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Waterfalls by horsebackH U MO R M E

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DARLINGTON TRADITIONSSouth Carolina’s historic raceway celebrates 65 fast and furious years

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4 CO - O P CO N N E C T I O NCooperative news

6 O N T H E AG E N DAMosey on over to Edgefield’s Lazy J Arena for the Sandy Oaks Pro Rodeo. Plus: Expert advice to keep your cool in the kitchen—even on the hottest summer day.

P OW E R U S E RDIALOGUE

10 Better by degreesPalmetto College, the online degree program of the University of South Carolina, offers nontraditional students a flexible new way to pursue their career goals.

NASCAR pit crews spring into action during the 2014 Bojangles Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Photo by Carroll Foster.

S C L I F ESTORIES

19 Okefenokee JoeMeet Dick Flood, the singing environmentalist better known throughout the South as Okefenokee Joe.TRAVELS

20 Waterfalls on horsebackTough week at the office? Maybe it’s time to saddle up and hit the trail to explore some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the Carolinas.RECIPE

22 Summertime supperBeth’s baked fishOrange-almond saladGrandma Harriger’s peach custard pieCinnamon avocadoGARDENER

24 Stretch your growing seasonAugust is the perfect month to sow cool-season crops.HUMOR ME

30 Plenty of fishermenWith a little help from her friends and an online dating site, humor columnist Jan Igoe reenters the dating scene after a 40-year hiatus. What could possibly go wrong?

26 M A R K E T P L AC E 28 S C E V E N T S

It’s not just anyone’s place.

IT’S YOURS.

©Kubota Tractor Corporation, 2014

KUB3776 - 2014 Kubota World - BX Series - South Caroline Living (August) - 8.375 x 10.875

Imagine the possibilities with Kubota’s BX Series – America’s top-selling sub-compact tractor for over a decade.

www.kubota.com

F E AT U R E 12 Fast times at

Darlington RacewayGo behind the scenes of this year’s Southern 500 as Darlington Raceway celebrates 65 fast and furious years.

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THE MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE MEMBERS Vol. 68 • No. 8

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SOUTH CAROLINA LIVING is brought to you by your member-owned, taxpaying, not-for-profit electric cooperative to inform you about your cooperative, wise energy use and the faces and places that identify the Palmetto State. Electric cooperatives are South Carolina’s — and America’s — largest utility network.

AUGUST 2014 • VOLUME 68, NUMBER 8

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Waterfalls by horsebackH U MO R M E

A fish out of water

DARLINGTON TRADITIONSSouth Carolina’s historic raceway celebrates 65 fast and furious years

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Fast times atDARLINGTONRACEWAY

Donald Paul’s heart is pumping wildly as he crawls out the passenger window of Brian Vickers’ number 55 race car. Clad in padded jumpsuit and crash helmet, the 59-year-old NASCAR fan from Elgin had just completed three exhilarating laps around the legendary Darlington Raceway, known among stock car fans as the track “too tough to tame.”

It had been Paul’s lifelong dream to hurtle around the same track as NASCAR’s racing greats—Bill Elliott, Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts. Now, in the mid-dle of Darlington’s Southern 500 weekend and the track’s 65th-anniversary commemoration, he had done just that. At speeds topping 140 mph, Paul experienced the ruthless forces that tug on a driver’s body and watched the track wall pass by in a blur just outside his passenger window.

“I’ve always enjoyed going fast,” says Paul, who won his unforgettable ride on a $5 scratch-off lottery ticket. “Now I really know what drivers go through out there.”

Paul is among legions of racing fans who make the annual pilgrimage here to cheer on favorite drivers and be part of Darlington history. Fans hold this track—one of the oldest on the NASCAR circuit—in such high esteem that the mere suggestion that it might one day fade from use provokes genuine unease.

“I think there would be a deep hole if NASCAR ever did away with this track,” says race fan Robin Grover of Wilmington, N.C. “It’s been here for so long, and it has such a following. ... And we hear rumors all the time.”

The legend beginsOn May 30, 1932, a young man named Harold Brasington sat in the grand stand at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. An enthusiastic racing fan, he had traveled from Darlington to watch the 20th running of the Indianapolis 500.

For almost five hours, the open-wheeled cars zoomed around the track at more than 100 mph. Only 14 cars fin-ished the grueling race. This incredible test of endurance—for both man and machine—inspired Brasington to build his own racetrack in South Carolina.

In a collection of family photos, race programs and other memorabilia, Harold Brasington’s grandson—Harold

Brasington III—has the original deed for the land. The docu-ment shows that Brasington traded $30,805 in raceway stock for 123 acres of cotton and tobacco farmland. The seller, Sherman Ramsey, had one condition written into the deal—a provision that would literally shape the track’s future.

