
Darlington Raceway Track President Kerry Tharp and Ann Hunter, wife of the late Jim Hunter, talk about the changes being made to improve the fan experience during the Bojangles’ Southern 500 during Labor Day Weekend. Photo by Melissa Rollins
Despite the summer rain and soaring temperatures, the construction projects at Darlington Raceway are coming along nicely. Darlington Track President Kerry Tharp gave members of the media a glimpse of the work last week.
“We announced back in late January a capital improvement project, $7 million in improvements, being done here at Darlington,” Tharp said. “We are excited about where we are with the project so far. We have put in new seats. We’ve re-aligned the pitch of the Tyler Towers.”
Seeing the improvements alongside Tharp was Ann Hunter, wife of past track president Jim Hunter.
“It gives me great honor and privilege to be out here, to be the President at Darlington, to walk in the same places as a man who I respected very much, Jim Hunter,” Tharp said. “He was my mentor when I worked at NASCAR and it is a real thrill to have his wife Ann join us today. Jim was the track president here when Tyler Towers were built back in 1994. I thought it would be appropriate to have her out here today. I can imagine right now that Hunter is looking down on us now saying ‘What in the heck took you all so long to do this?’ but we are proud of this project. The seats are starting to take shape. This is a much, much more comfortable seat than what we had here previously. It is going to be a better Darlington when we have this all completed later this summer.”
Ann agreed, saying that her late husband would be proud of everything happening at the track.
“These are great seats; they really are,” Hunter said. “They are wider and I really like them. Jim would be so proud and so excited about these improvements and that Darlington is continuing that tradition. There is such a history here and he wanted it to go back to the Labor Day race, and it has. He would be so happy that Kerry is here and that Kerry is living in Darlington, thinking about the community as Jim did. ”
The first section of the Bojangles’ Wall of Honor was also revealed during the media visit. The first name to be unveiled was NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough, a five-time Bojangles’ Southern 500 champion from Timmonsville.
When completed, the Wall of Honor will have roughly 2,200 feet of banners throughout Darlington Raceway.
Tharp said that one request the track staff made was to have some of the construction work done by local contractors.
“I am very, very appreciative of the folks that are working on this project, certainly ISC is the one funding it, but it gives me great satisfaction to know that one of the biggest contractors out here is North Industrial out of Hartsville, Darlington County,” Tharp said. “That is one thing that we wanted to happen: we wanted a good bit of the work to stay in Darlington County. We are very, very excited about that. The contractors and construction crews are working very, very hard and obviously it has been very hot. They have been working some at nights to beat some of that heat.”
Along with the changes in seats, Tharp said that improvements are being made to other amenities, including concession stands and restroom facilities.
“There is a lot going on here obviously,” Tharp said. “The race is going to get here August 31- Sept. 2 so we need to be done well in advance of that. We feel confident that sometime in early August that this project will be completed but of course when you have a project of this magnitude there will be a lot of last minute things come up. We’re not going to spare anything or rush through anything but certainly we look forward to having this done in early August.”
Tharp said that he is looking forward to a capacity crowd for this year’s race.
“Even with the wider seats, we are still going to be in the neighborhood of 50,000,” Tharp said. “When you count folks who will be in the infield in campers and so forth, if we have a great crowd that weekend, we should probably have close to 60,000 people on property.”
Updates to the project include:
·All old seats have been removed from the affected grandstands (approximately 60 percent of our seating capacity).
·The change of pitch in the Tyler Tower Grandstand is complete, greatly improving sightlines for fans in that seating area.
· New stadium-style seats with cup holders are currently being installed in Tyler Tower (frontstretch).
·Bench-style seats are currently being installed in the Wallace Grandstands (frontstretch).
·All new bench-style seats have been installed in the Colvin Grandstands on the backstretch.
· Refurbished restrooms and concession stands in the Colvin Grandstand along with new cross-over gates on the frontstretch are scheduled to start in the next 2-3 weeks.