Darlington Raceway Tickets

Darlington Raceway

Darlington Raceway was the first superspeedway built with NASCAR racing in mind. Located near Darlington, South Carolina, Darlington Raceway has a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design -- an oval with the ends of different configurations. The shape of the track at Darlington Raceway supposedly arose from the proximity of one of the ends of the track to some fish ponds that the owner did not want to relocate.

Every driver who has strapped on a helmet and climbed behind the steering wheel has wanted to win at Darlington Raceway because the toughest is most desirable. For those few select drivers who have won races at the grandfather of superspeedways, there is a satisfaction in knowing they have conquered the egg-shaped track nicknamed "Too Tough To Tame."

The Darlington Raceway's original length was 1.25 miles. It was extended to 1.375 miles in 1953 and re-measured as a 1.366-mile course in 1970. When the now 1.366 mile (2.2 km) long track first opened, there might be eighty or more entrants in a race; this was curtailed over the years as NASCAR adopted a more uniform set of guidelines. The Darlington Raceway was nicknamed The Lady in Black, because the walls around the track are painted white prior to a race, but are largely black by the end of it due to a profusion of tire contacts. In 1997, the track changed its layout so that the southern straight-away became the front stretch.

The track name has varied in recent years due to sale of naming rights but fans generally continue to call it Darlington Raceway. The oldest winner to drive on the track was Harry Gant, when he took the checkered flag at the Heinz 500, on September 1, 1991, becoming the oldest winner in Darlington Raceway and NASCAR history.

The Darlington Raceway was built in 1949, by Harold Brasington on the site of a former peanut field. Brasington, a local businessman, was laughed at when he returned home from the 1933 Indianapolis 500 and proposed the idea of little ol' Darlington having a paved superspeedway, a place to hold big-time stock car events. Nevertheless, believing that Bill France's NASCAR idea might just become a craze that would catch on, Brasington set out in the fall of 1949 to shape a 1.25-mile speedway.

On Labor Day in 1950 the first race was overflowing with fans. Brasington expected no more than 10,000 fans, but a crowd of more than 25,000 came. Fans scaled the fence and practically stood on top of each other for a glimpse of the action. Johnny Mantz won the race driving a Plymouth.

For many years Darlington Raceway was the site of two annual Winston Cup races; one was held in the spring and the other, the Southern 500, was always held on Labor Day weekend. The yearly event is to NASCAR what The Masters is to golf and what the Super Bowl is to football. It is a battle in which drivers can spin out and become a part of the wall as quickly as they can thunder to victory lane and become a legend. The Darlington Raceway of the 21st century is an ultra-modern facility. In 2003, the Labor Day event was given to California Speedway, effective in 2004 and replaced by a race run in November.

If you park just for that day's racing events, parking is free. You can park overnight and sleep under the stars for a fee. An overnight parking area is located behind the Pearson Tower grandstand.