“There was a minnow pond and a farmhouse on that piece of ground,” says Brasington. “There was a tenant farmer living there, and Mr. Ramsey said that as long as that man was alive, the farmhouse must stay. And he didn’t want the pond disturbed either.”

Brasington wanted his track to be more than a mile long to qualify as a super speedway. To miss that minnow pond, he had to make one end of the track narrower than the other.

“That was not the original plan,” Brasington says. “My granddad wanted to make a symmetrical oval track. But it just turned out to be one of those great mistakes that ends

The track ‘too tough to tame’ celebrates 65 years of high-speed thrills BY TIM HANSON | PHOTOS BY CARROLL FOSTER

Donald Paul of Elgin lived out his NASCAR fantasy during the Bojangles Southern 500 weekend at Darlington Raceway (above left). The cars that ran in the first Southern 500 were genuine “stock” cars, some put into service right off the showroom floor.

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up being something cool. Now, that egg shape is legendary and is a part of the track’s charm—or a curse, depending on which driver you talk to.”

Nine thousand tickets were printed for the first Southern 500 race on Labor Day weekend in 1950, but more than double that number crammed into the grandstand, swarmed over the infield and lined the edges of the newly paved as-phalt track. So many people showed up that ticket takers filled 5-gallon buckets and large peach baskets with cash.

When the checkered flag dropped, Johnny Mantz took first place by driving his black 1950 Plymouth at an average speed of 75 mph. He walked away with $10,510 in prize money and a spot in NASCAR history.

‘Home away from home’It is the day of the big race—the 2014 Bojangles Southern 500—and David Granger of Timmonsville is up early to walk the track with dozens of other fans in a Darlington prerace tradition. During the track walk, fans are allowed to trudge up the steeply banked turns and even sign their names on the concrete walls.

Granger has been coming to Darlington since 1971,

Driver Danica Patrick stands for the national anthem at the start of the 2014 Southern 500 (above). Patrick ran her first race at Darlington in 2012 and has brought new fans to the male-dominated sport of stock car racing. Front-row grandstand seats put fans close enough to the action to smell the ethanol fumes and burning rubber as the pack thunders by (right).

Reporters mob driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. on pit row after his qualifying run for the Southern 500 (above). A different kind of grilling takes center stage on the infield where NASCAR fans camp in style for the duration of three-day race weekends (right).

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WEB EXTRA Watch rookie drivers earn their “Darlington stripe” and catch race weekend highlights

courtesy of official NASCAR videos at SCLiving.coop.

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buying a coveted infield space and camping with friends out of a Chevy van packed with enough grub to feed an army.

“We’ve got several coolers filled with beverages, three different kinds of grills and plenty of food,” he says. “On Thursday, we cooked steak and potatoes. Last night, we had pork loins and pork chops and green beans. Today’s menu is chicken leg quarters and ribs and hot dogs and ham-burgers. … It really is a home away from home.”

In the old days, Darlington’s infield was a pretty rough place. Fistfights were frequent, and excessive consump-tion of adult beverages was the order of the day. There was even a jail on the infield where a magistrate would dispense swift justice.

“Every kind of vice and bad thing under the sun has occurred there,” Brasington says. “When I was a youngster—maybe 10 or 11 years old—my granddad would drive out there to talk with some of the old- timers. …For my own safety, he would make me sit in the car while he talked with these men. And then we’d go home and watch the race on TV.”

Since then, race weekends have evolved into a family-oriented event. Filled with RVs and tents, the grassy infield takes on a friendly, summer-camp atmo-sphere where mothers push babies in stroll-ers while kids toss footballs, ride scooters and walk dogs.

“There are all kinds of great people here,” says fan Vince Reidy of Anderson. “You can stop at anyone’s motor home on the infield, and they’ll sit there and talk with you or show you the grill they’re cooking on or offer you a beverage.”

Some infield visitors show up in con-verted school buses fitted with rooftop spec-tator platforms. Others arrive in pricey motor homes. But regardless of their accom-modations, all fans can eventually be found sitting outside in lawn chairs, engaged in

friendly banter about favorite drivers.Once the races begin, the give-

and-take between fans becomes pointless as the bone-rattling roar of cars drowns out con-

versation. Most people wear earplugs to dull the sound, but if you are anywhere close to the track, you can feel the vibra-tion. The smell of fuel and rubber mixes with grill smoke and hangs in the night air.

