By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
DARLINGTON, S.C. – For a majority of those who love NASCAR, throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway ranks at the top of the list on the schedule. With throwback schemes comes an opportunity for those young and old to remember past history within the sport as well as pay tribute to past racers. One young race fan literally took to the drawing board to show his favorite NASCAR driver, Bubba Wallace that he’s thinking of Adam Petty as well this weekend as Wallace and Richard Petty Motorsports honor the late racer with a special scheme.
Bryan Snare and his son Mitchell Snare are at Darlington Raceway for Sunday evening’s Bojangles Southern 500 and with them is one of Mitchell’s drawings, this one is of the No. 43 Victory Junction Chevrolet driven by Bubba Wallace.
The scheme is a throwback to Adam Petty’s ARCA Racing Series winning Spree car at Charlotte. Petty, son of Kyle Petty and grandson of Richard Petty Motorsports owner, Richard Petty tragically lost his life on May 12, 2000 in a practice session in what was then known as the Busch Series at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He was only 19 years old.
Kickin’ The Tires spoke to the Snare family at Darlington this morning to find out when these drawings started (this isn’t the first one) and if there was a collection of sorts.
“Yes ma’am, there’s a collection”, said the younger Snare. “It started last year at Bristol.”
“Last year at Martinsville.”, said dad but his son was convinced it was Bristol. Dad added, “Whichever one was the first race.”
When asked what makes Bubba and Richard Petty Motorsports his favorite, Mitchell said, “They’re just such good people and what all they’ve done for the fans and making sure that everybody gets an opportunity to have fun at Victory Junction.”
We had to find out when Mitchell decided he wanted to auction the drawing off to benefit the Victory Junction Camp.
“I actually just decided a few minutes ago, well officially decided. I wanted to possibly send somebody to camp and make sure that somebody got to have fun.”
Dad chimed in and said, “The first time that you said you were going to do it was Thursday or Friday.” His son agreed that it was Friday.
This will be their first auction and Mitchell has drawn ten to fifteen drawings, with the one for Darlington this weekend being his sixth of the year thus far.
We will be sure to provide more information on this auction that will benefit https://victoryjunction.org/ as it becomes readily available to us from the Snare family.
Beautiful Throwback of Adam’s car. Nice tribute to Adam, the Petty family and NASCAR history.
Outstanding art work Mitchell Snare.
Count me on bidding you your master piece.