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Sound the alarm: The Commander’s at the helm at Darlington

Kerry Tharp, formerly a NASCAR communications exec, became Darlington’s president in July.
Photo by: DARLINGTON RACEWAY
Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print edition.

Around 7:30 a.m. on July 18, roughly 30 seconds elapsed between when the security alarm in the Darlington Raceway office sounded and Kerry Tharp turned it off.

Tharp was starting his first day as track president after a decadelong career as a NASCAR communications executive, and it took him about half a minute to find the security box in the dark office and punch in the code. Not long after that, Tharp went out to his car to grab something just as a Darlington County, S.C., sheriff’s deputy pulled up.

“I see you set your alarm off,” Tharp recounted the deputy saying.

“Yes sir, I did,” a startled Tharp responded.

“Do you work here?” the deputy asked.

“Well, I do — today’s my first day,” Tharp said.

“What do you do?” the deputy asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m the president of the racetrack,” Tharp deadpanned as the deputy starting laughing.

As that experienced portended, Tharp has had a baptism by fire in his first six weeks as president of Darlington, which has one of the smallest staffs of any NASCAR track with 14 full-time workers. Tharp, who spent two decades in the University of South Carolina’s athletic department before moving to NASCAR in 2005, was thrust into the role to replace Chip Wile, who became president of Daytona International Speedway in April.

While he didn’t have much of a runway before Darlington’s annual Sprint Cup Series race, Tharp has worked diligently to get up to speed, with the hardest part being having to focus on so many different aspects of race day as opposed to just one.

“When I was at NASCAR in communications … obviously there’s a great deal of planning that goes into that, but on this side in the role I have now, you virtually have to know everything,” he said. “Whether that be security, traffic control, concessions, parking, scheduling, the grounds — everything.”

To get adjusted, Tharp has leaned on Wile. The two have held 30-minute phone conferences every Monday to go over plans heading into Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500. Wile also encouraged Tharp to come to Darlington the week before he officially started to meet with key local leaders.

“I figured we’d have four to five meetings over the two-day period,” Tharp said. “Well, we had 18 meetings over those two days, whether it was law enforcement, city manager, chamber of commerce, state senators, mayors, the Darlington County coroner (whose house Tharp is renting across the street from the track).”

Tharp, 59, long known as “The Commander” in NASCAR media centers for his commanding presence, is enjoying his role as president for, as he put it, the first time since he held the title for his high school senior class.

“The nice thing with him coming on board is he’s so well-respected in the industry and here within the state of South Carolina that there was a nice, smooth transition there,” said Tony Sizemore, Darlington’s senior director of consumer marketing. “On a daily basis, he’s very motivational in his management style — and with a small team and staff here at Darlington, I think that was well-received.”

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