Track President Says Ending NASCAR’s Throwback Weekend is “Natural Evolution” 

What’s Happening?

Darlington Raceway track President Josh Harris addressed the end of NASCAR’s Throwback Weekend during a recent interview, citing the change as an evolution point for the track’s annual spring race weekend.

Last week, the Daily Downforce first reported that industry sources were saying that NASCAR is ending its official throwback weekend event that usually takes place during the first race weekend at Darlington Raceway.

Throwback weekend is a favorite amongst fans, having produced both memorable moments and looks, with most of the field historically designing a car based on a classic look from NASCAR’s past. This event first began at the 2015 Southern 500, and shifted to earlier in the season with the addition of the track’s spring weekend in 2021.

Since then, interest from both fans, industry members, and even some sponsors has dwindled, and following a somewhat lackluster event in 2025, the decision has been made for the weekend to no longer be focused on throwback paint schemes.

During an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday, track President Josh Harris explained the move as a turning point in the track’s history, saying that the spring weekend will still be used to celebrate NASCAR history, but in a different way.

“We always look at, you know, our race weekends, take feedback from the fans, the industry, Harris said. “And I think that we’ve reached a natural kind of evolution point with the spring weekend to ‘how do we continue to celebrate the history and the tradition of the sport in different new ways?'”

Without teams bringing throwback cars, Harris says, with programs like NASCAR’s Alumni Program, the track will “continue to evolve and make this really about the alumni as part of the weekend and continue to develop today’s stars and the legend.”

Though the historic fanfare will continue, and a few teams will probably bring some form of throwback look, this still begs the question of what led to throwback weekend coming to an end.

So What Happened?

Harris, like many industry members, pointed to a number of reasons, including sponsor participation, team participation, and the need to focus on living legends and the stars of today.

Lack of sponsor participation is something that fans have latched onto as a reason for the event’s demise.

The idea being that some sponsors did not want to disguise their brand for the race weekend, as in some cases, sponsors could become unrecognizable, and, in theory, this led to some teams not fielding throwback cars.

During this interview, Harris said that while industry feedback was a part of this decision, the track didn’t want teams not sporting a throwback design “feeling like they’re not part of a weekend because they’ve got other priorities with their partners.”

In spite of this theory, some sponsors would use the weekend to go above and beyond in marketing themselves, with some doing paint scheme contests in the weeks leading up to Darlington. In other cases, some brands used it as a reason to return to the sport, with Mello Yello donning Kyle Larson’s No. 42 car in 2015.

Regardless, some of the classic NASCAR festivities will continue at the track, and some teams are going to do their best to sport a throwback with or without the official Throwback Weekend tagline, something that fans online seem to be fine with.

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