Dale Jr. at North Wilkesboro All-Star Race announcement
Dale Earnhardt Jr at the press conference announcing that North Wilkesboro will host the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race. (HHP/Harold Hinson)
NASCAR Cup Series

Dale Jr. ‘Never Expected’ North Wilkesboro’s NASCAR Return To Be Reality

September 8, 2022

Eight days ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stood on the frontstretch of North Wilkesboro Speedway in awe.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

It had only been three years since Earnhardt and bunch of friends and volunteers, including track owner Marcus Smith, spent a cold winter’s day clearing debris from the facility that had mostly sat dormant since the last NASCAR Cup Series race was there in 1996.

Their only intent was to make the track scannable by iRacing. Earnhardt’s mission, first purposed to Smith on a plane flight earlier in 2019, was to preserve the track for use by race fans on the racing simulator platform.

“None of us were thinking that we would be going back to North Wilkesboro for a live event,” Smith told SPEED SPORT earlier this year. “It’s a historical venue. But at the time, we were just thinking it’s part of history. It’s not part of the future.”

Well, things escalated.

On Wednesday, Aug. 31, Earnhardt stood next to a No. 3 CARS Tour Late Model, preparing to climb into it to compete in his first race at the historic track since 1993.

North Wilkesboro Revival
Late Models competing during the final event in August’s Racetrack Revival series at North Wilkesboro Speedway. (HHP/Chris Owens)

All around him were grandstands packed with more than 20,000 fans, ready to watch.

“I had a feeling in my gut that I haven’t had since I was a little boy,” Earnhardt told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I had a feeling inside of me of just some youthful innocence and excitement that I’d really not felt in a long time.”

North Wilkesboro Speedway was back

All it took was 26 years, the invention of iRacing, an International pandemic, an act of government (The American Rescue Plan) and a Racetrack Revival program headlined by Earnhardt.

A lot of very specific dominoes had to fall. But what once was thought impossible, or at least improbable, was crystalizing as reality.

The biggest domino fell Thursday. Earnhardt joined Smith, NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh for a major announcement.

The NASCAR Cup Series would once again compete at North Wilkesboro.

On May 21, 2023, 27 years after Jeff Gordon won the last Cup Series points race there, the NASCAR All-Star Race will be held.

“Six months ago, I don’t think that there was one person that thought this was a real possibility for North Wilkesboro,” Earnhardt told SiriusXM. “But when we went to see the modifieds run and we saw Ryan Newman win and we saw 8,000, 10,000 people show up on a Tuesday night for that show. That opened up a lot of eyes.

“That really was confirmation that Wilkesboro still had some life left and still had some purpose.”

A Legendary Track Returns

Among those convinced was Smith, who just a few months ago had been adamant that the All-Star Race would return to Texas Motor Speedway in 2023 despite overwhelming disappointment in this year’s event.

Smith said Thursday that Speedway Motorsports officials had known for few weeks about the plans for North Wilkesboro.

“I was in Wilkesboro at the race and saw about 10,000 fans come out on Tuesday night and saw a lot of smiling faces, saw a lot of race cars and lights,” Smith said. “In talking with NASCAR and talking with Dale Jr. and talking with other drivers, we saw an opportunity.”

For Earnhardt, who finished third in his North Wilkesboro race, everything surrounding this moment in time still hasn’t quite hit him.

“I kind of still feel like I don’t believe we actually raced there (last week) with our late model cars,” Earnhardt said. “But I’m excited for what this might mean for North Wilkesboro the surrounding community all the surrounding counties in western North Carolina. This has got it’s got a lot of potential well beyond the race to serve the community in a positive way.”

As the son of Dale Earnhardt, Dale Jr. has plenty of memories of the short track.

Located only 45 minutes from NASCAR central in Charlotte, it’s one of Earnhardt’s home tracks.

“It’s one of the race tracks that we always went to when I was a little kid, we were limited on what we could go do because of school,” Earnhardt said. “I never missed Charlotte races and I never missed North Wilkesboro races. … That proximity makes it more important and makes it more special to you. It’s the home team that you want to win.”

Earnhardt admits he “never expected” Thursday’s announcement to happen.

“I did not have a vision and can’t really say that, ‘Man, I was I was rooting for all these dominoes fall into place,’ but here we are,” Earnhardt said.

There’s still a long way to go.

Eight months out from the All-Star Race, Speedway Motorsports still has a lot improvements to make to the track’s aged infrastructure for it to be ready to host a Cup Series event.

“We’ve had a chance to get a head start on it,” Smith said. “You’ve got all sorts of things. The infrastructure of plumbing, electrical, roads, parking, the fan related things. Then you have the racing related things: safety improvements, the retaining fence, that sort of thing.”

At the start of the year, Smith had unveiled plans for remodeling the track in the coming years. But those plans had been with the possibility of maybe getting a NASCAR Truck Series race at the track.

Things change when NASCAR’s premier series is in play.

“I think the commitment that will be necessary to put into this race and this race track certainly means a good thing for the long-term future of the facility,” Earnhardt said. “There’s no way that they put this type of effort in for a one and done. This means that I believe we’ll be racing at North Wilkesboro on into the future. And that’s exciting as well because I think the track can absolutely serve the industry in a positive way for years to come.”

What comes after that?

Smith Shares Vision For North Wilkesboro Speedway

Does the potential success of North Wilkesboro’s revival mean the All-Star Race could be used in the future to breath life into other grassroots tracks?

“I think it certainly is worth discussing,” Earnhardt said. “I absolutely think that this is good news for a lot of short tracks around the country, places like Nashville Fairgrounds. This is a good news piece for them. It further supports the argument that those places would draw, fans will be excited about it. … Because every time we talked about this, that was the argument against it, ‘well it won’t be supported,’ or no one will come see it or it won’t have long-term success. But I think that North Wilkesboro will be the great example going forward for these type of racetracks to have a real value to the industry.”

But before any of that can happen, the next All-Star Race has to be successful itself. A NASCAR Cup Series race isn’t a CARS Tour event.

“I think the fans cut us a lot of slack this past Wednesday,” Earnhardt said regarding long lines to get into the race and lack of amenities.

“They may cut us a little bit of slack in May, but we can’t expect that. There’s a lot of work that has to be done. We’re not even halfway. But for this thing to be successful long term, the dominoes need to continue to fall.

“But it’s been a blast watching it all happen.”