The final race of the 1973 season was held at Rockingham Speedway when Benny Parsons would see his car tangled in an early incident ripping sheet metal from the car. With help from teams who had dropped from the event early on Parsons and his L.G. Dewitt team would put the car back together to finish the event 28th, 184 laps down.
With that finish Parsons would finish the season with one win and 15 top-five finishes to win his one and only NASCAR premier championship.
Years later when NASCAR would open the Hall of Fame in Charlotte, Parsons name would go on the inaugural ballot. However it would take nearly either eight years for Benny to be voted in. When the votes would be counted Parsons would take home 85 percent of the vote.
As teams and broadcast partners began to gear up for the annual Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway for the second annual throwback weekend. Bowyer and the No 15 team of H Scott Motorsport would roll out the 5 Hour Energy throwback scheme honoring Parsons and his 1973 NASCAR Championship along with his 2017 induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
While Bowyer and H Scott Motorsports were prepping a throwback paint scheme, NBC who Parsons would work for after retiring from driving would film a pre-race special to air prior to the Southern 500 with the car driven to the 1973 championship around Darlington with Dale Jarrett at the wheel this time honoring the legacy of former drivers who race here.
In an interesting side note while at Darlington in a true story made into NASCAR movie Days of Thunder. When Parsons was driving and hit the wall, Parsons radioed to crew chief Harry Hyde asking to pit the car. Hyde snapped back refusing to pit the car because he and the team were on an ice cream break.
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