Earning the Darlington stripeDuring races, drivers jockey for position as they hurtle through the turns and down the straightaways at speeds approaching 200 mph. Every race at Darlington sees at least one driver brush the track wall, scrap-ing paint off the passenger side and leaving behind a “Darlington stripe.”

“Most tracks in NASCAR are a mile-and-a-half long ‘cookie-cutter tracks,’ and they are fairly easy for a driver,” says motor sports journalist Hunter Thomas. “At Darlington, you’re right up there on those steep banks right against the wall. So, as a driver you either love it or you hate it.”

David Gilliland is one of those NASCAR drivers who loves Darlington. Just hours before the beginning of the 2014 Southern 500, he slips behind the wheel of a Ford Fusion EcoBoost sedan and treats journal-ists covering the race to a couple of laps around the track.

“Darlington is a tough place,” Gilliland says as he punches the accelerator and the

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1950First race

1.366 Length in miles

26.705 Time in seconds for fastest lap on record (184.145 mph), set by driver Aric Almirola

(below) on April 11, 2014.

For more information: darlingtonraceway.com

Diagram of the

egg-shaped track

David Gilliland (bottom right) takes a pace car around the course to demonstrate the intricacies of the egg-shaped track. Running close to the wall can earn a driver his “Darlington stripe” (center right) or give a race-winning advantage. This year’s Southern 500 winner Kevin Harvick, in the number 4 car, ran high against the wall to pass Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap (above).

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car seems to float up the steep embankment of turn one. He picks his line through the second turn before going full throttle on the straightaway. Gilliland’s passengers hold on tight as he closes in on 110 mph.

“We run right up by the wall,” he explains in a matter-of-fact voice, easing off a bit on the throttle and moving into turns three and four, the narrow end of the track near Ramsey’s Pond. “The closer you get to the wall, the more grip there is until, obviously, you hit the wall—and I’ve definitely done that.”

Gilliland, who likens coming out of those tight turns to being “shot out of a cannon,” holds the car just inches from the concrete barrier, then hits the gas to roar past the start/finish line in front of Wallace Grandstand.

That evening, the California native successfully pilots his number 38 Ford through the main event, finishing 28th out of 43 drivers. Kevin Harvick takes first place, edging out Dale Earnhardt Jr., who takes second, and Jimmie Johnson, who finishes third.

‘The last of the old tracks’This year’s Southern 500 saw more than 90 percent of its 60,000-plus grandstand seats sell out, as well as every infield camping spot. Darlington Raceway president Chip Wile says that bodes well for the track’s future and should help ease fears of many fans that Darlington might disap-pear from the NASCAR circuit.

Wile says the International Speedway Corporation—the company that owns Darlington Raceway—has invested nearly $80 million in track infrastructure over the last decade and has plans for more upgrades, including massive video boards and a remodeled infield, that will usher the track into the 2020s.

“This is the last of the old tracks,” says Wile. “Rocking-ham is gone. North Wilkesboro is gone. We’re it. And NASCAR understands the significance of this racetrack —not only the history, but for the future of the sport.”

WEB EXTRA Read more of Tom Kinard’s Darlington memories in an exclusive bonus article at SCLiving.coop.

‘Gentlemen, start your engines’During his 17 years as prerace director at Darlington Raceway, Tom Kinard introduced beauty queens, politi-cians, Hollywood actors and NASCAR legends to the raceway crowd. But nothing was as exciting to the long-time radio personality as the day he started the nearly rained-out 1993 Southern 500.

“It is a day I’ll never forget,” says Kinard, manager of communications for Pee Dee Electric Cooperative.

“I was in the press box, and Les Richter, who was the vice president of operations for NASCAR, called,” Kinard recalls. “I answered the phone and he said, ‘OK, let’s get ’em started right now!’”

When Kinard told him that the man slated to start the race was not there, Richter replied, “We don’t have time to wait on him—you do it.” With tens of thou-sands of anxious NASCAR fans awaiting the familiar words, Kinard turned to the microphone and, in his wonderful baritone voice, said, “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

Today, more than 20 years later, he is still captivated by the memory.

“Even now, when I just said those words,” he says, “I had a chill go up and down my back.” —TIM HANSON

As Darlington’s prerace director from 1989 to 2004, Tom Kinard got to meet plenty of celebrities, including Dale “The Intimidator” Earnhardt.

Races are often won or lost in the pits where crew chiefs keep the cars in peak operating condition. Kevin Harvick’s pit crew erupts with excitement as their driver takes the checkered flag at the 2014 Southern 500. After a team prayer, it was time to celebrate on victory lane.

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