Darlington has some Mother's Day history

Although the spring races at Darlington ran forever in the shadow of the Southern 500, the initial Mother’s Day weekend races have storied histories of their own.

The first Rebel 300 was on Mother’s Day weekend in 1957. It was a convertible race because NASCAR had a convertible division then.

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“The starting field will be limited to 45 cars, if that many are available,” said the 1957 program, which sold for 50 cents.

The top five qualifiers were Paul Goldsmith, Joe Weatherly, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts and Bill Myers.

And the race got off to a rocky and raucous start. Then-raceway president Bob Colvin was arrested as soon as he got out of the pace car after the pace lap for violating the state’s blue laws.

It was a little matter of the race being rained out Saturday. Raceway officials decided to run it Sunday rather than send fans home for a week.

Colvin posted a $50 bond and returned to the track. But it was too late to stop the race.

The last convertible race was in 1962. And Mother’s Day weekends figured into the spring race mix for the most part until 1971, when they moved to March.

But light years have elapsed since Goldsmith snared the 1957 Rebel 300 pole with a speed of 115.317 mph. Roberts won the inaugural event in a Holman-Moody prepared Ford. He averaged 107.940 mph in the fastest NASCAR race ever run to that date. And he collected $4,200 from the total purse of $20,600.

Tickets were $5 for the regular grandstands and $8 for the covered grandstand. And the races were on Saturdays until the state’s blue laws were relaxed in the early 1970s.

The 1960 race was a classic that started May 7 and ended May 14. It was postponed for a week because of rain.

Colvin, who died in 1967, learned his lesson at the 1957 Rebel 300. He didn’t go against the blue laws again.

Roberts was leading in a 1960 Pontiac when the rains came. The race was postponed after 74 laps — 36 laps shy of an official race. Had the 24 remaining cars out of the 32 starters managed to get in 110 laps, the race would have been official.

The cars were impounded by track officials and resumed the race in their same positions.

But once the race got under way, it was again delayed for almost two hours when Johnny Allen’s Chevrolet hurdled the fourth turn guardrail and crashed into the staircase side of the scorers’ stand. The impact broke part of the stand, trapping the stunned scorers inside.

A fire truck was dispatched to rescue them. It took more than an hour for the scorers to crawl down the ladder, one by one.

Weatherly won the race, averaging 102.606 mph in a Ford. He won $9,770.

Weatherly barely beat Richard Petty, who was driving a 1960 Plymouth. Lee Petty was fourth in a Plymouth.

But the Pettys were hot under the collar. They claimed Weatherly violated a racing rule by passing several cars while the caution flag was fluttering.

NASCAR President Bill France Sr. said the Pettys didn’t lodge the protest in the allotted time and made no ruling on the claim.

Nelson Stacy won the last convertible race in a Ford in 1962. He collected $7,900 from the $45,000 purse.

The spring race was increased to 400 miles in 1966 and 500 miles in 1973. It reverted to 400 miles in 1964 when Dale Earhnardt took the checkered flag in a Chevrolet. And it went back to 500 miles in 2005 when the raced returned to Mother’s Day weekend.

— Staff writer Dwight Dana can be reached at (843) 317-7259. Comment on this story at scnow.com.