As I began to go to local weekly races in Richmond at Southside Speedway I saw more Darlington cushions. Around Richmond, having a Darlington cushion was the badge that marked you as a "real" race fan. Oh how my buddy Frank and I wanted a Darlington cushion to prove that we, too, were real race fans and knew what we were talking about and had been down to South Carolina on Labor Day to see the "Granddaddy of them All" - the Southern 500. We continued to go to Grand National races at Richmond, Rockingham and Beltsville, MD, as well as NASCAR weekly Modified racing at Southside, Langley Field, South Boston and Old Dominion Speedways. But we still didn't have a Darlington cushion, the true badge of the real race fan. That was in the days before on-line selling and to our knowledge the only way to get that one true badge of honor was to go to the Southern 500. Oh, we saw people with Charlotte cushions and Daytona cushions, but they were like an American Flyer train set compared to a Lionel set or Japanese China compared to English China or Lexington style barbecue compared to the one true barbecue style of eastern NC. Only the Darlington cushion was the real deal for the real race fan. To make matters worse, Ray Melton, the old military veteran, carnival barker and P.A. announcer was a personal friend of Richmond promoter Paul Sawyer. Melton was "Chief Announcer" for all of Paul's races, but Melton was also chief announcer at Darlington and as such spent a lot of time talking about it on the mike at the Richmond races. Our September Richmond race always followed the Labor Day Monday Southern 500 by exactly six days, so we always got a complete replay of the Southern 500 from Ray at the Capital City 300, NASCAR GN dirt track racing's biggest payday.
Finally, on Labor Day 1966 (as I have previously recounted on these pages), my buddy, Frank and I arrived in Darlington via Greyhound Bus for the 1966 Southern 500. Our first task upon entering those sacred and hallowed grounds was to purchase a Darlington cushion for each of us. From that hot 1966 Labor Day forward, Frank and I carried the badge of the true NASCAR race fan to every race we attended at every venue, large and small, NASCAR Grand National or local, weekly modified, sportsman and late model sportsman. Dirt and asphalt. "Outlaw" tracks, too. Every single soul who ever saw us go through the grandstand gates at any track from that day forward knew we were the real deal. We each carried a Darlington Cushion. The badge of honor among race fans.
Somewhere in my garage in a box lies that tattered old Darlington cushion. Its covering was made of a slick, shiny vinyl - not like the stadium cushions you see today. It was very thin, today's stadium cushions are very thick. It was stuffed. Really stuffed. No foam block. When my Darlington cushion started wearing out the stuffing literally started coming out. Not having access to 200 mph duct tape, my Darlington cushion was repaired with colored electrical tape to go out again in the dust and grime and murky Friday and Saturday nights under inadequate lighting at tracks that long ago added to my memory banks images that can never be replaced. I sat on that old cushion as the stars and cars of NASCAR's elite Grand National Racing Division passed in review. I jumped from that cushion to cheer Curtis Turner and David Pearson and Richard Petty and JT Putney and Ray Hendrick and Sonny Hutchins and Al Grinnan and Farmer John Matthews.
Never again will I want a racing related item so badly as I wanted that Darlington cushion.
How many of you good RR members had an "original" Darlington cushion? Were you as proud of your cushion as I was of mine? How about any other treasured racing artifact?
