How a NASCAR throwback scheme comes together
Every year, many teams in all three NASCAR national series pay tribute, usually at Darlington Raceway, to a design or paint scheme that hit the track years ago.
But how does it all come together?
Different teams will give different answers. The ultimate goal is to piece together a perfect throwback.
Greg Biffle raced full-time across NASCAR’s top-three touring series from 1998-2016.
When Darlington Raceway hosted its first throwback weekend in 2015 to mark the return of the Southern 500 on Labor Day Weekend, Biffle and his team paid tribute to primary sponsor Ortho with the company’s original delivery colors.
The next season, he raced a Hooters-sponsored throwback in honor of 1992 champion Alan Kulwicki.
When Biffle raced a GMS Racing truck at Darlington in 2020, he sported a tribute paint scheme to Ricky Hendrick.
“There’s a lot with the schemes that goes on behind the scenes, believe it or not,” Biffle said recently on the “Let’s Go Racing” podcast. “But I really enjoy it because about all of the sponsors typically are on board with the throwback paint schemes and I think it just goes to show what a sponsor feels like they can get out of being associated with something like that.”
Former NASCAR Cup Series team owner Archie St. Hilaire fielded the No. 32 entry from 2014 to 2020. He said the weekend is a morale boost for the team. Team members get a fun break from the grind of the 10-month season.
Through the years, their Darlington throwback paint schemes included:
- Ricky Craven-inspired Tide ride in 2015 with Josh Wise
- Dale Earnhardt Wrangler throwback in 2016 with Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Bobby Allison Miller High Life tribute in 2017 with Matt DiBenedetto
- Exide Jeff Burton tribute in 2018 with DiBenedetto
- Dale Jarrett Nestle-inspired car in 2019 with Corey LaJoie
St. Hilaire said he and his son, team manager Mason St. Hilaire, as well as a graphic designer and sponsor and team public relations representatives, were part of a group that all came up with some initial ideas about what throwback scheme to run.
“You try to hide it,” Archie St. Hilaire said. “You want it to be a surprise, you do what you’ve got to do to keep it quiet.”
Team public relations representatives would reach out to different companies that were a part of the original racecars. They wanted to make sure they were okay with the team doing a throwback with the design of a similar-looking racecar for the Darlington race.
“We’d get in touch with the agency that handles their PR. And most of the time, it was a day or two later,” St. Hilaire said. “It was a little work. But I can’t sit here and count any time it was tough.”
In fact, St. Hilaire mentioned it was tougher to get clearance for other paint schemes that weren’t a part of the Darlington throwback weekends. Among them, Corey LaJoie’s Old Spice paint scheme with LaJoie’s face plastered on the hood early in 2019, and the Scooby Doo paint scheme at Martinsville later that year.
“We didn’t have a sponsor, and we wanted to put the likeness on [the car],” St. Hilaire said. “It adds a little fun to it. Like I said, it’s so intense out there every weekend. If you can just throw a little fun in there, everybody smiles a little bit.”
Last year at Darlington, NASCAR celebrated its 75th anniversary with honoring its 75 Greatest Drivers. Teams in all three series ran all sorts of tribute schemes to greats on the list.
Included in the festivities was Jeremy Clements’ family-owned No. 51 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Longtime team partner First Pacific Funding, with help from Steve Carnes, their president of sales and marketing, drew up the idea of running a Levi Garrett-inspired throwback to pay tribute to Geoff Bodine. Bodine is the 1986 Daytona 500 champion and TRE’s Driver Analyst.
Like how St. Hilaire’s operation did it, the idea and planning were kept under wraps as much as possible.
“I had been working on that for nine months. And then finally three weeks out, we made the announcement and got great reviews on that,” Carnes said.
“It was a lot of back-and-forth with NASCAR to get their approval on the overall scheme.”
Carnes added the scheme was a big morale boost for the team, especially when Bodine spent time with the team that weekend.
“A lot of the team are old school racers. So when you get to see the legends of the sport back in the day actually attend the race and see that hard work in person, with every detail of the car, it just really got everybody hyped up for the weekend,” Carnes said.
This upcoming weekend, 49 teams will have some sort of throwback paint scheme across all three national touring series.
The tripleheader weekend kicks off Friday night with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Then on Saturday, the NASCAR Xfinity Series takes to the track before the NASCAR Cup Series finishes off the weekend Sunday.
You can see all the throwback schemes and learn more about the weekend here:
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Dominic Aragon View All
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book "All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story" with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.