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At the start of the pandemic, I submitted a story as an AC about abandoned North Wilkesboro Speedway being scanned for iRacing. As NASCAR shut down along with other professional sports, a series of virtual races were run, and North Wilkesboro was the final virtual race in 2020.
NASCAR last raced at North Wilkesboro in 1996. It's a very unique short track in the mountains of western North Carolina. The distance is 0.625 miles, and the track is built on an incline. The two ends of the track race differently because the front stretch is downhill and the backstretch is uphill, with an elevation difference of 18 feet. There were limited updates to the track in the 1980s and 1990s, meaning that the track had significantly fewer amenities than other tracks of that era. After the track's owner died, it was sold, and North Wilkesboro's two races were moved to Texas and New Hampshire.
At the time, many people assumed that as NASCAR added more races, they would eventually return to North Wilkesboro. Unfortunately, that never happened, and no other series raced there, either. Aside from a brief attempt to reopen the track in 2010, the track was completely abandoned. The buildings and grandstands around the track started crumbling, and plants were growing through cracks in the track surface.
Before the pandemic hit, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gathered a group of people to visit the track to remove the plants from the track and clean it so it could be scanned by iRacing. Even then, I don't think anyone expected the track to ever reopen. However, the virtual NASCAR event drew attention to the abandoned track. When the North Carolina government had a surplus of money, the governor's budget allocated funds for three tracks in the state: Charlotte Motor Speedway, Rockingham Speedway, and North Wilkesboro Speedway. With the funding from the state, track owner SMI decided it was financially viable to rebuild the grandstands and buildings around the track.
Last year, SMI started rebuilding the facilities around the track. A few smaller races were held at the track late last year and early this year. Originally, NASCAR's all-star race was scheduled to return to Texas Motor Speedway this year. However, the racing at Texas has not been good, and fans were generally not pleased with this. SMI backtracked and later announced that the all-star race would take place at North Wilkesboro. The track is still being renovated, but the facility is once again in good condition.
SMI has not repaved the track, meaning that cars will run on the same surface as they did in 1996. Having been last repaved in 1981, this is by far the oldest track surface that NASCAR will run at this year. This means that grip will be low and tire wear will be very high, which could very well produce good racing. The truck series race starts in just a few minutes, and this is a points race. The cup series race is not a points race. Qualifying will continue this evening, and then the all-star open and race will take place tomorrow evening. There were a lot of fans in the stands yesterday for truck and cup series practice, which is unusual. The stands are packed today for the truck series, which is also unusual.
In 1996, Texas Motor Speedway took away one of North Wilkesboro's race dates. And now, 27 years later, this has been fixed and North Wilkesboro took that race date back from Texas.
(Score: 1) by dalek on Thursday May 25, @08:06AM
A repave is inevitable. The track surface is crumbling, so I doubt NASCAR races on that pavement again. You're right that patching the track meant there was only one groove. But from what I remember, that's always how Martinsville raced, and there were a lot of good races there in the last decade.
I watched the truck race on Saturday and really enjoyed it. The cautions in the final stage made tire wear less of an issue, and the racing wasn't quite as entertaining. But the first two stages were excellent. Before the race, many people said they expected NWB to race a lot like Richmond. The banking is similar and the turns have relatively large radii. The truck race actually looked a lot like what I'd expect at Martinsville. There was a single groove around the bottom of the track, cars with worn tires couldn't stay on the bottom of the track and got passed, and there were a lot of passes made with the bump 'n' run. Even though Kyle Larson won that race, too, it was really competitive and there was good racing throughout the field. I would be shocked if NWB wasn't on next year's schedule for trucks.
I think you're suggesting the progressive banking to create multiple grooves. A single groove doesn't work for most intermediate tracks, otherwise you end up with Texas after the reconfiguration. I think it can work for a short track, and that's pretty much how Martinsville was before the Nextgen car. You just have to be able to get to the bumper of the car in front of you and move them up the track. The Nextgen car seems to have a problem with that, which is why the racing hasn't been very good on short tracks. Admittedly, Richmond was pretty good this spring. But this car usually doesn't work well on short tracks, so I wasn't too surprised about the racing at NWB. The all-star open was actually a pretty good race, though, despite the car.
It sounds like Marcus Smith is open to listening to driver input on how NWB should be repaved and if there's any sort of reconfiguration. That's a good sign. For all the complaints about SMI, they've done a great job with NWB. I'd really like to see the all-star race back there next year. I don't think there's any consensus on why the Nextgen car doesn't race well on short tracks, and taking away downforce didn't fix it. One idea I've heard is to put grooves in the tires to reduce the area that makes contact with the pavement, reducing grip. I don't know what the answer is, but I hope they continue making adjustments to the Nextgen car to get short track racing back to where it was with the Gen 6 car. They'll have to repave the track, but I think the problem is the car, not with NWB.
Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this... that's always a possibility. :-)
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