Darlington Gives NASCAR Another Classic, Now Give the Lady Her Due

It was everything that NASCAR is.

Sunday (Sept. 1) night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway might have been the final race before the playoffs, with everything on the line that that implies, but it was also what it has always been: the one every driver wants to win.

Next to the Daytona 500, the Southern 500, NASCAR’s oldest race, has been the one circled on every driver’s wish list. Winning it meant something more than winning anywhere else.

If you need proof, listen to race winner Chase Briscoe’s radio after he crossed the finish line. Briscoe, through tears, shouts to his team not that he has made the playoffs in a stunning, perfectly executed pass, but that he had won the Southern 500.

And he won it in classic fashion. Kyle Larson might have dominated, but Briscoe and his team played their opportunity exactly right. When Ross Chastain gambled on older tires on a late caution, Larson was challenged at the front for the first time, and Briscoe took full advantage, sweeping by both Larson and Chastain to take the lead. He held on through one more restart, dispatching Larson.

But then came Kyle Busch. Busch, hungry, tired of falling short, roared from eighth to second and then set out after Briscoe. He got close a couple of times. Briscoe got loose a couple of times, but despite Busch, one of the greatest drivers of his generation, couldn’t quite get close enough to make a move. The night was Briscoe’s.

Perhaps it wasn’t on the level of the door-to-door, knockdown drag-out race to the finish that Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch put on in Darlington’s spring race in 2003, nor was it the 14-lap drubbing that Ned Jarrett put on the field in the 1965 Southern 500.

But it was a classic Darlington show nonetheless. 

Nicknamed the Lady in Black and the Track Too Tough to Tame, drivers must race Darlington first and each other second. Forget that for a single lap and the Lady will reach out and gut-punch you. But dance with the Lady and do it right and she will reward you well. 

Because it was the Southern 500, the final race before the payoffs and it was a fantastic race, Sunday’s race will go down as one to remember for years to come.

There have been a few great races this year, with finishes that should resonate on any fan’s scale. There have been closer finishes…but this was Darlington, and it was special. All the ghosts of what NASCAR has been and still can be gathered at Darlington in droves,…