NASCAR officially recognizes famed superspeedway to help make the Bojangles’ Southern 500 and VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 historical celebrations of the sport
DARLINGTON, SOUTH CAROLINA (January 10, 2017) – It’s now official! Darlington Raceway and its Labor Day race weekend are now being recognized as “The Official Throwback Weekend of NASCAR.”
The designation ensures that the official historical celebration of the sport will continue to take place at the famed 1.366-mile superspeedway in Darlington, South Carolina.
“We have worked closely with NASCAR to ensure that Darlington Raceway now has the exclusive rights to the Official Throwback Weekend of NASCAR for promotions and advertising of our event,” said Kerry Tharp, Darlington Raceway President. “Our return to Labor Day weekend, coupled with the Throwback theme has elevated our event across the entire sport and this move only solidifies that among our fans, race teams, sponsors, broadcast partners and media, among others.”
The track’s award-winning throwback campaign has earned rave reviews throughout the industry since its inception in 2015. The campaign has aligned all key stakeholders in the sport and provided a historical celebration that has earned much praise from fans and corporate partners.
It was because of this collaboration over the past two seasons that NASCAR recognized the importance of the track’s throwback weekend and in turn will now celebrate The Official Throwback Weekend of NASCAR at the sport’s original paved superspeedway, which opened and began hosting NASCAR events in 1950.
The track’s 2016 throwback campaign last season featured a celebration of 1975-84 including the following highlights:
- Over 36 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race teams competed with throwback paint schemes for the Bojangles’ Southern 500, the most in any single NASCAR event in the sport’s history.
- Over 18 NASCAR XFINITY Series teams competed with throwback paint schemes.
- Use of NASCAR’s famed “NASCAR International” logo for the second consecutive year.
- For the second straight year, Goodyear put the original white lettering on its race tires specifically for the Bojangles’ Southern 500.
- NBC did another throwback broadcast of the race featuring old station logos and graphics. NASCAR legends Ken Squier, Ned Jarrett and Dale Jarrett did a special throwback broadcast during the race for the second straight year.
- Honored 14 NASCAR Hall of Fame members at the Bojangles’ Legends Breakfast.
- 2017 NHOF inductees Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress and Mark Martin served as the Bojangles’ Southern 500 grand marshals.
- Unique food offerings from the 1975-84 time period, including the pimento cheese sandwich.
- Pre-race concert by rock legends KANSAS and national anthem performance by Barry Williams (of The Brady Bunch fame).
The Tradition Continues on Labor Day weekend as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500® is set for Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017. The NASCAR XFINITY Series VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 will race on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. You can keep up with all of the latest news from Darlington Raceway at DarlingtonRaceway.com, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DarlingtonRaceway and on Twitter at Twitter.com/TooToughToTame.
