(Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
This weekend, NASCAR returns to Darlington Raceway for what has became the annual throwback weekend where drivers and teams have adopted throwback paint schemes, fire suits and everything in between to pay homage to past NASCAR stars.
While the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and XFINITY Series visits Darlington, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is north of the border racing its only date on the road course at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. A few drivers and teams will still have throwbacks adorned on their trucks, even while they’re hundreds of miles away from the action in Canada.
Since 2013, the Truck Series has visited the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville Ontario Canada and since 2015 the NCWTS race in Canada has accompanied the “Throwback Weekend” at Darlington. Now that there is an off weekend between the August Bristol Weekend and the Southern 500, I think it’s time for the truck series to return to Darlington for a full weekend of throwback.
I’m not saying eliminate the race weekend up north, in fact, i’d like to see it moved to the weekend before giving our two minor league series a chance to take the spotlight for the weekend. Have a weekend filled with road course racing, XFINITY Series at Road America and NCWTS at CTMP in Canada. That would in return fulfill many fans desires for more road course racing and then it would be a win-win making the fans happy and drivers happy.
The last time the trucks raced at Darlington came back in 2011 when Kasey Kahne found victory lane, earning his third career victory in the series. Taming the Darlington Raceway is never a simple task and when you look at the past winners list at Darlington, the late Bobby Hamilton Sr. and Kasey Kahne were the only repeat winners. Both of those drivers proved they belonged in higher series by winning at one of the toughest tracks on the circuit.
A return to Darlington with today’s stars would create for more monumental moments not only for the race track, but also the series itself. It would also give one more start at the tough track for drivers who move up to the XFINITY Series and ultimately into the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. A long storied history for the series could be put on display putting some of those older NCWTS paint schemes and invite past series champions like Mike Skinner, Ron Hornaday Jr., Jack Sprague, Ted Musgrave, Johnny Benson, and many of the people that have made their names in the series to be involved in the weekend and tell the history of the NCWTS.
As noted above, Darlington is one of the tougher tracks the Cup series visits and I feel like those should be the only ones that the truck series accompanies during the season. The remaining races of the season being tracks like Gateway, Eldora, Memphis, along with other tracks that the series could use to build the younger generations of NASCAR drivers and fans. Sometimes in history you have to go back to move forward and I feel like adding the NCWTS to Darlington would be best for business.
