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Remembering the Southern 500

Location: Blogs Running Wide Open
Posted by: Joe VanHoose	8/30/2007 2:34 PM
It's Labor Day weekend, and NASCAR is in California. The series is not in Darlington, S.C., and neither am I. It's been four years now since NASCAR and I rendezvoused at Darlington on this weekend, and it still hurts. Once regarded as the most prestigious race in NASCAR, Darlington Raceway's Labor Day weekend Southern 500 vanished. NASCAR moved the race weekend with 54 years of tradition out west to California Speedway in 2003. The organization hauled off the race that defined the sport in the South, taking some innocence and pride along with it. Once upon a time when NASCAR was just beginning, a South Carolinian named Harold Brasington had a crazy idea and a tractor. In 1950, he opened his creation, the 1.366-mile egg-shaped Darlington Raceway, for the world to see. NASCAR raced on the track from the very beginning, and the two entities played off of each other for half a century to gain notoriety. NASCAR became the center of American motorsport, and Darlington and the Southern 500 grew to become the crown jewel of the series. But the growth in popularity races at Darlington garnered took the sport into a new wave of expansion. Tracks were built in places like Kansas, Chicago, Texas, Phoenix and California, and NASCAR's schedule of races followed suit. Then in 2003, NASCAR executives decided to pull the plug on the Southern 500, all in the name of progress. Progress and South Carolina don't necessarily go together. The town of Darlington is home to only about 10,000, and it's over an hour away from a big city. Rebel flags and Victorian homes outnumber hotel rooms and retail stores. If NASCAR was looking for progress, it would make some sense to look elsewhere. But Darlington Raceway and the town it sits idle in were never about the new but more of the escape to a simpler time. Labor Day weekend meant triple-digit heat, fresh onions on hamburger steaks and a NASCAR race, 500 miles in grueling conditions that brought out the best in drivers and cars alike. Now it’s just another something to see in Southern California. Empty seats – maybe 20,000 of them -- will stick out like sore thumbs on television for fans back in Darlington to see. That is, if they’re watching at all. While Darlington Raceway supporters still sell the track out on Mothers Day weekend for the lone race left at the speedway, they haven’t forgotten nor forgiven the sport for leaving them. Driving home from Bristol last Sunday, I stopped at a Southern heritage store just outside Columbia, S.C. While I stocked up on Cheerwine, my buddy held up a bumper sticker that showed a NASCAR symbol with an 'X' through it. "Y'all are anti-NASCAR?" I asked the clerk. "No, just don't care about it anymore," he said. "They don't care about us." I wonder if he'd feel the same way if he was heading down to Darlington this weekend for the Southern 500. Then again, I guess that’s just wishful thinking.

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Re: Remembering the Southern 500

By Mark on 9/2/2007 11:34 AM

Joe, when I was growing in Richmond, VA in the '60s there were only a few significant NASCAR races - Daytona 500, Martinsville's Virginia 500, Charlotte's World 600, and, of course, the Southern 500. Darlington was the toughest track to race on and was surpassed in significance only by the Indy 500 and Daytona 500. NASCAR's lust for money has left Darlington and me, as a fan, in the dust. California has shown to the NFL specifically and to other "major league" sports that they are generally indifferent to a lot of sports - check the empty seats in California today. I rather watch a good sports car race and leave NASCAR's manipulated races to those that still choose to watch. Don't get me started on those retro-ugly COTs!

Re: Remembering the Southern 500	By JANE on 9/2/2007 5:41 PM
Ya have to experience it to know it! A true Southern tradition just does not seem to "transplant" well....too bad the driving force is now profit not the desire to win a trophy or better still to take the checkered flag for a spin around the track!

Re: Remembering the Southern 500	By Sou500fan on 9/3/2007 6:31 PM
And they were going on about the heat at the race yesterday. Hell, it was always 100 degrees at Darlington and we went anyway. Maybe they'll bring the race back one day where it belongs.

Re: Remembering the Southern 500	By Tracy Gale on 9/4/2007 7:15 AM
Wonderful column, Joe, and thank you. Everything that is WRONG with NASCAR now is contained in your column. Of all races...<br>Too bad NASCAR's goal of taking the sport international and diversifying means de-Southernizing this most Southern of sports.<br><br>What store are you talking about just outside Coumbia?

Re: Remembering the Southern 500	By Joe VanHoose on 9/4/2007 7:20 AM
I believe it was called The Southern Heritage Store. It looks like the building was an old Huddle House, and it's right next to Bojangles (the best chicken place in the world). It's the exit right at I-26 and I-77. Thanks for the kind words.

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