DARLINGTON, S.C. – There is nothing else in NASCAR quite like the Southern 500.
It represents the roots of old-time stock car racing. Although Martinsville Speedway is the only other track on the schedule that has hosted big-time NASCAR races since the first season in 1958, Darlington Raceway was NASCAR’s first superspeedway.
Harold Brasington dreamed up the idea of making Darlington the “Indianapolis of the South” in the late 1940s. Brasington attended the 1948 Indianapolis 500 and was amazed at the sheer size of the crowd and the spectacle of the race.
“If Tony Hulman can do it here, I can do it back home,” Brasington said afterwards.
He bought 70 acres of Sherman Ramsey’s farm and carved a unique 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval out of the cotton and peanut fields. One end of the track was narrower than the other because Brasington didn’t want to disturb Ramsey’s minnow pond on the west side of the property.
Darlington Raceway was complete in 1950. He struck a deal with NASCAR’s Bill France to hold the first 500-mile NASCAR stock car race that summer.
If the Indianapolis 500 was the signature sporting event on Memorial Day Weekend to kick off the summer, then, By God, the Southern 500 would become the race that ended summer on Labor Day, Brasington figured.
In another homage to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Brasington used the two-weekend qualification format used by the Indianapolis 500 for qualifications and had 25 rows of three cars per row start the race for a whopping 75-car starting field.
If Darlington Raceway was NASCAR’s first big track, then the Southern 500 was NASCAR’s first big race.
At the very least, it was its longest race. It lasted more than six hours. Johnny Mantz was the winner of the first Southern 500 in 1950.
In the 71 years that have followed, times have changed. The Southern 500 features a more standard starting field than the 75-car starting lineup in 1950. It scrapped the two weekends of qualifications decades ago.
The race is even held at night, after lights were installed in 2004. For a brief time, there was no Southern 500 at all when NASCAR ended the famed event in 2004 and gave Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., the Labor Day Weekend date.
That move alienated many of NASCAR’s loyal fans and proved to be one of NASCAR’s worst decisions. Despite a large crowd for that first Labor Day Weekend race, Southern California fans were generally unimpressed with the event.
Also, it was hotter than the surface of the sun on Labor Day Weekend in the Inland Empire of Southern California. After several races where the ambient temperature was over 107 degrees, NASCAR’s Labor Day Weekend race at Fontana moved to another slot in the schedule. Atlanta Motor Speedway took the Labor Day Weekend date from 2009 to 2014.
NASCAR may have been back in the South for Labor Day Weekend, but Atlanta Motor Speedway was not Darlington Raceway.
Finally, in 2015, NASCAR revived the Southern 500 on Labor Day Weekend, putting the great race back in its proper place.
Darlington Raceway and the Southern 500 made their NASCAR Playoff debuts last year as the opening race of the first round, with Kevin Harvick taking the win to earn a spot in the second round of the playoffs.
Every driver in the NASCAR Cup Series looks at the Southern 500 as one of the cornerstone events in NASCAR. Now that it is the opening race of the Playoffs, how does that affect the stature of an already major event?
“I think it elevates it,” Darlington Raceway President Kerry Tharp told SPEED SPORT earlier this week. “You hit the nail on the head. It is one of the Crown Jewels. Everyone wants to win the Daytona 500. It is the biggest race on our schedule and will always be the biggest race on our schedule. But a close second is the Cookout Southern 500. People want to win that race.
“Now that It’s in the Playoffs, it intensifies that. If you win at Darlington on Sunday, you advance to the next round. It’s pretty cool to know the road to the championship starts in Darlington, S.C.
“It intensifies the significance of the race and continues to reinforce it is one of the majors on our schedule.”
From 2015 until 2020, NASCAR used the Southern 500 as a throwback weekend to honor NASCAR’s colorful past. Old school paint schemes and driver and crew uniforms reflected some of the great cars and drivers of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
This year’s throwback weekend at Darlington was held May 9 during the Goodyear 400. Sunday night’s Southern 500 will be celebrated as the kickoff race of NASCAR’s 10-race Playoff that will determine the NASCAR Cup Series champion.
“We transitioned the throwback last year to the Spring race,” Tharp explained. “We felt like having two races now on the schedule, the throwback needed to stand by itself and let the Southern 500 be the primary focus for the opening of the Playoffs. Although, I have seen a few of the drivers are going to run some old school paint schemes. Denny Hamlin is running that Flying Eleven again that he ran a couple years ago here at Darlington.
“I think it’s ironic. People look at Darlington as this Old School place. It’s like the Wrigley Field of NASCAR. Any time you want to roll out an Old School paint scheme like that, we certainly welcome it. But our initiative and platform dedicated for the throwback has been shifted to the Spring.”
In previous years, Darlington was the next to last race of NASCAR’s regular season. Now that it is the first Playoff race, Tharp pointed out some of its stronger enhancements to an already great event.
“You have a clean sheet of paper, pretty much,” Tharp said. “Kyle Larson has a bit of an advantage with the bonus points. Whoever wins Sunday of those 16 are automatically in the next round. I think leading off the Playoff is an advantage. I like the fact leading off because everything is fresh coming off a really good event at Daytona. The regular season has been exciting. It’s been a season of ebb and flows. The first seven or eight weeks of the season you had different winners each week. Then Kyle Larson got hot. Kyle Busch got hot for a little bit. Here we are at the opening round of the Playoffs and Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have yet to win. That’s made it a very interesting season from that standpoint.
“Speaking of Harvick and Hamlin, they have been really good at Darlington. Maybe this is the tonic that they need. Sever years ago, Tony Stewart barely made it into the Playoffs and then he went on a tear.
“I like leading off the Playoffs. If I’m going to be in the Playoffs, kicking it off is very appealing from a track standpoint.”
The NASCAR Xfinity Series kicks off the weekend with the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBCSN.
Sunday features a doubleheader with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series In It to Win It 200 at 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
The Cook Out Southern 500 NASCAR Cup Series race is set for Sunday at 6 p.m. on NBCSN.
“It’s a doubleheader on Sunday with both contests Playoff races,” Tharp said. “The Truck Series will be the second Playoff race and it will be the opener for Cup. Two playoff races for the price of one ticket you don’t see that in any other sport. That’s very, very exciting.”
Although Tharp is originally from Louisville, Ky., and attended Western Kentucky University, he is a true South Carolinian at heart. He spent 20 years as Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations at the University of South Carolina before he joined NASCAR in 2005.
In 2016, Tharp replaced Chip Wile as president of Darlington Raceway.
Tharp has a deep reverence and respect for what Darlington Raceway and the Southern 500 represent. But does he ever hear ghosts from Darlington’s past late at night?
“I left out here the other night at 7:30 and the place was looking really good,” Tharp recollected. “I drove around the infield and took about three or four minutes to think about all of the people that have raced here. Think about all of the fans that has come here.
“I have moments like that. It’s pretty interesting when you think about all of the history and great moment this track has yielded. It’s something you never take for granted.
“It’s a special place.”