Darlington: No more Southern 500 after this fall

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Stock car racing's original superspeedway, Darlington Raceway, will once again serve as a groundbreaker for NASCAR, inaugurating an entirely new race weekend in May 2005, track officials announced Friday.

The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series' 104th visit to Darlington Raceway will take place on Mother's Day weekend, and will be Darlington's first-ever full weekend of night racing.

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The Carolina Dodge Dealers 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race will be run on Saturday, May 7, the evening before Mother's Day.

Although historically the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series has not run on Mother's Day weekend, other series do -- most notably, the NASCAR Busch Series. Scheduling the race on Saturday evening will allow fans as well as teams to have the best of both worlds -- to spend Sunday with their families after watching sparks fly under the lights at Darlington on Saturday night.

"What this means for Darlington Raceway is that the Carolina Dodge Dealers 500 weekend will be the mega-event that NASCAR race weekends have become in the rest of the country," said Raceway president Andrew Gurtis. "We anticipate that night racing at the track 'Too Tough To Tame' will be nothing short of spectacular.

"The strongest possible case for Darlington's long-term viability in the sport is to sell out both the Mountain Dew Southern 500 in November and the Carolina Dodge Dealers 500 in May 2005."

Don't miss the 55th, and final, running of the Mountain Dew Southern 500 on Sunday, November 14. Fans who purchase seats by early August for this legendary event, which will finish under the lights for the first time in history, will be offered the first chance to purchase tickets for the 2005 Carolina Dodge Dealers 500 on May 7, 2005.

The Mountain Dew Southern 500 weekend also includes the BI-LO 200 NASCAR Busch Series race on Saturday, November 13, and the Darlington 200 NASCAR Truck Series race on Friday evening, November 12, the first race at Darlington to be run under the lights from green flag to checkered flag.