The running of the Goodyear 400 on April 6 marked the 75th consecutive year of NASCAR participation for Darlington Raceway, the sanctioning body’s second-oldest racetrack.
And to think there was a time when Darlington came perilously close to becoming extinct and, perhaps, no more than piles of crumbled concrete in the South Carolina countryside.
Sounds a bit melodramatic, but the fact is that once Darlington was so shoddy and rundown that it became obvious that without financial resuscitation, its days were numbered.
This was, among other things, the result of uninspired leadership mixed with a miserly attitude.
It certainly was not the Darlington that held its first Southern 500 on Sept. 4, 1950, with 75 entries in front of a large, wildly enthusiastic crowd.
The speedway was the creation of Harold Brasington, who attended the 1933 Indianapolis 500 and was convinced he would be successful if he built a speedway in his home South Carolina.
His creation was a 1.366-mile egg-shaped track with wide, sweeping first and second turns and narrow, tight third and fourth turns.
When the speedway became a part of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, it was the only established track of its size. And the Southern 500 quickly became one of the most important, and prestigious, races on the schedule.
Brasington’s participation ended quickly, however, and Bob Colvin became the speedway president. An enterprising businessman, Colvin is credited with many additions and improvements made at the speedway over the course of several years.
For all his business and promotional savvy, Colvin was an avowed racist. He didn’t allow any sales of grandstand tickets to blacks and rewarded those who helped remove interlopers who, somehow, found their way in.
For years, he would not permit NASCAR’s only black driver, Hall of Famer Wendell Scott, to enter Darlington events until 1965. To be fair, Colvin wasn’t the only promoter to do so.
It was Colvin who arranged for one of the speedway’s grandstands to be named after Robert E. Lee and encouraged attendance from friendly Southern politicians. The speedway’s mascot was a midget dressed as a Confederate soldier.
Colvin died in 1967 and was replaced by Barney Wallace, who had been the track’s vice president.
Wallace was a cold, distant individual with a unique personality – none. He was a prolific penny pincher whose economic policy seemed to be, mainly, don’t spend a dime unless it was absolutely necessary.
Wallace’s skinflint manner was so widespread the media make jokes about it, some of which were ground in fact.
There’s the story of a small-time independent driver who asked Wallace for “tow money,” a post-race handout of funds to help cover expenses.
“Barney,” the driver said, “can you help me get out of town?”
“Sure,” Wallace said as he pulled open a desk drawer and took out a road map. “You just follow Highway 52 here . . .”
Wallace might well have felt little need to spend money after the Southern 500 every Labor Day when Darlington was a Mecca for stock car enthusiasts and ordinary Southerners alike.
The race was always teeming with fans, many of whom took advantage of the long Labor Day holiday by camping in the infield. Who needed a motel?
There was plenty of racing activity on Friday and Saturday, and with Sunday being open and the main event to be held on Monday, there was plenty of time to celebrate.
Saturday night was often highlighted with raucous partying, and the following Sunday allowed ample time to relieve hangovers – or to some, an opportunity to travel to nearby Myrtle Beach for some more fun.
It was a given that Darlington’s coffers would be filled every Labor Day Weekend — something that could not be said for the speedway’s Spring event.
Still, that wasn’t nearly enough to escape the wrath of erosion.
Some knew it but couldn’t do much to change it.
For many years, Red Tyler served as the speedway’s vice president. He was Wallace’s polar opposite; He was an outgoing individual with an effusive personality and a sense of humor. Where Wallace was silent, Tyler was openly vocal.
And he knew what was happening.
“Looky here,” he said to me once as we stood together in the first turn. He took out a flathead screwdriver, stabbed into the concrete wall and began twisting it.
“See that?” he said as chunks of concrete fell to the track surface. “What is going to happen to a driver when his car smashes into this soft, useless stuff?”
Another time, I happened to be riding in a golf cart with Tyler in the garage area. He stopped at the front screen door of the infield cafeteria.
He pointed to a long, wide rip in the screen.
“Look at that,” he said.
He picked up his two-way radio and said, “Barney, this is Red. We’ve got a big rip in the cafeteria screen door and the flies are carrying off the food!”
Wallace’s reply: “Uh, Red, let’s wait until we see what the ticket receipts are like before we do anything about that.”
Darlington’s decay became obvious, even if the Labor Day revelers didn’t seem to mind.
Salvation came from an unexpected source: NASCAR itself. In the early 1980s, rumors that the sale of Darlington were prominent – and the potential buyers were NASCAR team owners Warner Hodgdon and Harry Ranier, among others.
However, NASCAR, or rather the entity it owned at the time, International Speedway Corporation, purchased Darlington in June of 1982. Likely, it did not want to see its oldest track dissolve into oblivion or fall into the hands of others.
The speedway’s transition began slowly. It wasn’t until the 1990s and beyond that it made its most significant strides.
New grandstands were constructed and others removed to greatly increase (and later appropriately decrease) attendance. The racing surface was repaved more than once. A new garage area was built, as was an infield media center and additional tunnels.
The track was flip-flopped in 1997 and what was the backstretch became the frontstretch; the third and fourth turns became the first and second.
In 2003, lights were installed. A year later, Darlington lost the Southern 500 to Auto Club Speedway and was given a single 500-mile race to be held on Mother’s Day in 2005.
It was held under the lights and was a huge success.
In 2015, the Southern 500 returned to Labor Day Weekend, and the track has staged at least two Cup races per season since 2020.
It has taken time, but Darlington has long since renewed itself and shaken its old image as a crumbling, crusty relic.
What hasn’t changed is its reputation as a tough track. Competitors will say that due to its abrasive surface, asymmetrical shape and preferred line of racing near the wall, Darlington is demanding and unforgiving.
For them, a victory at Darlington is coveted – and not a victory that once was coveted.
Steve Waid has been in journalism since 1972, when he began his newspaper career at the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin. He has spent over 40 years in motorsports journalism, first with the Roanoke Times-World News and later as publisher and vice president for NASCAR Scene and NASCAR Illustrated.
Steve has won numerous state sports writing awards and several more from the National Motorsports Press Association for his motorsports coverage, feature and column writing. For several years, Steve was a regular on “NASCAR This Morning” on FOX Sports Net and he is the co-author, with Tom Higgins, of the biography “Junior Johnson: Brave In Life.”
In January 2014, Steve was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame. And in 2019 he was presented the Squier-Hall Award by the NASCAR Hall of Fame for lifetime excellence in motorsports journalism. In addition to writing for Frontstretch, Steve is also the co-host of The Scene Vault Podcast.