A great piece about the track that started it all for Nascar, North Wilkesboro Speedway. It is a sad story about a place that history has left behind. A fan favorite, not a car owners favorite, it is one of the places like Rockingham that was lost in the mix to expand Nascar to places that could care less like California and cookie cutter super speedways.
Many wonder why Nascar’s popularity is waning and I think it has to do with long races at tracks that are eerily similar to each other. These tracks make it so that it literally is cars going in circles for a few hours. It is why Bristol is such a popular track and people love to watch the Mud-summer Classic at Eldora. Track owners at these speedways will still never give up the dates even as they demolish half of the stands and luxury boxes at all their tracks. Maybe one day Nascar will help to revive and return some of these tracks like North Wilkesboro to their glory, but I figure it will be a cold day before that happens.
In the end though it is up to Bruton Smith and SMI to either sell the property for a reasonable cost or gasp, fix it up themselves. Granted with the waning ticket revenues in the sport recently I doubt he has the cash or want to do either for a track that will not host a Sprint Cup level race.