There was a distinct retro feel to Sunday’s Southern 500 in Darlington, S.C.

It’s quite remarkable that none of NASCAR’s marketers thought to put “throwback” paint schemes on some of the cars running at Darlington.

One of those could have been Terry Labonte’s car. He could have used similar colors to the ones on the No. 92 car he drove in his first career start in this race in 1978, or the car in which he got his first victory in the 1980 Southern 500.

Actually, the day got off to that kind of start. Cale Yarborough, a five-time winner of “The Granddaddy of Them All” was honored before Sunday’s race.

The 64-year-old Yarborough, a three-time Winston Cup champion, had a link to the 46-year-old veteran who at the end of Sunday would be celebrating one of the most satisfying outcomes in recent NASCAR memory.

“When I was a rookie and came here the first time, you had to pass a rookie test,” Labonte said, looking back on that 1978 race. “There was a rookie meeting and all this. I never will forget it; I went in this little room there and Cale Yarborough was in there along with four or five of us that were rookies.

“They had made a video of the previous Southern 500, the highlights of all the things not to do. The car I was driving was in about 90 percent of the ‘highlights’ in the video. I decided the biggest goal was not to make the next year’s video.”

Labonte did better than that, finishing fourth the first time he’d ever run in a race longer than 200 laps on a track as big as the 1.366-mile Darlington track.

Two years later, Sept. 1, 1980, Labonte put his car number at the top of the scoreboard at Darlington.

Labonte was 23 when he won his first race and 27 when he won the 1984 championship title. He has also shown a remarkable resilience in his career. He went from July 1989 until April 1994 without winning a race, but came back to win the 1996 championship. He’d been winless since 1999, though, and suffered through a frustrating season in 2002.

Crew chief Jim Long joined the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team before the 2002 season, and through the struggles he and Labonte found reason for optimism. The improvement they sensed late last year started showing better results this season, and Labonte felt a win might be all that was lacking to complete the rebuild. He figured Richmond, the site of Saturday’s next race on the schedule, would offer a better chance for that to happen.

His car was third fastest in qualifying Friday and stayed around the front all day Sunday. When Long’s crew snapped off a four-tire change in just over 13 seconds with less than 35 laps to go Sunday, Labonte had the lead and a shot at his 22nd career win. He didn’t let it get away, winning for the first time since Texas more than four seasons ago.

It had been 156 races since he’d had a victory, and someone asked if this one would make it easier to walk away from the sport happy whenever he decides to do that.

Labonte took a moment before answering. Finally, a wry smile crept across his face.

“I’m not saying anything,” he said. “But I will tell you I won’t have a losing streak that long again.”