If you asked most drivers a decade ago if they thought North Wilkesboro Speedway would ever host a NASCAR Cup Series race ever again, they likely would’ve shaken their head and laughed. It seemed like an impossible task to revive the track that hadn’t held a NASCAR-sanctioned race since 1996.
“I’d seen some pictures, and I knew how bad a shape it was in,” said Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Ford for RFK Racing.
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“When I saw pictures of that place originally, I’m like there’s no way they’re going to get this place to become a points-paying race in the future,” said Zane Smith, driver of the No. 38 Ford for Front Row Motorsports. “And they proved me wrong. So, it’s awesome. It looks great, and hopefully, we put on a show there.”
Indeed, North Wilkesboro has risen from its grave.
This weekend, for the first time in 30 years, the .625-mile short track in Wilkes County, North Carolina is going to have a points race for NASCAR’s top-level Cup Series. The green flag on the Window World 450 will drop at 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 19 – the culmination of a lot of hard work and money spent by NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports, the State of North Carolina and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
For the past three years, North Wilkesboro has hosted NASCAR’s All-Star Race. Bringing it back to the point where that was even possible was a long and windy road with plenty of bumps, stops and starts along the way.
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“That’s one of those, it’s like Martinsville,” veteran driver Denny Hamlin said. “One of the grassroots tracks that definitely is part of our history and needs to be part of our future as well.”
North Wilkesboro roots in NASCAR history
North Wilkesboro is as emblematic of stockcar racing’s history as any venue on the schedule. It was originally built so moonshiners in the hills of western North Carolina could settle who had the fastest machine to outrun the law. It opened in 1947 simply as an oval of red dirt and soon became an iconic stop on the schedule. Even Pixar’s “Cars” franchise drew inspiration from the track.
Junior Johnson, the man Tom Wolfe called “the last American hero,” raced there; Richard Petty took the checkered flag 15 times, and Darrell Waltrip captured 10 victories at North Wilkesboro. Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Cale Yarborough had moments there, as did Buck Baker, Lee Petty and Terry LaBonte.
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But then the 1990s rolled around – a time when NASCAR’s popularity was skyrocketing. There was a time during that decade when 14 of the 31 races on the Winston Cup Series schedule were held in just four states – an area that stretched south to Darlington, South Carolina, north to Richmond, Virginia, and west to Bristol, Tennessee. NASCAR and the operators of its tracks had expansion in mind to the west and north with the goal of reaching untapped audiences.
NASCAR’s oldest tracks, like North Wilkesboro, became casualties. Then-CEO of Speedway Motorsports Bruton Smith bought a portion of the North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1995, and Bob Bahre bought the other. By 1997, North Wilkesboro’s pair of race dates on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar vanished with one going to Texas and the other to New Hampshire.
Jeff Gordon won the 93rd — and, at that time, final — Cup Series race there on Sept. 29, 1996, taking the checkered flag in the Tyson Holly Farms 400.
North Wilkesboro sits dormant until Dale Jr. leads cleanup
Speedway Motorsports had total control of the North Wilkesboro Speedway by 2007, but the track was largely left for dead aside from a handful of lower-tier races between 2009 and 2011. Weeds sprouted, windows were broken, garages had collapsed, bleachers were damaged, the pavement cracked and rust made itself at home. NASCAR haulers would pass by sometimes on their way to Bristol, with drivers and other folks around the sport thinking about what the venue once was.
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Then, in 2019, Dale Earnhardt Jr. got an idea.
Voted NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver 15 times, the two-time Daytona 500 winner had retired from full-time racing after the 2017 season but was enamored with the iRacing video game. If NASCAR couldn’t return to North Wilkesboro, perhaps it could be cleaned up enough to have it scanned for the video game, preserving its history in a digital space.
Buescher was one of more than a dozen who joined Earnhardt at the track for the cleanup. They went to work with weed-eaters, hauled away debris and did enough tidying up to have the speedway scanned for the video game. The makers of iRacing restored North Wilkesboro to its 1987 version, a year in which Earnhardt Sr. and LaBonte won the pair of races there.
“I remember Dale riding around on the street sweeper, just making laps, just smiling ear to ear, covered in mud,” Buescher recalled this past weekend at EchoPark Speedway just south of Atlanta. “I remember going around and just having the understanding that it was to get it scanned and preserved in the digital world, knowing that it probably wasn’t going to make it beyond that. It’s pretty remarkable to see where it’s gotten to now.”
Computer generated in-game image of North Wilkesboro Speedway from the virtual iRacing Pro Invitational Series North Wilkesboro 160 on May 9, 2020.
