An exhibit too tough to tame: Darlington gets spot at NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte
Darlington is immortalized at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Richard Petty and Mark Martin joined several local officials and Cup Series greats Tuesday morning, unveiling an exhibit of the historic race track in South Carolina celebrating its 75th anniversary.
“First race in 1950, and I was 13 years old,” Petty said. “You got to this little place called Darlington, South Carolina, and NASCAR had just run (its first Cup Series) season in 1949. People at the race track were not knowing if NASCAR was going to survive. ... That was the beginning of NASCAR.”
From a 1949 blueprint detailing plans to keep the minnow pond to the firesuit Kevin Harvick wore when racing returned in 2020, this new display on the second floor of the sport’s Hall of Fame in uptown Charlotte encompasses the rich history of Darlington Raceway — and provides another home for it in the future.
“(Darlington) is always going to be a mainstay on the NASCAR schedule,” Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s chief venue and racing innovations officer, said. “I think throwback weekend has been a really big success story for us, it’s something that we focus on. ... I’d say we expect Darlington be on the schedule for a really long time.
“This is something we talk about regularly, too: It’s a good starting point for the entire facility. We may need to make changes and modernize it, that said, we’ve still got to keep what makes Darlington special. We just went back to Bowman Gray for our Clash — we made a few changes with the SAFER barriers and brought in the Musco lighting system — but it was so important for us to keeep the bones of Bowman Gray, and we have the same mentality with tracks like Darlington.”
Darlington is set to host the Cup Series’ Cook Out 400 on April 6.
The upcoming spring race weekend features the 11th annual NASCAR throwback weekend, where old-school paint schemes and fire suits are expected to be all over the venue nicknamed “The Track Too Tough to Tame” and “The Lady in Black.”
“Before I went there for the first time, I’d heard so many stories about Darlington that I was a little bit scared,” Martin said. “For good reason — how treacherous a race track it was. It demanded respect. So back then, Turns 1 and 2 were pretty easy. Turns 3 and 4 were really hard to get through, so I stopped paying attention at 1 and 2, and next thing I know, I spun out. I didn’t hit the wall, thank goodness, but held on and had a good race.
“When I was young, I didn’t pay any attention to history whatsoever. As I have gotten older, I’ve come to recognize the importance of history, and folks, this is really special.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 3:06 PM with the headline "An exhibit too tough to tame: Darlington gets spot at NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte."
