Once Upon A Time In Darlington...

   In a perfect NASCAR world, the Nextel Cup Series drivers, their crews and thousands of fans would be heading to storied Darlington Raceway in South Carolina next weekend.
   Beginning in 1950, and continuing for more than half a century through 2004, if it was Labor Day Weekend, that meant the heat, humidity, cotton fields,  peanut patches and small-town charm and hospitality of Darlington for NASCAR's foremost division.
   It meant The Raceway Grill, just outside the original fourth turn, and hamburger steaks still sizzling in their own juice when brought to the table and served.  The grill usually went through a ton of ground beef during Southern 500 week, and no wonder.  Bill Broderick, the flamboyant red-headed giant who was known as the "Hat-Man" in post-race victory lanes while representing Unocal, rated those hamburger steaks tastier than the best meals he ever ate in the most famous Paris restaurants.
   Darlington Raceway on Labor Day Weekend  meant perhaps the greatest challenge the drivers faced all season.  Stifling temperatures usually made the asphalt super slick...And then there was the matter of the track being shaped like an egg, the west end more pointed and tight, creating devilish setup problems for chassis specialists.
   "Winners at Darlington ought to be presented gold medals, like the Olympians," Cale Yarborough once commented, "'Cause if you can win there, you're pretty much assured of having the courage and talent to win anywhere."
   Only the very, very best drivers usually won at the old 1.366-mile track.  David Pearson eight times...Dale Earnhardt six...Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon five times each.
   And then, as if a mean magician hired by NASCAR had said, "POOF!" the beloved Southern 500 was gone.   

   After the classic race's running in 2004, NASCAR officials announced that they were moving the Labor Day date to bigger, fancier California Speedway in the more glamorous and lucrative (they thought) Los Angeles area market.
   Of deserting Darlington after more than 50 years, one official actually uttered this statement:
   "We are modernizing tradition."
   Huh?
   That rates NASCAR's top oxymoron of all time, and there have been dozens of previous doozies.
   Not saying that the California track shouldn't have two dates.  The second of them simply shouldn't have been at the expense of Darlington and meant the loss of the Southern 500.
   Much of the appeal of Darlington Raceway on sweltering Labor Days was that something bizarre was likely to happen.
   And so it was 45 years ago, on Sept. 3, 1962.
   I was in the midst of a brief stint with the Durham Morning-Herald in North Carolina at that time and was assigned to cover the race.   I was invited by  friend Ducky Everett, the basketball coach at Darlington's St. John's High School, to drive down and spend the race eve night at the home of he and wife Norma.
   Ducky had a job taking tickets at the main gate on race day, so he was gone at dawn.  By the time I got to the track about 9 a.m. Ducky's clothes were so wet with sweat it appeared he'd jumped in the pond behind the original second turn.
   "It's gonna be a long day," Ducky said, shaking his head and puffing for breath.
   Ducky had no idea how true his prophecy would prove.
   There were crashes galore.
   A young Buddy Baker wrecked.  So did pole winner Fireball Roberts and fellow veterans Jack Smith, Darel Dieringer and Bobby Johns.
   The scariest accident involved Johnny Allen.  He hit the steel guard rail in the first turn, got atop it for several feet and then tumbled back onto the track, his car rolling down the banking to the apron about 150 yards from the press box.  The railing had severed the fuel tank, and a trail of gasoline followed Allen's car.  Suddenly, the 140 degree heat of the asphalt ignited the gas, and a trickle of flame started heading toward the stricken race car as Allen struggled to get out.
   The car erupted in a ball of fire as members of the media and fans alike gasped in horror.
   Allen finally popped out, miraculously unhurt. 
   The 364-lap race rolled on, with NASCAR showing Junior Johnson, Marvin Panch and Pearson battling for the lead.
    Finally, after 4 hours and 14 minutes on the sizzling track, Johnson took the checkered flag in a Ray Fox-fielded Pontiac.  As he did so a little-known driver named Larry Frank skidded across the start-finish line on three wheels and with sparks and dust alternately flying  plowed to a stop in the grass across the track from the old open-air press box in turn one.
   As Johnson went to victory lane, some fans were chanting "No, no. no!!!"
   I wondered why, because at that time Johnson relatively was as popular as the late Dale Earnhardt was to become in the 1980s-90s.
   Turns out those fans thought someone else had won the Southern 500--Larry Frank.
   Frank thought so, too.
   But the wiry, tough ex-Marine didn't make an issue of it.  At least not right away.  He left it to car owner Ratus Walters to file an official protest.
   According to stock car racing historian Greg Fielden in his great series of books that trace every single race through 1993, Frank was badly dehydrated and suffering from blisters on his eyes.  He went to a motel in nearby Florence to recover and await NASCAR's decision.
   The press generally wasn't told that a scoring problem existed, and the traditional winner's interview went ahead with Johnson in a basement-like building nicknamed "The Dungeon" that had been dug partially into the first turn banking.
   Asked what he was going to do with his winnings, Johnson, a major poultry supplier in Wilkes County, N.C., for Holly Farms, famously replied, "I'm going to build some more chicken houses."
   I wrote my column around that line and headed home to Durham, fighting heavy traffic on two-lane roads created by a crowd estimated at 60,000 which had attended the race.
   Imagine my surprise, then, to awake the next morning to see a streamer headline in the Morning-Herald proclaiming "Larry Frank Is Southern 500 Winner."
   "No!" I shouted.
   Then, I saw the editor's note on my column, explaining that it had been filed before NASCAR changed the race result at around midnight.
   There were no cell phones in those days, remember, so the editors had no way of reaching me.
   NASCAR had decided that  Frank's scorers had shorted him a lap, so he actually led the final 84 laps.
   Johnson was ruled the runnerup, with Panch third, Pearson fourth and Richard Petty fifth, a lap down.
   Some thought Johnson was two laps behind, but NASCAR showed him only five seconds back.
   "Hell, if I had known I was trailing Larry, I think I could have caught him and passed him easily, " Johnson said later.
    It was to prove Larry Frank's only victory in 102 starts.  He left the circuit  after racing just twice in 1966, still deeply disappointed that he didn't get to experience the excitement and satisfaction of going to victory lane at the raceway that will live in NASCAR lore as "The Track Too Tough To Tame" and the devious "Lady In Black."
   NASCAR left Darlington Raceway with one date, scheduling a 500-miler there in 2005 on the eve of Mother's Day.
   Experts figured that to be an immensely tough sell with fans, and mused that the track was being set up to fail so that date, too, could be moved to a larger market.
   However, the grandstands sold out in '05, again in '06 and '07.  Now  big improvements are being made at the raceway that once seemed doomed to be deserted like North Wilkesboro Speedway and N.C. Motor Speedway at Rockingham.  Darlington's future looks promising.
   Bravo!
   But Darlington in May isn't Darlington on Labor Day.  And the Charger 500 isn't the Southern 500.
   And neither ever will come close.
   Meanwhile, speaking of improvements, what of Junior Johnson's additional chicken houses?
   Frank won $21,730 for his victory, Junior received $10,155 for second place.
   So Johnson got to add a few hens to his flock.
   But not as many as he envisioned.
   Johnson's colorful remark following that Southern 500 so long ago provided Bloys Britt, the late Associated  Press motorsports writer, a line that amusingly  has endured through the decades:
   "Junior counted his chicken houses before they got built."