Coca-Cola 600


The Coca-Cola 600, originally the World 600, is an annual NASCAR Cup Series points race held at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, during Memorial Day weekend. The first race, held in 1960, was also the first one held at the new Charlotte Motor Speedway. It is the longest race on NASCAR's schedule at. It is unique for having track conditions that change throughout the race. It starts around 6:20 PM and the track is bathed in sunlight for the first third of the race. The second third happens at dusk, and the final third under the lights.
The race is run later on the same day as the Indianapolis 500 of IndyCar, with several drivers having performed Double Duty, competing in both races.
Brad Keselowski is the defending champion of the Coca-Cola 600.

Track origin

In the spring of 1959, Curtis Turner returned to Charlotte, North Carolina, after viewing Bill France Sr.'s Daytona International Speedway and had an idea of building a race track in the surrounding area. Turner thought he could borrow enough money to build a $750,000 track with 45,000 permanent seats on his property in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Afterward, he learned that a group led by Bruton Smith had a similar idea to build a track near Pineville.
Smith and Turner formed an alliance to build the track, and they signed a contract with NASCAR to run a 600-mile event on Memorial Day. Once the construction crew broke ground, they found a layer of granite under the topsoil, making the construction costly. The area for the first turn alone used $70,000 worth of dynamite, ballooning Turner's $750,000 construction plan to nearly two million dollars. In the spring of 1960, Turner begged for a six-week postponement of the race after a snow storm delayed the concrete pouring.
With two weeks remaining until the inaugural race, the paving subcontractor threatened to quit the job due to lack of payment. To keep him there, Turner and one of his friends threatened the subcontractor with a shotgun and a revolver to ensure the track's backstretch would be completed. The first event at the newly completed Charlotte Motor Speedway was held on June 19, 1960.

History

The event began as an attempt by NASCAR to stage a Memorial Day weekend event to compete with the open-wheel Indianapolis 500. It was not until 1974, however, that both races competed head-to-head on the same day. Before 1974, the two races were held on different days of the week, and on a few occasions, some drivers drove in both. They continued even after the Coca-Cola 600 was moved to the same day, albeit to a lesser degree. The first World 600 was held on June 16 due to construction delays of the completion of Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 2009 race, postponed by rain from its original May 24 date, was the first race to occur on Memorial Day itself.
After the installation of lights in 1992, fans asked circuit management to start the race later in the day because of the notorious North Carolina heat and humidity. They wanted to follow The Winston's popularity the previous week and switch the race to a nighttime finish to create cooler temperatures for spectators. The start time was moved back several times throughout the 1990s, and finally settled at 5:30 pm in 2001, to attempt to have the race finished by 10 pm ET, in time for local news on Fox affiliates.
With the new starting time came new challenges. Not only do race teams have to deal with the blistering Carolina heat, but the considerable temperature drop at night affects track conditions.
The nighttime portion of the race is lit with a system that uses parabolic reflectors so that dangerous glare that would otherwise be in the drivers' eyes is minimized. The move of the race to the early evening made it possible for drivers to do Double Duty – run the Indianapolis 500, then immediately fly from Indianapolis to Charlotte, and participate in the Coca-Cola 600. Experts disagreed over whether, for health and safety reasons, anyone should be allowed to race 1100 miles in one day, but no regulation has been set by any governing body to prevent it. From 2005 to 2010, the issue became moot when the state of Indiana finally decided to implement daylight saving time. This resulted in only an approximately one-hour interval between the end of the Indianapolis 500 and the start of the Coca-Cola 600. The Indianapolis 500 start time was moved back to noon Eastern in 2011, but only one attempt – by Kurt Busch in 2014 – has been made since then.
Until the Ferko lawsuit settlement took effect, the race was considered the third leg of the grand slam, and was once part of the Winston Million. It is considered one of the top five annual NASCAR races.
Beginning in 2017, NASCAR adopted the stage-racing format, dividing each of its top three division's races into three stages. Originally, the 600 was going to have stages 1 & 2 be 115 laps in length, with the third and final stage encompassing the remaining 170 laps. Just a few weeks before the race, the stage format for the race was changed with the addition of a fourth stage, and the race is divided into four uniform stages of 100 laps each. This makes it the only race on the schedule with four stages instead of three. If weather interferes, NASCAR's rule that a race becomes official after the conclusion of the second stage still applies. It also makes the Coca-Cola 600 the highest scoring race in terms of points a driver can collect. Usually if a driver sweeps all the stages and passes inspection they score 60 points, but with 4 stages the maximum is 70.
Before the race, The American national anthem was preceded by the playing of Amazing Grace by the Charlotte Fire Department Pipe Band and Taps.

Name changes

From 1960 to 1984 the race was known as the World 600. In 1985, the race's name was changed to the Coca-Cola World 600. In 1986 the name was shortened to the Coca-Cola 600, or Coke 600 which it was referred to at the time. The name changed again in 2002 to the Coca-Cola Racing Family 600 referring to the Coca-Cola family of drivers who are sponsored by Coca-Cola. In 2003, the name returned to the Coca-Cola 600.

Individual race details

The Coca-Cola 600 has been the site of many drivers' first wins, including David Reutimann, Casey Mears, and future champions David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, and Matt Kenseth. The most recent driver to have the 600 as his first win was Austin Dillon, who won in 2017.

Past winners

Multiple winners (drivers)

Multiple winners (teams)

Manufacturer wins

World 600 qualifier

Additional 2020 race

Due to schedule changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlotte Motor Speedway hosted an additional 500-kilometer race called the Alsco Uniforms 500 on the Wednesday following the Coca-Cola 600. It was run as a replacement for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway after the track announced that NASCAR had cancelled its events at the road course due to the pandemic.
*2020: The race was moved from Wednesday to Thursday because of rain.