DARLINGTON, S.C. — Since the 2015 season, NASCAR’s premier series has honored the legends that have paved the way in the Cup Series with Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway.
That effort continues a decade later as paint schemes of the past will adorn Next Gen cars for 400 miles of racing action on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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From Earnhardt to Yarborough, the Cup Series garage is lined with colorful schemes and crew shirts alike, paying tribute to drivers and teams who came before them and have been influential in their desire to compete in motorsports — a tradition drivers feel is important to carry on.
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” Ryan Blaney said in his Saturday media availability. “I love to see what people come up with. Every year, there’s so many neat schemes from drivers or teams that have inspired a lot of people to be in the garage today that get to throw it back. And I love just walking through the garage. I really wish we wouldn’t announce it on X, I wish you just show up with it and then people see it in the garage for the first time, because that’d be a huge, neat reveal type situation.
“But you walk around the garage like, ‘Man, I remember that car as a kid, ‘ or ‘I’ve seen videos from that car from the ’70s or ’80s.’ That’s just really, really neat. So it still is very special, and the teams love doing it, and I hope the fans still enjoy it. I know they do.”
Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford has direct family connections to the 31-year-old this week as they don a throwback scheme to his father, Dave Blaney, and his 2006 Xfinity Series win at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Memories from Blaney’s childhood suddenly get thrust onto the NASCAR Cup Series stage, something that is important to him and carries significant weight to his family.
“I didn’t really know we were doing that,” Blaney said. “That was kind of a Penske surprise to me, so I thought that was pretty neat.
“Just neat that I can have the option to do that. And it meant a lot to my dad, a surprise to him. I remember that race. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there, but I was watching it on TV, and a couple of guys are still walking around the garage. They were part of that team. Trent Owens was the crew chief on that thing. He’s still around. So it means a lot. It’s cool when you can throw back to your family.”
Ryan Blaney is not the only driver competing on Sunday to have personal connections to his throwback paint scheme. Team Penske teammate Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford pays tribute to another three-time Cup champion, Cale Yarborough.
In 2009, when Logano was just a rookie in Cup competition, the now 34-year-old three-time title winner had the opportunity to take laps around Darlington in the passenger seat with Yarborough behind the wheel.
That memory is one Logano recalls fondly as a young driver looking to make it in the sport, gathering wisdom from one of the most successful drivers to race on Sundays.
“Yeah, Cale and I sat right here at one point,” Logano said at Darlington on Saturday. “It was a really neat experience to ride with him. You get some tips that are still useful today, the laps run around here, and I mean, ultimately, cool factor, though, right? I mean, riding in the passenger seat with Cale Yarborough driving you around as a rookie. The coolest thing. So kind of a full-circle experience here for me, thinking about that moment. Both of us had three championships. It felt like the timing was right to honor him and his family.”
The “cool factor” is an important sentiment to the drivers in the garage, but for Logano, honoring the history of the drivers that made it possible for the drivers we see today is the most important aspect and highlights the success of Throwback Weekend.
“It’s all too important to do,” Logano said. “I think, for me, obviously, this is a cool factor. I think we see that, but I think the part that’s even more meaningful is that in sports, a lot of times when an athlete retires, they kind of ride off into the sunset and unfortunately, get forgotten about fairly quickly.
“I think Throwback Weekend like this brings back those memories. It’s really cool for that driver to see their scheme back on the race track and a way for us to pay honor to the pioneers of our sport and the people who have built our sport. I think that’s what makes this weekend really special.”
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