The Lady in Black & the Loss of the Southern 500

Hi all! Many of you know that I wrote a Master's thesis on the loss of stock car heritage race tracks and the available options for the preservation of what I believe to be an important part of American history. (Umm. And if you didn't, well, now you do!) It is called, Don't They Just Turn Left? and I am pretty proud of it. For this week, I thought that I would pull out some of what I wrote about the Southern 500 and Darlington Raceway. I truly believe it is an essential part of our sport.

I went to the Springtime Southern 500 last year, using the excuses: I'm a racing historian, It is an important reestablishment of a stock car racing tradition, Holy Cow It's the Southern 500 and HOLY COW I want so bad to see a race at Darlington. All of these being valid reasons, I went. It was some of the best racing I have ever seen in my life. It was also one of the best racing experiences I have ever had. If you've never been, go. If you already have, heck, go again!

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Perhaps Darrell Waltrip said it best with a little song sung to the tune of Paris in the Spring, after a crash ruined his chances of winning the 1989 Southern 500 and the coveted Winston Million, "I love Darlington in the spring, I love Darlington in the fall, I love Darlington in Victory Lane, but I hate Darlington in the wall." Darlington Raceway is one of the most loved, loathed and respected tracks in NASCAR. Darlington Raceway represents sixty years of NASCAR’s stock car racing history.

In the middle of the 2003 season, NASCAR announced "Realignment 2004" and major changes in the schedule began; tracks lost dates, races were moved from track to track. NASCAR insisted that they were not "removing roots but rather gaining new ones," but NASCAR removed one of the most significant races and tracks which represented the heritage of stock car racing from their schedule: Darlington’s Southern 500.

The removal of the Labor Day race date meant that the traditional Southern 500 was no longer a part of the NASCAR schedule despite the role it had played in developing the sport. Rather than retain a significant part of stock car racing heritage, NASCAR moved the Labor Day race on the schedule to the California Speedway in Fontana, California and Darlington Raceway would have one race a year, in the spring.

In 2008, Darlington Raceway announced the return of the Southern 500 to the track. Despite the fact that the 2009 Southern 500 would run on the track’s single springtime date in May, Darlington Raceway proactively moved forward to recapture some of the tradition and heritage of sixty years of racing that had been lost with the Labor Day race date. The 2009 Southern 500 was an interesting study in the realignment of a very significant tradition for NASCAR. This was a very important and extremely successful step by a single track, looking to find a way to remind NASCAR of its place in the larger heritage of the sport.

For the return of the Southern 500, Darlington Raceway also revived a tradition that was recently lost to NASCAR; they revived the red and white Winston Cup paint scheme, bringing a familiar feel to the track once more. Darlington Raceway made a deliberate effort to recall the traditions and heritage of the track, reminding the entire NASCAR community what they had nearly lost forever to "realignment." In March of 2009, the South Carolina Senate and House of Representatives passed a Concurrent Resolution declaring that the race week prior to the Southern 500 on May 9, 2009 was officially Darlington Raceway Week in South Carolina.

The Southern 500 and Darlington Raceway are significant to both the history of stock car racing in the United States and to NASCAR. The Southern 500 represented NASCAR’s stock car racing future at the first drop of the flag and represents its past today. Darlington paved the way for the Super Speedways at Daytona and Talladega and facilitated the move of stock car racing from dirt tracks to paved tracks.

As a heritage track which lost its most significant race date and which must contend with the continued threat of schedule realignment, Darlington Raceway is a monument to some of the greatest racing in NASCAR’s history and marks a significant milestone in stock car racing. As driver Fred Lorenzen once said of The Lady in Black, "Darlington, to me, is the greatest race track in the world. Darlington lets you know if you’re a driver or not."