NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. – In a little more than a year North Wilkesboro Speedway has transitioned from a ghost track on the brink of extinction, with dilapidated buildings and deteriorating infrastructure, to a 21st-century facility with an old-school feel.

The revival began several years before when Dale Earnhardt Jr. convinced the online racing simulation iRacing to scan the track for its service. Earnhardt and a bunch of his friends, with some help and the blessing of track ownership, Speedway Motorsports, spent days cleaning up the track surface for the scan.

The virtual North Wilkesboro Speedway debuted on iRacing with perfect timing to be used as a racing forum by NASCAR as the world entered the 2020 pandemic shutdown. NASCAR and Fox Sports used North Wilkesboro Speedway as one of several online race events that replaced the canceled in-person race dates. The track quickly became and continues to be one of the most popular racing venues on the iRacing platform.

At the same time, the motorsports fanbase has begun demanding a shift away from the larger mile-and-a-half speedways that popped up across the racing landscape as NASCAR boomed in the late 90s and early 2000s. Speedway Motorsport had already been working behind the scenes to bring NASCAR racing back to another historic half-mile, the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. The fairgrounds has hosted weekly and regional racing series since 1958 but hasn’t hosted a NASCAR Cup Series race since 1984. The process is still ongoing, with local officials in Nashville inching closer to approving Speedway Motorsports’ plan to renovate that track for NASCAR racing. That plan will include government funding for Speedway Motorsports to refurbish the track and its amenities.

Obviously, Wilkes County isn’t Nashville, but as time goes on, that’s a good thing for North Wilkesboro Speedway. The racing sentiments of the 2 areas couldn’t be farther apart and there are people in Nashville actively pushing against NASCAR’s return to the fairgrounds. In North Wilkesboro, there’s been an active, ongoing, and persuasive push to “Save the Speedway”.

In April 2022, the first huge announcement about North Wilkesboro Speedway came in a press conference at Bristol Motor Speedway. Racing was coming back to North Wilkesboro in the late summer of 2022. It was dubbed, “Racetrack Revival” and featured a month of racing by many classes of racers you’d find at local tracks across the nation.

The first big event was a modified race that fielded drivers like NASCAR Hall of Famer, Bobby Labonte, and NASCAR drivers Ryan Newman and Ryan Preece. That event was a huge success with a large crowd. But the race that sent NWS over the top was the late model race that wrapped up the month of racing. With a stacked field of late model stars and one superstar, Dale Earnhardt Jr, the grandstands at North Wilkesboro Speedway were overflowing with people. There was electricity in the air and it was fantastic.

The Wilkes County manager later said that the events of August 2022 generated roughly $500,000 in new tax revenue for the county.

In September 2022 it was announced that NASCAR would host the 2023 All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The county was receiving $18 million in tax funds earmarked to use at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Speedway Motorsports was all in, and in the months since it nearly finished turning North Wilkesboro Speedway into a modern facility with an old-school vibe.

Prior to 2020 the old mantra, location, location, location, would have seemed to fall squarely in favor of Nashville to host NASCAR at a popular old short track. Now, North Wilkesboro, a location with charm, history, and nostalgia, trumps Nashville for folks who love auto racing.

As North Wilkesboro Speedway finalizes preparations to host its first NASCAR weekend since 1996, here are 10 reasons why North Wilkesboro Speedway is The Comeback Track:

• Location: Who’s going to come to these races? Speedway Motorsports says the All-Star Race weekend is nearly sold out. A quick look at the ticket sales map on Ticketmaster shows a few more than 300 seats available as of this writing 60 days ahead of the event. It hasn’t released fan demographics for the event yet but did say that ticket sales are very regional compared to the Coke 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway which brings in fans from all 50 states and around the world. But the sheer number of race fans in the region is plenty to fill the 30,000 seats at the Speedway. 
• Money:  The Motorsports Relief Fund is the bump needed to really get the ball rolling on the revival of North Wilkesboro Speedway. Wilkes County Received $18 million to use for the renovation of the speedway and while Speedway Motorsports hasn’t given an exact amount, it says it has spent a significant amount of money on the project. New tax revenue generated from events at the speedway are expected to be significant.

