We almost lost it. Darlington Raceway, that worn-out, egg-shaped monument to stock car glory, was damn near left for dead. Thanks to some guy named Ferko, sagging attendance numbers, and NASCAR’s ill-fated itch to expand beyond the Mason-Dixon line, the track was left with just one date on the calendar. One.
But then came the resurrection. Someone, somewhere, signed a check big enough to install lights and slap on a fresh coat of relevance. The old girl got her groove back. Two races again, including the crown jewel Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend, were restored to their rightful place.
And instead of bulldozing her quirks, NASCAR and its fans leaned into them. The place was built in the early ’50s, before most of us were even a twinkle in the eye—hell, before some of our parents were. So in 2015, they started calling one of the weekends “Throwback Weekend.” Cue the retro paint schemes, the retired legends wandering around like they never left, and a big, heartfelt nod to NASCAR’s past.
But now? The engine’s starting to sputter. There’s talk—quiet, murmuring talk—that Throwback Weekend has taken the white flag. That it might be time to box it and move on.
“I thought I lost it about four or five years ago, so I was way too early to that conversation, I think,” Chase Elliott said. “Not to be a downer — I joked about this years ago, but if we kept going down the road, we’re going to be throwing it back to me in 2018. At some point, I think we’ve got to chill on it a little bit. I think we’ve rode the horse to death, and we tend to do that a little bit too much.”
He’s not wrong. NASCAR will sometimes ride a good idea like it’s Talladega—flat-out and way past the point of common sense.
Brad Keselowski, ever the pragmatist, and a team co-owner, still sees a reason to keep the throwbacks rolling—for now.
“Year over year it seems like it has its ebbs and flows,” he says. “Where you have partners who are super excited about it and then the next year you have partners who are kind of just kind of ‘eh’. Ultimately, we need to make them happy.”
Denny Hamlin, racer, also a team co-owner, and no stranger to a blunt opinion, boils it down to the dollars as well.
“Truthfully, these guys are trying to find a reason to get a return on their investment,” Hamlin says. “So, when you kind of change their logo or maybe change their colors and stuff, it doesn’t really line up with what they want. It’s just a sponsor-driven sport.”
He’s got a point. Hamlin adds that while the Xfinity Series still sees a bump from the theme, it doesn’t move the needle much anymore for the big leagues.
“It’s cool to see from their standpoint, but yeah on the Cup side it’s going to be really tough going forward.”
But here’s the thing—take away the branding, the paint schemes, the costumed nostalgia—and what you’re left with is Darlington. And Darlington is a throwback.
Sure, the bathrooms have been upgraded (no more troughs, sorry grandpa), and the air’s not a dense fog of red boxed Winstons anymore. You won’t get plunged into darkness mid-race either. But this ain’t a modern stadium. There’s no neon-lit Fan Zone, no climate-controlled garages with luxury suites overlooking them. Sit long enough and you’ll soak through your shirt with honest South Carolina sweat. Hang out a bit longer, and you’ll leave with a sunburn that looks like it came straight out of a family photo from 1974, when no one slathered on anything with the words SPF on the bottle.
That’s the point. Even with the renovations and the polished edges, Darlington still screams 1970s: wood-paneled walls, shag carpet, and couches that might still have the original plastic on them. The minnow pond that gave the track its weird, wonderful shape? Still there. The surface that eats tires for breakfast? Absolutely. There’s even a parade downtown the night before the Southern 500, something you’d never get away with in a new cookie-cutter city.
So go ahead—drop the “Throwback Weekend” name if you must. File it away with the mood rings and cassette tapes. But you’re not fooling anyone.
Darlington is the throwback. And always will be.
“Every time you come here, there’s that old school feel,” Chase Briscoe said. And while he admits the themed paint jobs are a nice touch: “Just anytime you come to Darlington, it’s kind of got an old school throwback feel whether we’re (at) a throwback weekend or not.”
Exactly.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.