Darlington Raceway - History

History

Harold Brasington was a retired racer in 1948. He had gotten to know Bill France, Sr. while competing against France at the Daytona Beach Road Course and other dirt tracks in the Southeast and Midwestern United States. He quit racing in the late 1940s to concentrate on farming and his construction business. He began planning a new speedway after he noticed the huge crowds while attending the 1948 Indianapolis 500. He thought "If Tony Hulman can do it here, I can do it back home." He bought 70 acres from farmer Sherman Ramsey, and started making a race track from a cotton and peanut field. He was forced to create an egg-shaped oval with one corner tighter, narrower, and more steeply banked because he promised Ramsey that the new track wouldn't disturb Ramsey's minnow pond at the west side of the property. Brasington was able to make the other turn at the east side of the property wide, sweeping, and flat as he wanted. It took almost a year to build the track.

Brasington made a deal in the summer of 1950 with France to run a 500-mile (800 km) race in Darlington on Labor Day that year. The first Southern 500 carried a record $25,000 purse, and was co-sanctioned by NASCAR and its rival Central States Racing Association. More than 80 entrants showed up for the race. Brasington used a 2 week qualifying scheme similar to the one used at the Indianapolis 500. Brasington was also inspired by Indianapolis when he had the 75 car field aligned in 25 rows of three cars. These practices have been curtailed over the years as NASCAR adopted a more uniform set of guidelines with regard to the number of cars which could qualify for a race. The race was won by Johnny Mantz in a car owned by France.

In recent years the track has been reconfigured; since 1997, what was the front stretch is now the back stretch, from late 2003 to early 2004 lights were installed for night racing to beat the heat, and the turns have been renumbered accordingly. Seating has been increased to approximately 65,000, although it has been limited by the proximity of a highway behind the back stretch and another pond; the original minnow pond is long gone.

Darlington has something of a legendary quality among drivers and older fans; this is probably due to its long track length relative to other NASCAR speedways of its era and hence the first venue where many of them became cognizant of the truly high speeds that stock cars could achieve on a long track. The track allegedly earned the moniker The Lady in Black because the walls around the track are always painted white prior to a race, but are always largely black by the end of it due to a profusion of tire contacts. Darlington is also known as "The Track Too Tough to Tame," and rookie racers hitting the wall are considered to have received their "Darlington stripe."