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Ronald Queen talks about what North Wilkesboro Speedway has meant to him and the Wilkes County community. Queen was a pit crew member for Junior Johnson and for Morgan–McClure Motorsports.
North Wilkesboro Speedway is preparing for a revival with races in August and October. NASCAR ran Cup races at the track from its inaugural season in 1949 until 1996.
Weeds once grew in the cracks of the asphalt but those are gone now at North Wilkesboro Speedway as the track prepares for races in the first week of August.
NORTH WILKESBORO — Barely an hour into the 9 a.m. start of the traditional workday — but three-plus hours into his day — Ronald Queen zipped about the North Wilkesboro Speedway on his gas-powered cart like he was racing for the checkered flag.
And in a very real way, he was.
Heavy equipment operators were razing metal grandstands on the track’s south side. A crew of old-school painters from Winston-Salem were recreating original signs, and lighting contractors from Louisiana were busy making sure the track will shine come Tuesday night when the green flag drops for XR Series Racing Revival.
Racing, you may have heard, is returning to its roots this week thanks in no small part to a very large infusion of federal COVID relief funds.
A fading North Wilkesboro Speedway sign, peeling paint and all, has been kept in its current conditions to honor the history of the race track. The track is preparing for a revival as racing returns in August and October.
For Wilkes County natives such as Queen, the operations manager at the speedway, the return of fender bending, rubbing-is-racing couldn’t come fast enough.
“I ain’t got the words for it,” Queen said, a few tears welling in his eyes. “We’ve poured our heart and soul into this. But really it’s for our friends, families, people we don’t even know and young people who’ve never seen racing here.”
By this point, even casual observers know a little about the history of the quirky, lay-of-the-land North Wilkesboro Speedway.
In the late ‘40s, a couple local men scratched out a dirt track that followed the contours of the rolling land — uphill on the back straightaway, downhill toward the start/finish line — to find out who among area bootleggers had the fastest car and the most nerve behind the wheel.
From that modest beginning, the 5/8-mile track opened in 1947, quickly became intertwined with NASCAR two years later and settled in for a long run as a fixture on the circuit.
In the early days, stock car racing was a regional attraction.
That changed in 1965 when renowned author Tom Wolfe published a profile about Wilkes County native Junior Johnson, an honest-to-God bootlegger from Ronda, called “The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson. Yes!” that was eventually made into a movie.
The deep pockets of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which signed on in 1971 as title sponsor of the Winston Cup, helped make stock car racing a truly modern spectator sport as thousands flocked to places like North Wilkesboro.
That experience helped capture the imagination of fans such as Keith Grubbs — an old-school craftsman busy last week painting and restoring logos on the track walls.
Keith Grubbs, a sign painter from JKS, paints the Coca-Cola logo on the front stretch wall near the start/finish line at North Wilkesboro Speedway on Thursday. The track, which hosted NASCAR Cup races from 1949-96, is preparing for races in August and October.
He started coming to the speedway in 1987 with a buddy who’d pulled his car out of a ditch the previous winter.
“We sat in the ‘chicken bone’ section, down low in row five, turn one and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken out of a box, drank water and got hit in the head by flying chicken bones,” Grubbs said. “We loved it and said we’d be back every year.”
That held true for a while, but the streak ended eventually. But a lifelong affinity for North Wilkesboro never waned even as new, bigger racetracks opened in nontraditional places such as Chicago and Kansas City.
“Just being here has always been pretty cool,” Grubbs said.
The good times came to an end in 1996, though, as the nationwide expansion of stock car racing squeezed out traditional tracks.
North Wilkesboro Speedway executive director Graig Hoffman looks out over the front stretch as the speedway prepares for races in August and October.
North Wilkesboro, Rockingham and Darlington saw their race dates turned over to the new speedways. The last NASCAR race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway was run in May 1996.
It was a blow to area fans who for years made the trip twice a year. But perhaps worse, an economic engine — and source of considerable civic pride — was idled after Jeff Gordon crossed the finish line first.
A few smaller races were held on the grounds during a mini-revival in 2011, but it was never the same. The old track eventually fell into a state of disrepair. Weeds popped up through the asphalt, and metal grandstands visible from U.S. 421 began showing their age.
Rumors about interest from NASCAR’s truck series or other smaller race circuits circulated every so often.
Excitement, fueled by hope, would build before rumors proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking.
Oddly, it took the COVID pandemic — or more specifically, economic relief money — to help revive the place
The federal government had allocated some $5.7 billion to North Carolina through the American Rescue Plan and left it to politicians in Raleigh to decide how to spend it.
Gov. Roy Cooper shrewdly proposed spending $30 million of that to refurbish North Wilkesboro, the Rock (Richmond County) and the Charlotte Motorspeedway (Cabarrus County). Some 15 other local tracks and drag strips received smaller grants totaling another $15.8 million.
“This pandemic brought us a once-in-a-generation challenge, and these funds have brought us a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” Cooper said in 2021
The North Wilkesboro Speedway, in a nod to its place in NASCAR’s roots, wound up getting $18 million in relief money and a significant contribution from the local government.
“I think it was a brilliant political move for Roy Cooper to put together,” said Eddie Settle, the chairman of the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners last year while the details were being ironed out in the General Assembly. “Wilkes is a very red county. Same as Richmond (home of Rockingham). He knows he’ll get support for it.”
Judging by the rush of activity at the North Wilkesboro Speedway, spending pandemic relief funds is already providing an economic boost.
