{"id":32517,"date":"2025-04-07T01:18:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T05:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=32517"},"modified":"2025-04-07T01:18:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T05:18:57","slug":"has-throwback-weekend-at-darlington-run-its-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/04\/07\/has-throwback-weekend-at-darlington-run-its-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Throwback Weekend at Darlington Run Its Course?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears there are varying opinions in the NASCAR garage area about Throwback Weekend. NASCAR has been partaking in this annual weekend at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/04\/04\/the-best-2025-darlington-throwback-paint-schemes\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Darlington<\/a> since 2015. Every year, there are some great recreations of classic paint schemes. Some have been better than others. There was also a time when everybody partook in the festivities. However, this year, it seemed like maybe it was time to change it up.<\/p>\n<p>It certainly appears that drivers are back and forth on the fence about the future of Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway.<\/p>\n<h2>Has Throwback Weekend at Darlington Run Its Course?<\/h2>\n<p>Hey, I like seeing old paint schemes brought back out each year for one weekend. Personal favorites typically have been of the Hendrick Motorsports variety. Especially in recent years, the No. 24 as William Byron has some great throwbacks to NASCAR Hall of Famer and Vice Chairman of HMS Jeff Gordon. Kyle Larson has had some strong Terry Labonte schemes the past couple of years. Though those cars have gotten torn up each of the last five years for Larson. That was no different this year.<\/p>\n<p>Larson wrecked his Tony the Tiger-themed car four laps into Sunday&#8217;s Goodyear 400. So it begs the question: Is it time to move on from Throwback Weekend? A lot of schemes have been done, not to mention this year RFK and Trackhouse Racing, who have had some great throwbacks in the past, didn&#8217;t even participate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/24\/team-penske-flounders-at-homestead-as-kyle-larson-surges-late-to-win\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Team Penske Flounders at Homestead as Kyle Larson Surges Late to Win<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Keep It versus Move On<\/h3>\n<p>Some of the top stars of the series had some words to share about whether or not it has run its course. NASCAR&#8217;s Most Popular Driver, Chase Elliott, spoke to the media earlier in the weekend about Throwback Weekend, and he was pretty blunt in his thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; I feel like it got old 4-5 years ago. Not to be a downer,&#8221; Elliott <a href=\"https:\/\/frontstretch.com\/2025\/04\/05\/drivers-suggest-its-time-to-throw-away-throwback-weekend\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told Frontstetch.com&#8217;s Dalton Hopkins<\/a>. &#8221; If we kept doing it down the road we&#8217;re gonna be throwing it back to me in 2018. &#8230; I think we&#8217;ve rode the horse to death.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chase Elliott Brutally Honest About Throwback Weekend: &quot;I Think We&#039;ve Rode The Horse to Death&quot;\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zp_cJs3Y7uY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I get where he&#8217;s coming from. In some cases, it&#8217;s hard to come up with someone to throwback to, especially when certain sponsors only give a driver so much to work with. Like his this year was to Ken Schrader&#8217;s early 1990s Kodiak car, but the colors just weren&#8217;t the same.<\/p>\n<p>Despite not having a throwback scheme this year, Chase Briscoe didn&#8217;t see it the same way as Elliott. Briscoe is all for continuing the tradition. Briscoe spoke about his stance with longtime <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ClaireBLang\/status\/1908566999069761747\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NASCAR reporter Claire B Lang<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; Yeah, I don&#8217;t have a throwback scheme this weekend. This is the first time I&#8217;ve never run one, but I don&#8217;t feel like this weekend has lost its luster. I think the fans still love the paint schemes that are here, and just anytime you come to Darlington, it&#8217;s kind of got an old school throwback feel whether we&#8217;re a throwback weekend or not,&#8221; Briscoe said.<\/p>\n<h3>It Is What It Is at This Point<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m torn because I like to see old paint schemes run. But one time, I kind of wish every car and team would partake. This year felt like more Xfinity Series cars had throwbacks than the Cup cars. Is it going to go away? Probably not, but obviously, more and more teams aren&#8217;t going to have schemes so.<\/p>\n<p>This year, there were like 19 cars that didn&#8217;t. So, to me, it might just stop happening naturally. Darlington can still be treated like a throwback weekend, just some teams won&#8217;t put all their energy into making a livery from the past.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/04\/04\/the-best-2025-darlington-throwback-paint-schemes\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">The Best 2025 Darlington Throwback Paint Schemes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Featured Image Credit: James Gilbert, Getty Images. 4\/6\/2025<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears there are varying opinions in the NASCAR garage area about Throwback Weekend. NASCAR has been partaking in this annual weekend at Darlington since 2015. Every year, there are some great recreations of classic paint schemes. Some have been better than others. There was also a time when everybody partook in the festivities. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5169,"featured_media":32525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,1664],"tags":[61,1222,14,371,60],"class_list":["post-32517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","tag-chase-elliott","tag-darlington-raceway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-william-byron"],"modified_by":"Hayden Murdock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32517"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32526,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32517\/revisions\/32526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}