Darlington Raceway
| The "Lady in Black" The "Track Too Tough to Tame" |
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"A NASCAR Tradition"
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| Location | Darlington County, near Darlington, South Carolina |
| Time zone | UTC−5 / −4 (DST) |
| Capacity | 58,000 |
| Owner | International Speedway Corporation |
| Operator | International Speedway Corporation |
| Broke ground | 1949 |
| Opened | 1950 |
| Architect | Harold Brasington |
| Major events |
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| Oval | |
| Surface | Asphalt |
| Length | 1.366 mi (2.198 km) |
| Turns | 4 |
| Banking | Turns 1 and 2: 25° Turns 3 and 4: 23° Front Straight: 3° Back Straight: 2° |
| Lap record | 26.705 sec. (184.145 mph) (Aric Almirola, Richard Petty Motorsports, April 11, 2014, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) |
Darlington Raceway is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is nicknamed "The Lady in Black" and "The Track Too Tough to Tame" by many NASCAR fans and drivers and advertised as "A NASCAR Tradition." It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that will be effective at both ends.
Harold Brasington was a retired racer in 1948, who had gotten to know Bill France, Sr. while competing against France at the Daytona Beach Road Course and other dirt tracks in the Southeast and Midwestern United States; he quit racing in the late 1940s to concentrate on farming and his construction business. He began planning a new speedway after he noticed the huge crowds while attending the 1948 Indianapolis 500 and thought, "If Tony Hulman can do it here, I can do it back home." Brasington bought 70 acres from farmer Sherman Ramsey, and started making a race track from a cotton and peanut field. However, he was forced to create an egg-shaped oval with one corner tighter, narrower, and more steeply banked because he promised Ramsey that the new track wouldn't disturb Ramsey's minnow pond at the west side of the property. Brasington was able to make the other turn at the east side of the property wide, sweeping, and flat as he wanted. It took almost a year to build the track.
Brasington made a deal in the summer of 1950 with France to run a 500-mile (800 km) race in Darlington on Labor Day that year. The first Southern 500 carried a record $25,000 purse, and was co-sanctioned by NASCAR and its rival Central States Racing Association. More than 80 entrants showed up for the race. Brasington used a 2-week qualifying scheme similar to the one used at the Indianapolis 500. Brasington was also inspired by Indianapolis when he had the 75-car field aligned in 25 rows of three cars. These practices have been curtailed over the years as NASCAR adopted a more uniform set of guidelines with regard to the number of cars which could qualify for a race. The race was won by Johnny Mantz in a car owned by France.
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