North Wilkesboro gets funds from Joe Biden’s stimulus bill
Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. With it came the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion federal bill signed into law by President Joe Biden. In Feb. 2021, North Carolina’s congressional delegation split along party lines in voting for the economic stimulus package, with all five Democrats voting for it and all eight Republicans voting against it. North Carolina Republican Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis also voted against it. It passed anyway.
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When those funds came across the desk of former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper – now running for a U.S. Senate seat – he thought about North Carolina’s history with motorsports and what an economic driver NASCAR is for the state. He allocated $18 million from those funds in the state budget to Wilkes County for improvements to the speedway.
“When you think about North Carolina, you think about motorsports,” Cooper said in 2023. “And you think about the economics of it all – clearly, it puts money in the pockets of everyday North Carolinians. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a sport that’s ingrained in our state and in our culture.”
With that, Speedway Motorsports and current CEO Marcus Smith announced a multi-million-dollar renovation project in early 2022. Months later, the CARS Tour – a late-model stockcar racing series co-owned by Earnhardt – held a race there that drew more than 20,000 fans. In a No. 3 splashed with a green Sun Drop paint scheme, Earnhardt finished third.
“I think that gave Marcus the confidence,” Earnhardt said in 2023, referencing the CARS Tour event. “It goes against the idea of growing and getting bigger and going west and more nationwide and global, if you will. It had a lot of things working against it. So, it’s pretty incredible to be back and for the track to be in such great shape.”
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The speedway had been saved
By the time NASCAR’s All-Star race arrived there in the summer of 2023, how the funds were used was apparent. Plumbing, lighting and fencing were all improved, Wi-Fi had been added, the infield was paved, seating was restored and buildings had been fixed. Nothing was falling. There was a lot of new, but much of the venue’s old charm and character remained, like the metal seats in the main grandstands, the Tyson-branded scoreboard and the weathered Winston Cup Series sign that welcomes fans in at the entrance.
“I’m as nostalgic as it gets,” said Carson Hocevar, the 23-year-old driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet who wasn’t born the last time North Wilkesboro had a points race. “So when I walk in and see Winston, I think that’s super cool.”
According to an analysis from Cooper’s office, the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race and events around it increased the value of the statewide economy by $42.4 million, boosted statewide labor income by $27.9 million, generated nearly $29 million in visitor spending and created 625 jobs. After the race, North Carolina lawmakers earmarked another $4 million to Speedway Motorsports for “repairs, renovations, and other capital improvements at” North Wilkesboro, with the caveat that Speedway Motorsports had to bring another NASCAR race there before 2028.
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That box was quickly checked as the All-Star race — and points races in the Craftsman Truck Series — returned in 2024 and 2025. Before the 2024 race weekend, the track was repaved for the first time since 1981. Construction crews making improvements also found a 700-square-foot open area under the grandstand, an area that would have been a perfect fit for a moonshine still.
Fans stream into the entrance of North Wilkesboro Speedway for NASCAR All-Star Race weekend on May 21, 2023.
What NASCAR drivers think of North Wilkesboro
“North Wilkesboro has that throwback feel,” Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s former crew chief and now a broadcaster with TNT and Amazon, told USA TODAY Sports. “They’ve done a nice job of upgrading it without taking away its identity. You feel like you’re in the 90s, but with 2020s amenities. I believe the garage is getting ready to be reminded of the nuances of North Wilkesboro that makes it so special. It’s a true test of car, driver, patience, strategy – one corner is higher than the other, one radius is tighter than the other.”
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It’s fair to say that most drivers are happy to see North Wilkesboro back on the schedule. And that’s for a variety of reasons. Christopher Bell likes the pure short-track racing there, but like Hamlin, Erik Jones is proud to see NASCAR returning to its roots.
“I think it’s important for us as a sport to play into our strong suits and go where we’re welcomed. You go where you’re celebrated, not tolerated,” said Jones, driver of the No. 43 Toyota. “I think NASCAR’s really tried to lean into that more. And us going to Wilkesboro, I think it’s definitely celebrated.”
Most drivers would also agree that there’s little chance North Wilkesboro would have been resurrected without Earnhardt taking the initiative in 2019 and nudging key decision-makers.
“I would think, within our sport, he’s certainly the most influential,” Hamlin said of Dale Jr. “And when he went on a journey to revive the racetrack, it just seems like he made it happen.”
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Added Buescher: “I felt like that was a push from Dale and a movement that he created and got a lot of people behind it in a lot of ways, and it worked.”
This weekend, alongside Letarte and Adam Alexander, Earnhardt will call the Cup Series race as part of TNT Sports’ broadcast team. From the top of the grandstands, he’ll have a great view of all his hard work coming to fruition.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dale Earnhardt Jr., federal money spur North Wilkesboro’s NASCAR revival
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