Arena: Darlington Raceway

Location: Darlington, South Carolina

Date: May 12, 2012

NASCAR Betting Odds: It began in 1957 as a 300 miles race and it was known as the Rebel 300. Now named the Bojangles Southern 500 and as many other people know it as just the Southern 500, this is the annual spring NASCAR Sprint Cup race held at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, USA.

In 1966 this race was expanded to 400 miles, in 1973 to 500 miles, then on 1994 it was reduced back to 400 miles.

In 2005 it returned to 500 miles and to its Confederate Memorial Day weekend date because of a lawsuit of the schedule realignment.

Apart from having some different track lengths and names over the 53 year history, there also have been some notable moments on this track as well.

One memorable race was the 1979 Rebel 500 which had Darrell Waltrip locking horns with "The King", Richard Petty, in a classic duel which ended with Waltrip as the victor, after the two NASCAR icons had traded the lead with one another four times on the final lap.

2012 Bojanlge's Southern 500 Winner - Johnson edges Stewart and Hamlin to win Bojangles' Southern 500

When Jimmie Johnson won Hendrick Motorsports' 199th team career win last October in Kansas, the belief was that the milestone victory was a few races away.

Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. teased team owner Rick Hendrick with seven combined top-three finishes this year - and the drought reached 16 races.

But Hendrick got No. 200 when Johnson screamed out ahead of Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin on a green-white-checker finish to capture the Bojangles' Southern 500 on Saturday night at Darlington Raceway.

One race team has more victories in NASCAR - Petty Enterprises with 268 wins.

The win was Johnson's first of the year. The five-time series champion had not gone winless this long at the start of a season since 2003.

Johnson has not won at Darlington since sweeping the races in the last year when the track had two annual Cup events in 2004. He posted four top-10s in the next five years at the raceway but finished 36th and 15th in the past two seasons.

2011 Results: Regan Smith Wins Showtime Southern 500

Driving for a single-car, self-sponsored team based out of Denver, CO., the native of Cato, NY. beat Roush-Fenway Racing driver Carl Edwards to win the Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway for his first career victory in one of the great upsets in the sport's history.

Brad Keselowski grabbed his first top-five since he won the 2009 spring race at the Talladega Superspeedway with a third-place finish, while front row starters Kasey Kahne - who led a race-high 124 laps - and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-five.

The race's final laps were marred by an incident between Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. Busch and Harvick had made contact earlier in the lap, sending Harvick's teammate hard into the inside wall. Several yards down the track, Busch hung a left into Harvick's left rear, hooking him into the outside wall. Harvick parked his car in front of Busch's on pit road after the race and got out of his car to confront Busch, who peeled away and pushed Harvick's Chevrolet into the inside pit wall.

2010 Winner

Denny Hamlin is the new Southern 500 winner. Hamlin became the first driver since Mark Martin in 1993 to sweep the Darlington weekend. It was the first weekend sweep ever for Hamlin in NASCAR’s top two series.

Jeff Gordon may be the winningest active driver and the third winningest all-time at Darlington Raceway, but it was Denny Hamlin who mastered Darlington in 2010, winning both Friday night’s Royal Purple 200 Nationwide Series event and the Showtime Southern 500 Sprint Cup race on Saturday. With the win, Hamlin matches reigning champion Jimmie Johnson’s 2010 win total with three.

"We just put ourselves in position to win this race," Hamlin said. "The pit crew did a phenomenal job getting me off pit road first, and that was the key to this win. Our car was so fast on that last run that we might have been able to get by those guys anyways, but we just played it smart."

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