Nothing against Darlington County,'' he said a few years ago. Nothing against the folks who live there. Nothing against the people who run the track. If they'll let me come here twice a year and hang around the motel, play some golf and eat at the restaurants, as long as they don't make me run the track, I'll absolutely love the place. It just doesn't fit the way I drive a race car.
Pro golfers have a choice.
If there's a tournament coming up at a course that doesn't really suit their game, they skip it. The first race at Darlington was in 1950, when this piece of sandy farmland in Darlington County was the only fully paved track on the circuit. The track originally was measured at 1.25 miles, but gradually was increased to 1.366 miles. The track's design was considered unusual because the turns at one end were narrow and those at the other were wide instead of the conventional oval shape. A driver who set his car up for one end usually found handling difficult at the other.