North Wilkesboro, NC: Death of a Speedway
North Wilkesboro Speedway held its first race in 1947, and a couple years later was one of the few tracks that became part of a newly born racing circuit known as NASCAR. Names like Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and Cale Yarborough became legendary from coast-to-coast thanks to the famed 5/8 mile track.
Today it sits in ruins as the forces of Mother Nature slowly digests the press boxes, grand stands, and asphalt back into the Earth.
The state of stock car racing in the United States today is so overblown with big money sponsors, crass-commercialism, and pretty boy drivers, that the heart and soul of car racing has long since died as pop culture took a stranglehold of America's favorite sport. NASCAR no longer wants North Wilkesboro because of its problematic access roads, and its current owners raped the track for its race dates and transferred them to other new mega-tracks they built elsewhere.
Losing those race dates meant the historic track that built NASCAR would wither away and die.
The last race was held in 1996, with Jeff Gordon taking the checkered flag.
Since then, an estimated $34 million dollars in revenues vanished from Wilkes County, putting many local businesses into the grave, and moving the town of North Wilkesboro on life support as its residents moved out to find other jobs.
View Larger Map
Just a stone's throw from the old speedway lived Sash's old high school friend Jack, who had ridden down to Asheville to meet us, and then rode with us to here, where we would stay at his house for a few days. Jack had once raced on North Wilkesboro himself, and took us to the track to see it.
The gates were locked, and barricades were put up. We couldn't get inside to view the track which by now has weeds growing up through the pavement.
"The feel of thunder rumbling up through the grandstands was absolutely phenomenal!" Jack said as he pointed his finger towards the old track. "I can still hear the roar of the crowd and the sound of the engines."
Today, all you can hear is a faint woosh of cars rushing down US-421 nearby, and the occasional song bird chirping in the meadow. It's almost ghostly to think that we were standing where thousands of fans were pushing their way in mayhem to get a glimpse of their favorite race car drivers.
The beating heart of a thriving town in rural North Carolina stopped beating many years ago, leaving its residents scrambling to figure out what to do, while NASCAR fans across the country turned their attention to shiny new tracks in Texas and California.
 |
| Jack tells Sash of the stories at North Wilkesboro |
 |
| It used to be you could still walk into the speedway, but now everything is locked. |
 |
| A storm damaged some of the buildings at North Wilkesboro |
 |
| These days, the only thunder at North Wilkesboro comes from storm clouds. |
 |
| The entrance to North Wilkesboro Speedway was painted over to limit the number of lookie-loos from coming in. |
 |
| The wrecked hull of Jimmy Spencer's car sits here under an old gas station. |
 |
| Richard Petty leads the pack in a race at North Wilkesboro, 1990. Photo by Jack Wright |
Pretty amazing how cities and places just die out.
ReplyDeleteActually barn portraid as weather damaged was burned down accidentally a hot tractor exhaust set some oily rags on fire.
ReplyDeleteI worked out of Charlotte in the early 90's and my job took me to Wilksboro. I was not a fan of NASCAR then nor am I now, but I had the privilege of working on the track surface (I was working for an engineering company). It was interesting to walk the track and see the drivers do various test laps. Not being a fan of racing I never thought to keep any of the records of the work done.
ReplyDelete