Gold Line: 2025 Darlington Program Car

A widely undiscussed topic of 1/64 scale diecast cars is the Program Car category. Program cars are interesting because they can be both rare, and highly sought after. Nascar has been selling program cars for decades, and the practice goes back to the diecast heyday of the late 90's. That business has certainly slowed over the years, but unless you've been to a race, program cars may be something new to you, or you may not be aware of some of the historical details that are preserved by them. For more, read on...

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Today's Photo of the Day subject is a car I found while attending the Goodyear 400 last April at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. You can read more about that experience, here. I try to pick up a program car at each Nascar race I attend. Most program cars feature interesting, albeit fictitious, liveries that embody the track, the race sponsor, and sometimes a moniker or anecdote around the race venue. 

Darlington Raceway first opened for business in April, 1950, so this year, the track is celebrating its 75th anniversary. The program car is one of the best I've ever found. It's painted up in red and white, the same colors that adorn the historic walls of the oddly shaped oval with two different sized turns. The car is numberd '75' to represent the facility's seventy five years of racing. The track's slogan, 'Too tough to tame,' is written on each of the quarter panels, and the car is very interesting because the livery is half raced, half pristine. 

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​On the driver's side, the car looks freshly painted, but when looking at the car, head on, you can see details representing the usually gritty and dirty appearance of race cars after they've been competing on the old rough and sandy surface. But it gets even better. 

When you turn the car the other way, the artist included the 'Darlington stripe,' the name for the frequent damage most cars endure as they rip the corners at each end of the obscure oval, actually using the walls to successfully navigate the banked turns at high speed.

On the rear of the car, the numbers '50' and '25' appear on each side of the bumper. They of course represent Darlington's tenure in the sport spanning the last seventy five years. The track's main logo can also be seen here as well. The car also features the South Carolina silver crescent and the palmetto palm tree which adorn the state flag. 

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Notes:
​Without getting too long winded, this is one of the coolest program cars I've ever found. The icing on the cake is that this program car was built on Lionel Racing's EL mould. Typically, program cars are produced on Lionel's PTC mould, or in other words, their 'B-mould.'  This car has it all, and the added details make this a very prized part of my collection. It's sure to be found at the Southern 500 next month, but it can also be found on the track's website, here. Stay tuned for more program cars to be featured here on the 1/64 POTD in the future. 

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Sources:
-Darlingtonraceway.com
-Nascar.com
-racing-reference.info