COLUMN: Growing Desire to Shelve NASCAR Throwback Weekend is Silly

I feel like we've lost the plot, entirely.

This past weekend at Darlington Raceway, we were treated to a lot of discourse about NASCAR's Throwback Weekend, and whether the idea, which was instituted ahead of the 2015 season, has run its course.

Leading into the race weekend, several, including Chase Elliott, the sport's most popular driver, expressed that they felt it was time to shelve the Darlington Throwback Weekend.

"I thought [throwback weekend] lost [its luster] about four or five years ago. So, I was way too early to that conversation I think," Elliott said in a media availability last Saturday. "Not to be a downer, but you know, look, and I joked about this years ago. But if we keep going down the road, we're going to be throwing back to me in 2018. At some point I think we need to chill on it a little bit. I think we've rode the horse to death, and we tend to do that a little too much."

Elliott wasn't alone in his assessment of Throwback Weekend at Darlington, and with each passing criticism of Throwback Weekend, I felt more and more disheartened.

I think it's important that we not lose focus on why the weekend was created in the first place.

In a long season, which stretches nearly 10 full months on the calendar, it can become hard for the competitors, NASCAR themselves, and us in the media to look up from our own desks. Too often, we're all locked into looking at things from just our own personal perspective, and we don't think about how others possibly feel about something before we begin to spew our opinions.

Throwback Weekend, at its core, wasn't created for the drivers, the teams, or the media. Sure, every faction mentioned has found joy at points during the history of NASCAR Throwback Weekend. But the idea was meant to be a fun activation for the passionate fans who follow this sport. And it's been an idea that has helped bridge generations of NASCAR fans who can now connect about their experiences as race fans.

Younger fans have had the opportunity to be introduced to legends such as Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, and career journeymen such as Jimmy Spencer, and Joe Nemechek. In turn, the younger drivers piloting cars with legendary paint schemes from years past have likely allowed longtime NASCAR fans to connect with the newer waves of drivers over the last decade.

Aside from the fans, Throwback Weekend is incredibly special for the retired legends, who have had their careers honored through iconic throwback paint schemes. Seeing the smiles on the faces of the veteran racers that have come through the sport in recent years through Throwback Weekend, and the inclusion of the NASCAR Alumni program hammers the impact that these types of initiatives have on those retired racers.

In those respects, Throwback Weekend has been a smashing success.

Now, obviously, brand guidelines with sponsorship partners sometimes create massive hurdles, which make running a Throwback Paint Scheme difficult, and sometimes it's downright impossible. Brad Keselowski, an owner/driver for RFK Racing, spoke to the difficulty of Throwback Weekend for teams.

“It’s just hard. It’s hard to get all the different people to line up to pull it off," Keselowski said. "For my car this weekend, we have Castrol on it. We did throwbacks the last few times here. It’s kind of like we ran out of a little bit of energy to pull off one that was good enough to make a mark, so to speak. The other thing is, at least for us, is we have global brands on our cars and they have global initiatives and things that are going on and they want to make sure they hit those, so with limited windows to do that it doesn’t always work out."

It's a heavy lift for sure for teams to pull off Throwback Weekend, but at the end of the day, that's part of what makes it so special when it is pulled off.

Keselowski would go on to say that while the three-car RFK Racing team did not participate in Throwback Weekend this year, he feels Throwback Weekend is still worth doing, and that he expects his team to be involved in it in the future.

Now, for those acting like The Grinch in response to Throwback Weekend, it should be noted that there isn't a requirement in the NASCAR rule book for a driver or team to participate in Throwback Weekend. It's not like there is a 50-point deduction for not running a Throwback Paint Scheme or a 25-point penalty for running a throwback paint scheme that missed the mark from the original source material.

This past weekend, roughly half of the NASCAR Cup Series field didn't run a Throwback paint scheme, and guess what? The race weekend went on as planned. The race went green at the scheduled time, and a checkered flag was displayed to the race winner as is the case with every other event.

With no penalty for lack of participation, there's simply no legitimate reason to shelve NASCAR's Throwback Weekend.

10 years since the original Darlington Throwback Weekend, fans continue to show up to the track in droves in throwback merchandise, and the general vibe that I gathered when I attended the pre-race "Tweet Up", after walking around the fan zone on Sunday morning ahead of the Goodyear 400, was that fans are still enamored with Throwback Weekend.

Too often in NASCAR, we try to fix things that aren't broken. If I were to list out the top issues within the sport today, Throwback Weekend sure as hell wouldn't crack the list. Everyone needs to take a deep breath and relax. NASCAR Throwback Weekend is here, and it should be here to stay. That's my two cents.

Recommended Articles