Darlington bucks NASCAR tradition

DARLINGTON, S.C. - Jim Hunter remembers the clunker of a deal NASCAR had the last time it squared off with Mother's Day nearly two decades ago.

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Oh, the racing was top notch with Bill Elliott outdueling Dale Earnhardt win The Winston all-star race, now called the Nextel All-Star Challenge, at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1986. It was the grandstands were things didn't go so well.

"Yeah, it was me and four other people," laughed Hunter, NASCAR vice president and chief spokesman for the Nextel Cup series.

There'll be many more spectators on Saturday night when a sold-out Dodge Charger 500 runs at Darlington Raceway on Mother's Day weekend, the first time the sport's major series has run near Mother's Day since that fan flop.

And Hunter, who has taught classes on NASCAR promotion, still can't figure out what went wrong. Everything seemed ripe for a big day of racing in the second Nextel All-Star Challenge, then known as "The Winston." The weather was great. And the popular Elliott got his lone all-star victory.

As far as the fans?

"It was a bomb, a flat-out bomb," said Chip Williams, with NASCAR public relations at the time.

Williams says they announced about 25,000 fans at the only all-star race not held at Lowe's Motorspeedway in Concord, N.C. "But it looked like half of them were in the bathroom," he said.

Hunter wasn't sure there were that many. "You could've shot a scatter-gun into the crowd and not hit anybody," he said.

Officials came up with only one reason - Mother's Day.

"There wasn't anything else it could be," Hunter said.

So for nearly 20 years, NASCAR took a back seat to Sunday dinner on mom's big day.

"It wasn't that we kept it dark on purpose," Hunter said. "But whenever we talked about running on Mother's Day, tracks would say, 'No, we don't want it.'"

Until now. NASCAR's oldest superspeedway tries to bring a new twist to the weekend. It's Darlington's first full night race since putting in $3.5 million in improvements, including a light system. Track officials are doing everything they can to put mom front and center.

Several of the driver's mothers will give the unique pre-race command, "Sons, start your engines."

A few racers will do more to honor mom. Kyle Petty's No. 45 Dodge will be painted pink and include images of Petty's mother, Lynda.

"I feel pretty honored to have my mom on the side of my car this weekend," Kyle said. "Hey, I think she looks pretty good in pink."

Tony Stewart's mother, Pam Boas, is also making the trip - forcing his son into a few lifestyle changes this week.

"I'm going to have to pick up things on the bus," he said. "I can't throw clothes on the floor like I normally do because she'd tell me to pick them up."

Williams, who helps promote several NASCAR drivers, says Darlington may have found the right formula in racing the night before Mother's Day. People, including mom if she wants, can watch on Saturday night and make it home well before Sunday dinner. "That's an important difference," he says. "I'd rather run a race Christmas Day at 3 p.m. than go on Mother's Day."

Darlington Raceway president Chris Browning was starting out in motorsports and drove a show car hauler in 1986. The Atlanta race was the talk of the sport. "Nobody showed up," he said. "That's all you heard."

So when Darlington, a track that lost its 50-year-old Southern 500 Labor Day weekend tradition after 2003, was given Mother's Day, Browning wondered if "The Lady in Black" was being set up to fail.

Instead, Browning says Darlington's pre-race sellout - it's first since the 1997 Southern 500 - proved that Mother's Day weekend can work and that there's certainly a continuing spot on the Nextel Cup schedule for the old country track.

"I think this helps us make the argument to our senior management, 'We've got something going here," Browning said. "I think they'll take our requests for capital improvement a little more seriously."

Browning has some ideas about what's next. He's gotten the green light from track owner International Speedway Corp. to improve things such as restrooms and access tunnels. Now, he's started a ticket waiting list - it had more than 1,000 names on Tuesday morning - to make the case to build more seats.

Hunter, the former Darlington president and South Carolina native, sees his old track with a chance to create a new tradition. "Between racing at night and the holiday, this might be Darlington's opportunity," he said. "Even though it's Mother's Day, I think this can work."