Darlington retained one race each season, the date shifting on the schedule several times. The Southern 500 name was brought back in 2009 as well. But it was not until after the California experiment failed and the Labor Day event was shifted to Atlanta for four years that Nascar finally gave Darlington back its Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend this year. It was hard to gauge enthusiasm going into the weekend; the race was not a sellout at the 58,000-seat track.

“I think our great race fans in South Carolina support this racetrack,” said the track president, Chip Wile. “Certainly, we want to make a big splash in our return to Labor Day weekend, and I think we’ll do that.”

But officials are determined not to make a scene at the same time with Confederate flags in clear view during the race broadcast. After all, the Nascar chairman, Brian France, had declared that Confederate flags were no longer welcome at tracks after a mass shooting at a church in Charleston in June. When the series shifted to Daytona in July, track officials came up with an exchange program. They offered American flags to replace the Confederate flags there.

Wile said the same program would be in place at Darlington as well. That’s not exactly what happened on Friday, though, as track workers asked fans to take down their flags. The reason given: They blocked sight lines across the track.

Fans were not buying it.

“If they’re saying it gets in the way, people can’t see across the track, how come they got flags on all the racecar drivers’ haulers?” said Tyler Harris, 24, of Reidsville, N.C., pointing to the many American flags that still waved.

Harris had displayed five Confederate flags on a 30-foot pole attached to an R.V. in the infield. The flag on top included this line: “I Aint Coming Down.” But it did come down Friday morning after track workers fanned out across the infield and asked fans to remove them. Harris vowed to put the flags back up.

Brian Myers, 40, of Ridgeville, S.C., came to Darlington in a blue-painted school bus with a sign on front that said, “Ridgeville Rednecks.” He was asked to take his flag down, too. He wasn’t happy about it, though.

“There’s a lot of newer, younger people coming to the races now, not the old school,” Myers said. “They’ve got to keep everybody happy. So they’re in a tough spot. I understand that. But they shouldn’t ask us to take our flags down.”