DARLINGTON, S.C. -- The everlasting monument to Jim Hunter sits off Highway 151 in this little cotton and tobacco town, rising above the fields that stretch into the distance and yet somehow fitting in among them at the same time. It shouldn't be here, really. It's too old, too primitive, too outdated compared to others of its type. There are parts of it that look exactly as they did when it was scraped out of the ground 60 years ago. People all but gave up on it, assuming that one day it would be boarded up and shut down like so many other businesses in this tiny corner of this tiny state.

Yet today Darlington Raceway stands tall, its light towers piercing the sky like narrow beacons of progress, its future more secure than at any other time in its history. And it's here because Jim Hunter saved it.

Hunter, who died Friday of cancer at 71, was many things during his long career in NASCAR -- among them chief of the organization's public relations department, confidante to former series chairman Bill France Jr., champion of the sport's grass-roots divisions, and advisor to more overwhelmed young drivers than anyone can count. The void he leaves in Daytona Beach may never be filled. But his heart was always here, in the state where he grew up and was a football star, and more specifically in this agricultural region that's home to NASCAR's oldest major speedway. It was only appropriate that his funeral Wednesday morning was held at a church right down the street.

"Darlington was his favorite, favorite place," Bobby Allison remembered. Hunter was president at Darlington for only eight years, but during that time he worked tirelessly to save the facility from the brink of obsolescence. And why not? The man was a proud South Carolinian to the core. At Chicora High School in North Charleston, sports writers called the speedy, 155-pound halfback "the Cooper River Choo-Choo." He signed a full scholarship with the University of South Carolina, where he led the Gamecocks in receptions in 1959. Former college teammate Humpy Wheeler, who went on to his own distinguished career in racing, said Hunter was like a razor blade -- because his sharp elbows were liable to take an opponent's head off.

Even after he left Darlington in 2001, Hunter remained close to his home state and his alma mater, frequently lecturing to the university's sports management students. He counted former governors among his friends. In his final weeks, current Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier was among those who telephoned to pay respects. Indeed, there were several old teammates present at Tuesday night's visitation, held under a tent in the garage area of Hunter's beloved race track, where there was music and laughter and photos of Hunter -- on a Harley-Davidson, wearing a pirate hat, on the golf course, with his wife Ann -- that spurred a flood of memories. So many people turned out that at one point, the wait in the receiving line was nearly an hour long.

Oh, how Darlington moved him, in action as much as spirit. When International Speedway Corp. sent him here as president in 1992, the goal was to bring its most backward outpost into the 20th century. Goodness, the place was a disaster -- the bleachers and restrooms were crumbling, grass grew wild, roads were unpaved, drainage was terrible. The entire track reeked of an area gone to seed. Darlington had only 28,000 seats then, and couldn't sell out those. Many in South Carolina had never heard of the place. The facility had been left to rot by a previous ownership group that chose dividend checks over needed infrastructure improvements, wrongly believing the legacy of the Southern 500 would sustain it forever.

Hunter took on the challenge like he had taken on would-be tacklers decades earlier, with elbows flying. He repaved the racing surface. He flipped the start-finish line to accommodate the construction of new grandstands that brought capacity to 60,000. He cleaned up a notoriously rough infield. Inspired by the Masters golf tournament, he planted flowerboxes and Bradford pears and palmetto trees, the latter because they reminded people of sunshine and clear weather. He began to beat the drum for lights, which would become a reality years later under his successors. He set in motion events that would allow Darlington to not just survive the loss of one race weekend, but flourish.

"ISC was allowing this thing to sink into the swamp," Allison remembered. "Jim really was in love with this place and this area. Darlington was his home. The city of Darlington was his home, and Darlington Raceway was his castle. He just pulled people together and did the right kinds of things here to get this place built back up. Look at what it's turned into now."

Hunter had worked at Darlington once before, as public relations director, but it was his time as president that cemented his legacy as a visionary and a race promoter without peer. He breathed new life into a facility on the brink of sliding irreparably into disrepair, setting the stage for bigger gains -- lights, a new grandstand, a new tunnel -- to come after his departure. No one did more to rescue this quirky egg-shaped oval than the man Allison referred to as "Barney Hunter France," bookending his name with those of former raceway president Barney Wallace and Hunter's boss, France Jr. Even after he moved on to NASCAR, Hunter kept his primary residence here.

"I don't know that I've seen a community and an individual mesh as well as Hunter and Darlington did," Helton said. "I think Bill Jr. saw that. Hunter had experience here at Darlington, and when it came time for someone else to come in and kind of run the ship for a while, he looked to Hunter because of that chemistry that Bill Jr. saw. It was there, and it was real. The stint that Hunter spent here, the last go-round, I think the industry, the community, and Hunter all benefitted from that, because I've never seen a race track and an individual mesh as well as Jim Hunter did with this area and this race track."

But it soon became clear that Hunter was too big, too good at what he did, to limit himself to Darlington. Even as raceway president, he stepped up his travel schedule, going to more and more races with France Jr., suggesting ways to retool the public relations department or improve the weekly racing or Truck circuits. These were the days when former title sponsor R.J. Reynolds handled most of the sport's publicity, and NASCAR went without so much as an official spokesman. That all changed in the wake of Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001, when Hunter moved to Daytona Beach and helped transform a family-run business into a major sports league. He became NASCAR's voice in a crisis, a role he handled with dignity and aplomb.

Yet Hunter's legacy is most powerfully felt in his adopted hometown, where the police cars have checkered flags on the sides, and a small alley off the courthouse square bears the handprints of former Southern 500 champions. "I had never set foot on the property at Darlington Raceway until Jim Hunter arrived," the Rev. Olin Whitner told an overflow crowd Wednesday morning at Darlington Presbyterian Church. "But that was about to change. It was obvious that with Jim Hunter's arrival, the raceway was going to be a part of this community. And did it ever. It had never been more a part of the community."

And Wednesday morning, that community embraced him. At the reception following the funeral, everyone in attendance was handed the same yellow "NASCAR 1948" cap that had become Hunter's trademark. Former NASCAR executive George Pyne and friend Herbert Ames were among those who shared stories of Hunter's love for racing, Gamecock football, family, and his fellow man. And when the NASCAR circuit returns to Darlington next spring, the firing of engines will serve as yet another tribute to someone who dedicated much of his life to keeping this place relevant and thriving.

"Wherever else he went after Darlington, Darlington was always No. 1 in his heart," Helton said Wednesday after the service. "Quite frankly, he never really moved out of here. He traveled away from here and did some other things. But when it was time to come back home, we're here in Darlington saying goodbye to him."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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