The NASCAR Cup Series is preparing to roll into Darlington Raceway for its throwback round this weekend. The egg-shaped South Carolina oval has hosted the championship’s Official Throwback Weekend since 2015 and it most prominently features teams racing their modern stock cars in retro paint jobs. The track attempts to implement an overall theme each year to have some consistency across the field; early on, it was simply a specified decade. This year, it is grassroots racing. Track President Josh Harris said in a statement:
“We’re honored to continue the tradition of hosting NASCAR’s Official Throwback Weekend in the spring. Grassroots racing is the lifeblood of our sport, and providing our industry with a chance to pay tribute to their grassroots origin story acknowledges the importance that it plays in the past, present and future of NASCAR.”
Some teams stayed on task with their paint schemes while others outright ignored the theme. Here are the best liveries of the bunch: