Memorial Day Weekend is a historic weekend every year. In the morning, Formula 1 takes the stage on the streets of Monaco. Then INDYCAR runs the crown jewel event the Indy 500 and NASCAR caps off the night with the Coke 600. The Coke 600 is a crown jewel of NASCAR with the Daytona 500 and the Southern 500. NASCAR’s best pay a 600-mile tribute to those who sacrificed everything for our freedom in the greatest country on the face of the earth the United States of America. Names of fallen military members across the top of the windshield to honor the fallen heroes.
The Explosive History of Charlotte Motor Speedway
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What’s a good story about the good old days in the south without guns and dynamite? In 1959 racecar driver Curtis Turner returned to Charlotte after being at Daytona International Speedway and wanted to build a track in Charlotte on his property. Burton Smith a track promoter had similar ideas in a different location. Smith and Turner agreed to team up and build one track and made a deal with NASCAR to host a 600-mile race on Memorial Day weekend in 1960.
When they began to break dirt they discovered a layer of granite, turning the construction costs from the originally planned $750,000 ($8 million today) to $2 million ($21 million). $70,000 ($754,239) in dynamite was used in turn one alone. A snowstorm delayed the pouring of concrete for the track and Turner begged NASCAR for a six-week postponement.
As mentioned earlier, you can’t have a good story about the South in the good old days without guns. Two weeks after the first race was set to begin, the contractor threatened to quit due to lack of payment. To prevent the contractor from leaving, Turner and his friends threatened the contractor with a shotgun and a revolver to keep him there until the job was complete. Man, have times changed. The inaugural race would take place June 19th, 1960, and was won by Joe Lee Johnson.
The Coke 600: A Place For First-Time Winners
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The Coke 600 has been a place ripe for a first-time winner, eventual NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, David Pearson, and Matt Kenseth, who all captured their first victory at the longest race in NASCAR. The latest first-time winner was an emotional one, Austin Dillon, in 2017, putting the number three back in victory lane since the late Dale Earnhardt at Talladega in 2000.
Dillon extended the fuel run just long enough and fought off 7-time champion Jimmie Johnson to capture his first win. Casey Mears would capture his only career win in the 2007 Coke 600. David Reutimann captured the first win for Michael Waltrip Racing in 2009. The field is ripe with potential first-time winners like Ty Gibbs or Josh Berry.
Anything and everything can and will happen in the 600-mile extravaganza. In 2013, the FOX Camera cables broke and caused damage to some of the cars. NASCAR red-flagged the event for nearly 30 minutes and allowed teams affected to make repairs. Kyle Busch, Marcos Ambrose, and Mark Martin had damage, while ten fans in the stands were injured.
The Pit Strategy
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The race itself is 400 laps broken up into 100-lap stages. the pit sops will come at around halfway through the stages. The max amount of laps for fuel will be 60-65 laps. The Crew Chiefs will have to make constant adjustments as the sun sets throughout the race cooling off the race track and making the cars tighter meaning harder to turn.
The race trends to watch two of the last three Coke 600s were won from the pole. Only two races have had a green-white checked finish. In the last two races, we have seen 18 cautions in 2022, the second most in the history of the race, and 16 in 2023, tied for third most. With the horsepower limited, expect an identical amount of caution in the race on Sunday night.
The Coke 600, the green flag, is slated to start at 6:21 pm Eastern on FOX being the final leg of the motorsport extravaganza. Monaco will start at 9 am Eastern on ABC, and the coverage for the Indianapolis 500 will be at 11 am Eastern on NBC and Peacock. With Kyle Larson attempting Double Duty running the Indy 500 and Coke 600.
About The Author
Dillon Hildreth is a writer for Total Apex and a lifelong fan of Football with his favorite teams being the New England Patriots and the Georgia Bulldogs. Dillon is also a fan of Motorsports Red Bull in Formula One and William Byron in NASCAR. You can catch Dillon Stream F1, NASCAR, and other video games and sidecasts on Twitch.
