.
NASCAR officials pulled the plug on their oldest, most history-filled race in 2004 after moving the date of the event to November. In 2005, the Southern 500 ceased to exist.
The plum Labor Day Weekend was awarded to California Speedway.
It’s understandable that NASCAR and its corporate sponsors want to make a major impact in such a big market as Southern California.
But at the expense of trashing the Darlington tradition?!
How could they?
Darlington is where a local businessman and good ol’ boy named Harold Brasington, inspired after attending the 1949 Indianapolis 500, came home and set out to build his own race track. He carved it out of either a peanut patch or cotton field–take your choice–and made it egg-shaped so as not to infringe on the fishing pond of a friend. The “pointy end” is on the west and the disparate corners made setting a car up to get around the place a challenge for even NASCAR’s most talented and imaginative drivers and crews.
Darlington is where a whopping 75 cars started the first Southern 500 in 1950, lining up to take the green flag three abreast. Many of the drivers traveled to the track in the cars they raced. Johnny Mantz of California - there’s a bit of irony here, don’t you think? -won the race that took 6 hours, 48 minutes and 40 seconds to complete. Mantz triumphed in large part because he rightly figured that harder truck tires would outlast the conventional rubber that others were using. He beat runnerup Fireball Roberts by nine laps.
Darlington is where a tad of a local lad of 11 crawled under the fence and snuck in free to watch that first race in 1950. His name: Cale Yarborough, and he was to someday count five Southern 500 victories among his 83 triumphs at NASCAR’s major level as he became the only driver in the sanctioning body’s history to win three straight championships.
Darlington is where the fabulous Fireball put on one of the greatest demonstrations of his driving skill in the Southern 500 of 1958, the first major superspeedway race I covered. Blown tires led to repeated crashes in what was then the first turn, right under the rickety old press box. Finally, the steel railing was ripped apart beyond immediate repair when Jack Smith smashed right through it. During a red flag delay, NASCAR officials told the drivers to “go low and slow” through the first turn. Most did, but Fireball, driving a beautiful white 1957 Chevrolet bearing the No. 22, maintained the same smooth, high line that he’d run earlier and wound up winning by five laps over second place Buck Baker.
Bookmark to:
- Darlington to host historic race car festival
- Southern 500 to race at Darlington in ‘09
- Don’t expect Southern 500 back at Darlington
- Darlington could get new track surface
- Repaving begins at Darlington
I WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree with you
this is absolutely rediculous
i live about 2 1/2 hours from darlington and about 15 minutes from rockingham
its stupid that they would eliminate the tradition of the sport(which is what real nascar fans love and admire) for something they already have, more money!. If i took over nascar today, there would be drastic changes made in the schedule. North wilkesboro and rockingham and darlington would all get their beauty and pride back. The rock is just sitting there with no one using it and going to waste. Kurt Busch tested there a couple months back. First car on the track in 2 and a half years. The drivers all loved to drive at rockingham because it was challenging and fun. It really hurt my heart when they took it away and labor day darlington away in the same year. Brian France came in and immediately theres what happened. We need to get bill back in there. He would straighten it up. Brian is a Buisness man while Bill is a Traditional man
NASCAR needs a traditional ceo
-Trey Stafford
Trey nailed it. Brian France has been a cancer to NASCAR. He doesn’t care one bit about tradition…ALL he thinks about is $$. It’s not always about $$.
As a 24 observer and fan of the greatest sport on earh (NASCAR), I still have withdrawels when the mention of a Darlington Labor Day race is discussed. Like my fellow commentors above, NASCAR has lost touch with those of us who made it the popular sport it is today. Never then, nor now did I hear one shred of information that justified the move and then the dropping of this race. Wait…ISC owns California huh. Bruton has won again. This is why there are no Cup races in Gateway, Nashville, Memphis, or Kentucky. We all “want” races at Las Vegas (2), California (2), Texas (2), Atlanta (2), and Charlotte (oops I mean “Lowes”) (2). All those tracks have two things in common. They are all the same shapes for the most part and they are all controlled by ISC and Bruton Smith. And we all thought NASCAR was trying to expand its market to other people. Nope, it is just trying to shore ups its best track promoter Smith. Well, forgive me NASCAR if I “forget” to watch this Sunday night and put in an old tape of a Southern 500 from the past. My NASCAR is quickly going down the tubes and the powers that be do not seem to care.