NASCAR insider defends Darlington throwback weekend amid criticism: 'Nostalgia is so important'

Darlington Raceway has been home to NASCAR throwback weekend since the 2015 season. For the past decade, drivers and teams have honored the sport’s history by using throwback paint schemes. Many of NASCAR’s greats have attended the race.

But has the concept worn off? Opinion is split in the garage, with some drivers speaking out in support of throwback weekend, and others such as Chase Elliott saying, “I think we’ve rode the horse to death.” Jeff Gluck of The Athletic does not feel throwback weekend has run its course. He made his argument alongside colleague Jordan Bianchi on Sunday’s “Teardown” podcast immediately following the Goodyear 400 at Darlington.

“I came into the weekend thinking that [throwback weekend had run its course] but I was sort of with Brad Keselowski, who later said when he went into the Fanzone and it kind of hit him… he realized the importance of celebrating the sport,” Gluck said. “He was seeing people walk around with old t-shirts and stuff like that.

“… Certainly, if your sponsor signs up to sponsor a car for four races and that’s all the money you have, you’re not going to give away one of your races to make you think about someone else’s company. I totally get that. I also disagree with what you [Bianchi] were saying in that throwbacks have been done before, we’ve already thrown back to every paint scheme. Who cares? It’s like a Halloween party and if somebody shows up as a ghost, you’re not going to be like, ‘We had a ghost at this party last year.'”

19 drivers in total used a throwback paint scheme this weekend. That means roughly half the field did not. But it’s not just about the paint schemes, in Gluck’s opinion. It’s about celebrating the history of NASCAR as a whole. NASCAR fans love nostalgia, and Darlington is as good a place as any to feed into that.

NASCAR insider makes case for throwback weekend to continue at Darlington

“As great as the throwback concept is with just throwing back to a different period in history or different paint scheme, I think Rajah Caruth nailed it on Twitter when he said it should be like the retro weekend. Because nostalgia is so, so important in NASCAR and it means so much to NASCAR fans,” Gluck said. “Every single fan I talked to this weekend — they came here for this reason, they love it. … The fans are all about it and the fans love history, they love nostalgia and there’s so many other things about this weekend.

“I get it, you’re not going to do the paint schemes necessarily. The Xfinity Series paint schemes were good because they didn’t have the sponsors to answer to, but there’s so many other things. The tweetup today, right. We had NASCAR alumni that came out. I got to interview Lake Speed today. I got to catch up with Kevin Lepage. People I haven’t talked to in a long time, and you got to hear their perspective on the sport now.”

Gluck added, “I think everyone’s conflating the paint schemes and the weekend as a whole. Like, the paints schemes, I can see people saying it’s been done, we’ve thrown back to what we can do, how many more tributes can we do. … But the weekend as a whole, it’s really cool to celebrate NASCAR history. NASCAR history is badass. Let’s keep doing that and keep figuring out a way to do that. It doesn’t need to involve the paint schemes, in my opinion. If you want to do them, great.”