• Fan Interest: Fan interest in North Wilkesboro Speedway is at an all-time high across social media. While previous attempts at reviving the track fell flat, as the public emerged from the shutdowns of the 2020 pandemic, people were looking for new ways to be entertained and short-track racing was hitting trending upwards. It was the perfect storm for North Wilkesboro and the perfect time to Save the Speedway.
• Racing Surface: The plan last year as the Racetrack Revival started was to repave the track. That changed. The five-eighths-mile track surface was thought to need major repair or complete repaving. After the month of racing on the old pavement in August, the original plan was to run a month of dirt racing before the repave. The plan was scrapped after Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other racers said the pavement from 1981, although not perfect, was perfectly suitable for providing a great racing show. 
• Track Facilities: Many thought it would be easier to bulldoze all the buildings and start from scratch. Speedway Motorsports is known for innovative thinking and felt good about wanting to preserve as much of the existing facility as possible. So, the big question was, how much will it cost? As a comparison, the one-mile Phoenix Raceway spent $178 million to pave the track and update all its seating, pits and fan amenities. Speedway Motorsports is planning to spend $60 million to bring the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway into the 21st century, a figure that could be in the ballpark to rehabilitate North Wilkesboro to current NASCAR standards. The $18 million from the Motorsports Relief Fund provided a major stepping stone toward making the spending feasible in relation to the potential return. Ultimately the construction at North Wilkesboro includes refurbishing and rebuilding some front stretch suites, building a completely new set of suites in turn 4, a new concrete barrier wall with the SAFER Barrier on it, a new safety catch fence, a new LED lighting system by Musco, a freshly graded and paved infield, a newly paved pit road, fiber communications lines throughout the facility, updated plumbing sewer and drainage throughout, a set of temporary (for now) grandstands down the backstretch and many more updates on the property to make it fan friendly come All-Star weekend. All of that while letting the old-school feel of the Speedway still shine. The Winston Cup logo on the big entrance wall will remain, untouched. The old victory lane in the infield will be largely untouched yet updated.
• Infrastructure: Water, sewer and communications infrastructure at the track have all been updated to 21st-century standards. But the area surrounding hasn’t changed much otherwise and access to the speedway is still from old 2-lane country roads. Speedway Motorsports is working closely with The State Highway Patrol and other local officials to make ingress and egress on the race as smooth as possible. And while the exact traffic plan hasn’t been released yet, a lot of access on race day will involve fans parking at remote parking lots and using shuttle buses to bring people to the track.
• Ownership Interest: When the owners of North Wilkesboro Speedway took its race dates to Texas and New Hampshire in the late 90s the economic landscape of NASCAR Racing was to pack as many people as they could into a 1.5-mile or larger speedway. But with crowd sizes down at most of the large tracks and race fans clamoring for short-track racing, it’s a win-win for Speedway Motorsports to take full advantage of the Motorsports Relief Funds and then be able to sell 30,000 tickets for a race weekend. With average ticket prices around $300 for the full weekend of racing, Speedway Motorsports could gross close to $10 million just on ticket sales to the upcoming NASCAR weekend.
• Government Support: Government officials in Wilkes County are fully behind the effort to get North Wilkesboro Speedway up and running for its NASCAR weekend in May. It does help that they were handed $18 million dollars to do it with, but they also understand the tax revenue implications of what a NASCAR weekend will bring.
• Amenities: The locals of Wilkes County feel right at home, and when the race weeks at the Speedway brings in the 30,000 or so fans needed to make it an economic reality, Wilkes County has promised to step up and make these fans feel at home too. The county already hosts the annual bluegrass festival, MerleFest, held not too far from the Speedway, which brings in 75,000 people for a big weekend of music and fun. North Wilkesboro is also just a bit more than an hour from Winston-Salem or Charlotte, both with plenty to do and see.