It’s finally BACK.
Marcus Smith, President of SMI who owns many of the NASCAR tracks throughout the country, has just announced that the original NASCAR track, North Wilkesboro Speedway, will officially be reopened for grassroots racing this August on pavement.
Starting in October, they will go back to the original dirt with plans to eventually repave it in the next several years
The track first opened in 1947 as a dirt track in rural Wilkes county at the inception of the sport, and was later paved in 1958 and ran some of the biggest races in NASCAR up until the last Winston Cup Series race in 1996. …
Recently, a new conversation started about it potentially reopening for races when Dale Earnhardt Jr. headed to the track in 2020 with a clean up crew to film for iRacing. The town subsequently started a campaign called We Want You Back to bring more attention to the forgotten track, because residents there wanted it opened again more than anybody else.
Last May, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper approved $10 million in funding to go towards efforts to fix up the track, which really moved the efforts forward in terms of actual, palpable momentum…
In a press conference, Marcus said that he’d like to start with a truck series run, but even that is a few years off at best: “Conservatively, I’d say 2024.”