Don’t expect Southern 500 back at Darlington
Quote selected text Published May 11th, 2008 in NASCAR News
The romantic in Jim Hunter would love to see the Southern 500 back at his beloved Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. The pragmatist in NASCAR’s chief spokesman is certain why it shouldn’t.
Seemingly ever since the Southern 500 left the country track for California Speedway on Labor Day weekend after 2004, whispers have abounded about a triumphant return to South Carolina where the race was run for 54 years.
Hunter doesn’t expect more changes. ”We could sell 55 to 58 thousand tickets here on Labor Day five years ago,” Hunter said Saturday. ”We moved it to California and they sell 90 or 92 [thousand] or something. From a business standpoint, that is a no-brainer.”
Hunter, a South Carolina native, was Darlington’s president from 1993 to 2001. He still has a home here and loves how the old layout has reinvented itself with lights and more grandstand seats the past few years.
Still, track owners International Speedway Corp. have responsibilities to those who own the stock.
”Do I feel bad about it? As a shareholder of ISC, I don’t feel bad about it at all,” Hunter said.
- Southern 500 to race at Darlington in ‘09
- Another Labor Day with no Darlington
- John Darby: Don’t expect changes on ‘Car of Tomorrow’
- NASCAR says don’t expect COT rule changes
- Darlington could get new track surface
Fisha695 wrote:
I hope that comment was made sarcasticly.
Another example of what has become NASCAR;
Corporate America moves in and the sport is now secondaryto the almighty dollar. Who cares about the longtme fans,smaller teams and tradition? It’s not just the price of fuel to go to a race keeping fans at home.
The Southern 500 should have never been messed with period. I have never seen a good cup race at California Speedway, who wants to see 43 cars play follow the leader for 500 miles.
And what exactly was this race on Saturday? I only saw the last 100 or so laps (sorry but real racing at the local short track is better then any Cup race EVER), but it appeared to be pretty much follow the leader up front except for like 2 passes for the lead.
Nothing new, Racing has gone to the God of MONEY,
No fans, loyalty or roots are a part of racing, It’s DEAD !!
If you wish to enjoy racing these days, you have to have MONEY, POWER and you can then buy your Champions, track and races.
Has nothing to do with History of the sport any more
Fisha695 wrote:
You have to expect that with a new surface, give it a little time before passing judgement besides in cooler weather the racing would have been better