RELATED: Paint schemes, then and now
DARLINGTON, S.C. — What year was it, 1985? The season Bill Elliott captured the Winston Million bonus the very first season it was put up for grabs by then-series sponsor RJ Reynolds?
Ol’ Bill, who would finish the season with an amazing 11 victories but lose the championship battle to Darrell Waltrip.
Recollections of Elliott smiling broadly as “Million Dollar Bills” floated through the air in Victory Lane.
That was probably it, the first time I covered a NASCAR premier series race at Darlington Raceway. The backstretch today was the frontstretch then, the big red press box and suites sitting there just outside Turn 1.
It provided a grand view, possibly one of the best of any stops on the circuit. Watching the field roar out of the fourth turn, so incredibly close to the wall. Then flying down the frontstretch, hammer down and into Turn 1 to start the process all over again.
Just sitting there. Soaking it all in. Overlooking history in the making.
More than three decades. Time does fly, I suppose.
The track’s hugely popular throwback program, now in its second season, rekindles a lot of racing memories. Paint schemes that we haven’t seen in years suddenly re-appear, roll out of the garage and in a sense, roll back the calendar.
But then again the memories always stir a bit when it comes to Darlington. No throwback program is necessary.
Maybe it’s because the track is an honest-to-goodness landmark, cut out of the sandy soil by Harold Brasington and opened for business in 1950. It was NASCAR’s first paved oval of more than 1 mile in length.
Brasington had a vision and wasn’t shy about pursuing it. But more than that he was also a kind and caring soul to all of us and I never make the trek down here for a race without thinking about him.
The action on the track? Yeah, that stands out, too. But it wasn’t always the kind of things you hoped to be writing about — hard crashes and injuries could, and did, happen other places as well but a couple that occurred here haven’t been forgotten.
Neil Bonnett’s crash in the spring race of 1990 is one of them. The extremely personable Bonnett was one of 10 drivers collected in the Turn 4 incident during that year’s spring race. Briefly knocked unconscious, Bonnett was eventually transferred to the local hospital and hours later it was reported that he was suffering from amnesia.
More than a decade later, it was Steve Park. The Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver was competing in a Busch (now XFINITY) Series event when, under caution, his Chevrolet suddenly veered left and into the path of Larry Foyt. The impact was tremendous to have happened under caution.
But the sadness of such instances doesn’t completely overshadow the good times. Jeff Gordon‘s Winston Million victory in 1997, the final year of that format, was the perfect bookend to that program’s 13-year run. His battle with Jeff Burton in the closing laps of that race was as memorable as any that have unfolded on the 1.366-mile track.
Speaking of Burton, there are recollections of his 1999 Darlington sweep in a pair of rain-shortened races here; toss in Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch bringing the fans to their feet with an absolutely amazing finish in 2003; and Regan Smith rising up with the then-small Furniture Row Racing operation to slay the field, and Carl Edwards in 2011.
This year’s Bojangles’ Southern 500, scheduled to get underway Sunday (6 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is the 67th running of the legendary classic. I’ve seen some of the cars and heard many of the stories from several of the men who were there when the legend of Darlington began.
For a lot of others, I’ve been there to witness it firsthand. It’s been worth every minute of it.
