In September 2022 we took a road trip down to Darlington Raceway, South Carolina to watch the NASCAR Southern 500 race. This is our second NASCAR race
ever – the first being Daytona in 2018, so we were excited to see how this compared. Darlington is a beautiful track set in the heart of South Carolina and is known for being one of the most challenging tracks on the NASCAR circuit. Our trip was filled with lots of great racing action and we even got to see some of our favourite drivers up close!
Why Darlington Raceway?
We like to travel, obvs, and wherever we go we like to pack as much as possible into our time away. This trip to the USA was originally planned to take place in 2020, we had tickets to see Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison and Joan Jett. This whole tour was postponed numerous times, but finally it was a go. We did a little research on what NASCAR races were on around the time we were going to be in the US and Darlington was the best in terms of history and just going somewhere new we hadn’t been before.
We got tickets for the race itself directly from the Darlington website (www.darlingtonraceway.com) and they included the pre-race show and access to the track for driver introductions. We got really close to all the cars lined up waiting for the race to start. We organised a hotel in the nearby town of Florence, Country Inn and Suites by Radisson (https://www.radissonhotelsamericas.com) and to get around we decided to spurge and rent a sweet Ford Mustang – definitely an upgrade on our usual rental cars!
Our Raceway Experience
We arrived early to take in the full day experience. The Midway was a blast! There were merch trucks for the different teams, car companies with their latest trucks, vendors selling food and drinks, and one stand that sold alcoholic ice cream - yes, you heard me right! After getting caught in a huge rain shower, we decided to take shelter at the ice cream stand and do our duty by trying their amazing product. We had the blackberry and moonshine flavour, YUM! (www.proofalcoholicecream.com)
Once we dried out, we ventured into the stadium and onto the track for the pre-race concert with Larry Fleet (www.larryfleet.com). He was pretty good! I enjoy good country music, so this was a treat.
We got to see all the drivers up close during driver intros.
It’s always interesting to see which drivers are popular. Kyle Busch got his regular loud boos and Chase Elliot got a very prolonged loud cheer! We were very disapointed that Bubba Wallce got booed. He's one of our favourite drivers!
Now for the elephant in the room… stadium food. Aargh, what a disappointment! Disgusting and overpriced. All the food was pre-prepared, OK, I understand, you have thousands of people to feed. But I think our burgers were cooking on Thursday, and the race was on Sunday! The only ‘good’ thing was the food was hot. That’s it. Tasted like warm plastic. Yuck! Will definitely be bringing our own food next time.
The race was long and exciting! I won’t bore you with the details, but there were some interesting crowd reactions to various teams' car engines blowing up. Kyle Busch was so annoyed about his car failing that he didn’t give a post-race interview, he is such a child. I suppose that’s his charm, being the guy everyone hates. Kevin Harvick had a very tense moment when his car caught fire. Luckily he got out ok, but his car was done for the day.
Eric Jones went on to win, quite convincingly! His first win of the season and the first time the No 43 car has been in victory lane for 8 years!
Should You Go Next Year?
The experience of seeing the Southern 500 NASCAR race at Darlington Raceway was an incredible one and we had a blast! The atmosphere was electric and the race itself was epic. Despite the sweltering conditions, I personally loved feeling so warm in the sunshine. Everyone there was friendly and welcoming as well, which made for an even more enjoyable time. We would definitely do it again - especially now that we know what to expect. It was an awesome experience and we definitely recommend it to any NASCAR fan. Let us know where your favourite NASCAR track is and which one we should visit next.
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