Once again, NASCAR has decided to put Darlington in its crosshairs. The sport that has made the huge mistake of over expanding at the expense of historic tracks like Darlington and Rockingham wants to tweak its schedule again. Apparently places like Las Vegas and Kansas want to add Sprint Cup race dates and that could affect Darlington.
Darlington president Chris Browning insists this situation isn’t as dire as it was several years ago when it appeared Darlington was going to come off the NASCAR schedule. The Lady in Black didn’t come out of that unscathed though, she lost one of her two dates as they took away the historic Southern 500 Labor Day race and moved the track’s lone race to Mother’s Day weekend.
Browning doesn’t think the track will lose its lone race next season. Others aren’t so sure.
Darlington president Chris Browning on potential of new race date
Browning and his people have done an amazing job of taking the Mother’s Day race and turning it into a great event. Browning and his staff worked nonstop to promote and upgradeDarlington Raceway and that hard work enabled the track to get off the NASCAR chopping block.
Or so we thought.
Browning and his people made Mothers Day weekend at Darlington the new NASCAR tradition and as a reward it looks like NASCAR may make him do it all over again. As of July 13th, we still don’t know if Darlington will be racing on Mother’s Day or any day in 2011.
Browning is confident they WILL be racing, he’s just not sure when. It’s doubtful the track will get Labor Day weekend back (that date was snatched for a half empty track in California and is now in Atlanta) and there really is no telling what date the track will get.
If Darlington does get a new date I have no doubt Browning and his staff will do a great job embracing it and making it a wonderful race and experience for the fans. Maybe after this ends the powers that bewithin NASCAR and the various track owners will stop treating Darlington like the red headed stepchild.
I doubt it though, and that is a shame.
