For one last Labor Day weekend, tens of thousands of racing fans will descend upon Darlington to scream for their favorite drivers and shake out their wallets.

Today's "Yellow And Highly Caffeinated Carbonated Soda Southern 500" is the last time the "track too tough to tame" will host a race on Labor Day weekend. NASCAR's 2004 schedule moves Darlington's second race of the season to Nov. 14, giving the Labor Day slot to a new track in California.

The calendar change for Darlington is a "bad racing deal," as any number of eloquent drivers or crew chiefs would say. It leaves two observations:

• Why is actor David Spade supposed to be at the track today? His unctuous New York shtick is as out of place at Darlington as a right turn.

• Regardless of when the race is run or how many people attend, South Carolina loves its motors.

Like 43 other states, South Carolina has more vehicles than licensed drivers.

State and federal statistics show the Palmetto State had 3.1 million vehicles and 2.8 million drivers last year. That's 1.1 vehicles for every driver.

The ratio of cars to drivers ranks the state 35th nationally. Iowa ranked tops, with 1.7 vehicles for every driver. The District of Columbia ranked last, with 1.32 drivers for every vehicle.

Less-populous, agriculture-rich states tend to have many more vehicles than drivers. Urban states with strong public transportation systems (New York, ranking 49th) and poor states (Arkansas, at 48th) rank lower.

In South Carolina, like 39 other states, the number of registered vehicles is rising faster than the number of drivers.

The state's number of registered drivers jumped 14 percent since 1994. But the number of vehicles jumped 16 percent.

The biggest jump among states belonged to Colorado, which has 70 percent more vehicles but only 20 percent more drivers than in 1994.

With the jump in drivers and vehicles naturally comes a jump in the number of miles we drive.

Drivers put in nearly 46 billion miles of travel on S.C. roads in 2001, up 30 percent from 1994.

During that same time, the state gained only a few hundred more miles of new roads -- which explains why driving on some state roads feels like the bumper-to-bumper racing you'll see today at Darlington.

Only a little slower.