June 29, 2007
By Allen Madding

Allen Madding

North Carolina Speedway sits quietly ten miles north of Rockingham, North Carolina on North US Highway 1 was originally built as a flat one-mile race track by Darlington Raceway builder Harold Brasington and landowner Bill Land. The first NASCAR Grand National Division (later renamed the Winston Cup Series) race at "The Rock" was held on October 31, 1965. Curtis Turner won the inaugural “American 500” at Rockingham driving the Wood Brothers’ No. 41 Ford.

L.G. DeWitt, a local trucking company executive, later purchased North Carolina Speedway. DeWitt reshaped the track into a banked 1.017-mile oval in 1969. Richard Petty scored the first win in the NASCAR Grand National Division after the track was reshaped in the 1970 Carolina 500. Petty won by putting the entire field three laps down driving his No. 43 Plymouth.

In 1982, NASCAR’s Busch Series added North Carolina Speedway to its schedule, and David Pearson scored the win in the Coca-Cola 200 driving the No. 21 Pontiac.

The track was eventually expanded to seat just over 60,000 and had 34 VIP Suites overlooking the track. In 1997, the track merged ownership with Penske Motorsports. The track hosted NASCAR’s premier series twice a year until 2004 when it was reduced to one event.

After being stripped of one of its traditional two NASCAR Winston Cup Series events per year, NASCAR held its final Nextel Cup Series race at Rockingham, the Subway 400, on February 22, 2004. Matt Kenseth won the event driving Jack Roush’s No. 17 DeWalt Power Tools Ford. The final NASCAR Busch Series event was ran the day prior with Jamie McMurray scoring the win in the Goody’s Headache Powder 200 driving the No.30 Trim Spa Dodge.

Since losing its NASCAR races, Rockingham has been used by driving schools and for testing sessions but the infrequent usage has not been able to offset the cost of upkeep.

Options for Rockingham

Recent news has it that the track is headed for the auction block sometime this fall. One has to consider the options that remain for the use of the property. With NASCAR’s recent lock down on the number of practice sessions available to Cup Series teams, a couple of the Cup Series bigger multi-car teams have considered constructing their own private testing facility. With Rockingham sitting 92 miles from Mooresville (home to the majority of the NASCAR teams), it presents a good facility for testing although the facility has not been able to operate in the black on testing income.

One possibility would be for one of the auto manufacturers participating in NASCAR’s top three series (GM, Ford, Dodge, or Toyota) to purchase the facility and provide to their teams for testing and to utilize it for production vehicle development. Unfortunately, the facility is not within close proximity to any of the auto manufacturer’s factories.

If the 1.017-mile track was to be revived for racing, NASCAR has already made it clear they have no interest in holding Nextel Cup, Busch Series, or Craftsman Truck Series events at the facility as they are focused on spreading their schedule dates across the U.S. and Rockingham is too close to other southern venues. So, another racing sanctioning body or a couple sanctioning bodies, would need to add the track to their schedules. ARCA has realigned their schedule a few times and it would be questionable if they would consider adding the track to the schedule of their divisions. A rumor has been abounded that the Indy Racing League was considering adding the venue.

The track originally had a road course built in the infield and was utilized by the SCCA. When Penske reconfigured the track in 1997, the road course racing came to an end. Perhaps reconfiguring the infield road course could increase the tracks viability, but the expense level to do so would have to be carefully considered.

Other usages including RV jamborees, swap meets, concert venues, and monster truck events have been suggested which could make good possible add-on events once a primary mission for the facility could be determined but could not sustain the track’s operation on their own.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.