Last year when legislators were discussing various proposals for the $5.7 billion, Settle estimated that a half-dozen races a year could mean as much as $40 million to the local economy. “That’s the whole area, not just North Wilkesboro,” he said.
Dozens of workers have been working long hours getting the track and grounds ready for racing. Grandstands are being razed on the back stretch and concession areas are being overhauled and touched up.
Old-school signs and sponsor ads are being painted by hand. Original track logos and the fading red Winston Cup logo remain, adding a real connection to the past that cannot be bought.
“We’re trying to be as authentic as we can in this,” said Graig Hoffman, the executive director of the North Wilkesboro Speedway and a longtime employee of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the owner of 11 tracks spread from California to Bristol, Tenn. “We’re getting it up and running with the goal of having a modern facility here in Wilkesboro with a real retro feel.”
Plans to repave the track surface next year as part of the overhaul naturally have given rise to the $1 million question: Could NASCAR return?
Hoffman, who runs the Bristol Motor Speedway, chose the diplomatic route while focusing on the present.
“It’s great to dream, but you have to take baby steps first,” he said.
The speedway, when complete, will host a variety of events — concerts or Christmas light shows perhaps — in a vision of it becoming a multi-purpose venue.
“People talk about how NASCAR left and Lowe’s Home Improvement left, so we want to get it rebuilt in a way that restores a sense of pride to the entire community,” Hoffman said.
Much work will remain even after the green flag drops Tuesday night. “We just got power last week,” Hoffman said.
Restrooms and food concessions won’t be finished this week but organizers have found temporary workarounds.
Porta-johns have been brought in, and food vendors will be setting up shop inside the gates. Cold drinks — water, soda, beer and moonshine cocktails — also will be available for a crowd that could reach 9,000.
And while some observers initially questioned whether spending pandemic funds truly counted as economic relief, the proof was fairly obvious last week inside the broiling oval.
People such as Grubbs, who should be enjoying an actual retirement, working for companies like JKS Motorsports in Winston-Salem leaped at the chance to work at the North Wilkesboro Speedway.
“I’ve been painting for 50 years, the last 24 with JKS and NASCAR,” Grubbs said while working on a logo. “When I was sitting in the stands over there, I never imagined I’d get the chance to work here in North Wilkesboro.
A few feet away near Victory Lane, Hoffman kept busy checking items of a near bottomless to-do list while Queen, the track’s operations manager, made sure contractors had everything they needed.
The progress made an impression on Jason Reavis, the operations officer of the Wilkes EMS who’d dropped by to review plans for medical coverage on opening night.
“I’m thinking this is going to be a real successful thing,” he told Hoffman. “It’s going to be good for Wilkes County.”
Which is exactly what race fans — and lawmakers who approved the project — had in mind all along.
Wilkes 400 auto racing at the North Wilkesboro Speedway on Oct. 4, 1976
An interior view of North Wilkesboro Speedway from a truck testing session on Oct. 25, 2004.
A billboard at the entrance of the former North Wilkesboro Speedway shows the stress of time in 2003.
North Wilkesboro Speedway on May 16, 2018.
An aerial view of the abandoned auto racing track North Wilkesboro Speedway on April 10, 1999.
Qualifying day for a NASCAR race during the final season of racing at the famed North Wilkesboro Speedway on September 27, 1996.
NASCAR fans gather for qualifying day during the final season of racing at the North Wilkesboro Speedway on September 27, 1996.
Fans fill the stands for qualifying day at the famed North Wilkesboro Speedway on September 27, 1996.
One young fan is less than thrilled by the roar of engines during the final season of racing at North Wilkesboro Speedway on September 27, 1996.
Fans fill the stands on qualifying day, September 27, 1996, at North Wilkesboro.
Drivers on the track at North Wilkesboro Speedway on September 27, 1996.
Qualifying daym September 27, 1996 at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
A faded sign hangs on an outside wall at North Wilkesboro Speedway on Feb. 25, 2009.
Like the signs for Holly Farms and First Union, this Winston Cup sign at North Wilkesboro Speedway, seen Feb. 25, 2009, harkens back to the era of the track's heyday.
USARacing Pro Cup Series announced in 2009 that, on Sunday Oct. 3, 2010, the North Wilkesboro Speedway would be part of their championship series. As part of the announcement, folks were allowed to follow the pace car around the track for a lap at the historic speedway.
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Keith Grubbs, a sign painter from JKS, paints the Coca-Cola logo on the front stretch wall near the start/finish line at North Wilkesboro Speedway on Thursday. The track, which hosted NASCAR Cup races from 1949-96, is preparing for races in August and October.
Ronald Queen talks about what North Wilkesboro Speedway has meant to him and the Wilkes County community. Queen was a pit crew member for Junior Johnson and for Morgan–McClure Motorsports.
North Wilkesboro Speedway executive director Graig Hoffman looks out over the front stretch as the speedway prepares for races in August and October.
A fading North Wilkesboro Speedway sign, peeling paint and all, has been kept in its current conditions to honor the history of the race track. The track is preparing for a revival as racing returns in August and October.
North Wilkesboro Speedway is preparing for a revival with races in August and October. NASCAR ran Cup races at the track from its inaugural season in 1949 until 1996.
Weeds once grew in the cracks of the asphalt but those are gone now at North Wilkesboro Speedway as the track prepares for races in the first week of August.
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