Black Arm Band Time

   It's time once more for those of us who follow NASCAR and are traditionalists to break out the black arm bands.

   We will be mourning yet again the passing of one of stock car racing's greatest, most colorful shows, the storied Southern 500 on Labor Day Weekend at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.

   NASCAR officials pulled the plug on their oldest, most history-filled race in 2004 after moving the date of the event to November.  In 2005, the Southern 500 ceased to exist.

   The plum Labor Day Weekend was awarded to California Speedway.

   It's understandable that NASCAR and its corporate sponsors want to make a major impact in such a big market as Southern California.

   But at the expense of trashing the Darlington tradition?!

   How could they?

 

   

   Darlington is where a local businessman and good ol' boy named Harold Brasington, inspired after attending the 1949 Indianapolis 500, came home and set out to build his own race track.  He carved it out of either a peanut patch or cotton field--take your choice--and made it egg-shaped so as not to infringe on the fishing pond of a friend.  The "pointy end" is on the west and the disparate corners made setting a car up to get around the place a challenge for even NASCAR's most talented and imaginative drivers and crews.

   Darlington is where a whopping 75 cars started the first Southern 500 in 1950, lining up to take the green flag three abreast.  Many of the drivers traveled to the track in the cars they raced.  Johnny Mantz of California--there's a bit of irony here, don't you think?--won the race that took 6 hours, 48 minutes and 40 seconds to complete.  Mantz triumphed in large part because he rightly figured that harder truck tires would outlast the conventional rubber that others were using.  He beat runnerup Fireball Roberts by nine laps.

   Darlington is where a tad of a local lad of 11 crawled under the fence and snuck in free to watch that first race in 1950.   His name: Cale Yarborough, and he was to someday count five Southern 500 victories among his 83 triumphs at NASCAR's major level as he became the only driver in the sanctioning body's history to win three straight championships.

   Darlington is where a pine-knot tough native of the area, Buck Baker, a one time Charlotte bus driver, won the Southern 500 in 1953.  He won again in 1960 and once more in 1964 at age 45, a time in life back then when most drivers had long since retired.  Buck's big, strapping son Buddy won the 500 in 1970, making the Bakers the only father-son duo to achieve the feat.  Said Buddy at the time, "If you could inject a truth serum into all these drivers, most of them would tell you they would rather win the Souhern 500 at Darlington than any other race.  It's the toughest, most challenging place we go.  Running 500 miles at Darlington when it's scorching hot on Labor Day is the equivalent of getting in your passenger car, rolling the windows up, turning the heat on high and driving from Charlotte to Philadelphia."

Darlington is where the fabulous Fireball put on one of the greatest demonstrations of his driving skill in the Southern 500 of 1958, the first major superspeedway race I covered.  Blown tires led to repeated crashes in what was then the first turn, right under the rickety old press box.  Finally, the steel railing was ripped apart beyond immediate repair when Jack Smith smashed through it.  During a red flag delay, NASCAR officials told the drivers to "go low and slow" through the first turn.  Most did, but Fireball, driving a beautiful white 1957 Chevrolet bearing the No. 22, maintained the same smooth, high line that he'd run earlier and wound up winning by five laps over second place Buck Baker.

   Darlington is where a former Army tank driver named Nelson Stacy scored the biggest victory of his career in the Southern 500 of 1961. 

   Darlington is where drivers scraped the railing between the third and fourth turns--intentionally!--in order to get through those exceedingly tough corners faster.  This of course peeled the paint off the right sides of their cars, leading to the forever famous monicker, "The Darlington Stripe."

   Darlington is where Junior Johnson was flagged the winner of the 500 in 1962, but a recheck of score cards gave the victory instead to Larry Frank.  The decision didn't come until around midnight, and many newspapers and TV stations already had reported Johnson the victor.  During the winner's interview, Johnson was asked what he was going to do with his share of the $21,000 purse.  "I'm going to build some more chicken houses," said Junior, a big supplier for Holly Farms Poultry in his home area of Wilkes County, N.C.  After Frank was declared the winner, the late Bloys Britt of the Associated Press wrote, "Junior counted his chicken houses before they hatched."

   Darlington is where Ned Jarrett won the Southern 500 in 1965 by an incredible 14 laps after heavy attrition took out many of the top competitors.  Among these was Cale Yarborough, whose car sailed spectacularly over the first turn after a tangle with the machine driven by Sam McQuagg.  Jarrett has spoken to a youth church group on the eve of the race and as he left the kids told Ned, "We're going to pray for you."  Said Jarrett after his dominating victory, "I've always believed in the power of prayer, but not on this scale."

   Darlington is where David Pearson, filling in for an injured Dale Earnhardt, took the Southern 500 in 1979, continuing his mastery of the old track nicknamed "The Lady In Black" because of its treachery.  Pearson won at the place a record 10 times, including three Southern 500s. 

   Darlington is where it was so steamingly hot on Labor Day Weekend in 1983 that Bobby Allison had crew chief Gary Nelson cut a hole in the roof of their Buick to provide him relief from the heat.  The impromptu "air conditioning" helped Allison to a 9.38-second victory over Bill Elliott.

   Darlington is where the immensely popular Elliott, a drawling country boy from Dawsonville, Ga., overcame immense pressure to win the Southern 500 of 1985 and "The Winston Million" bonus in the first year that prize was offered.  The big check was made available to a driver winning three of the sport's Big Four races in a season--the Daytona 500, Talladega's Winston 500, Charlotte's Coca-Cola 600 and the Southern 500.  Elliott won at Daytona and Talladega, misfired at Charlotte and then had a final chance at Darlington.  He was able to triumph when a power steering line broke on leader Yarborough's car late in the race.  Yarborough charged back, but Elliott took the checkered flag by six-tenths of a second.  In Victory Lane phony $1 bills rained down on Elliott's head.  His mug shot was on the bills, but his name was misspelled "Eliott."  This led to the nickname "Milion Dolar Bil."

   Darlington and its Southern 500 classic is where all this and much more of NASCAR's best, most beloved history took place.

   Darlington is where they won't be racing this weekend.

   And that's a damn shame.