Twenty-six years after the NASCAR Cup Series last raced at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the series will return in 2023. On Wednesday, Speedway Motorsports and NASCAR announced the NASCAR All-Star Race will move to the North Carolina track to celebrate NASCAR’s seventy-fifth anniversary and consummate the decades-long effort to restore the historic facility. The race will take place on 21 May 2023.
“North Wilkesboro Speedway boasts a winners list that features the true giants of our sport, and next year, another great will be added as the NASCAR Cup Series stars once again race at this historic facility,” NASCAR chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell stated. “As part of our seventy-fifth anniversary season, we are excited to return to the roots of the sport for the NASCAR All-Star Race. This will be a can’t-miss event as we honor our past and look forward to the future.”
The .625-mile (1.006 km) North Wilkesboro was on the Cup Series calendar from the inaugural season in 1949 to 1996. Despite being a charter track and fan favourite, it was taken off the schedule as NASCAR’s 1990s nationwide boom prompted Speedway Motorsports, who purchased the track in 1995, to move the date to Texas Motor Speedway. Ironically, the All-Star Race had been at Texas for the past two years, where it was met with generally negative reception from fans.
The track was immediately closed after the 1996 races and fell into disrepair as SMI appeared reluctant to revisit it. Attempts to revive the speedway led to late model races in 2010 and 2011 before it fell silent once more.
After another decade of seemingly fruitless endeavours by fans, a light was spotted at the end of the tunnel. In 2020, led by Dale Earnhardt Jr., the track was scanned into iRacing and used as the final stop for that year’s eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. The following year, the state of North Carolina received an $40 million allocation from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief American Rescue Plan to be used in renovating the state’s three major speedways (North Wilkesboro, Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Rockingham Speedway). $18 million went towards North Wilkesboro and Wilkes County for infrastructure improvement, getting the ball rolling.
“Motorsports are critical to North Carolina’s history, culture and economy, and our investments have helped to get the engines running again in places that needed revival,” said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, who signed the American Rescue Plan’s allocation bill for the state. “North Wilkesboro Speedway is back and better than ever, and the All-Star Race will take it to new heights.”
The repairs eventually resulted in Racetrack Revival, a programme to host grassroots racing in August such as late models and modifieds, with former Cup driver Ryan Newman winning the first race back in the modifieds. Earnhardt ran a CARS Late Model Tour race there a few days later and finished third.
“Some of my best memories as a little boy were going to North Wilkesboro, and it got even better when I raced there as a teenager,” commented Earnhardt, whose father was a five-time Cup winner at the track. “I never thought I’d see that place full again, and then I got to race there this summer in a late model before a full house. There’s just something special about it. I know the track, the fans, and the community will put on a show when we’re back with the Cup cars for the All-Star Race.”
North Wilkesboro’s return is the second major change to NASCAR’s schedule for 2023, joining the Chicago Street Race announced in July. While NASCAR has been more eager to experiment with new and perhaps radical ideas such as Chicago and the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the sanctioning body is certainly open to turn back the clock to purer days too with North Wilkesboro’s return and ongoing efforts to also revitalise the Nashville Fairgrounds.