NASCAR's Return to North Wilkesboro Brings Back Flood of Memories

• NASCAR announced on Thursday that it was bringing Cup Series racing back to North Wilkesboro Speedway in the form of the All-Star Race 2023.

• The last Cup race there was in 1996.

• NASCAR Cup racing at North Wilkesboro Speedway dates back to NASCAR's inaugural season in 1949.

I can remember with uncommon clarity leaving North Wilkesboro Speedway that Sunday night on what we all were certain would be the old track’s last day. '

Sept. 29, 1996. Hours earlier, Jeff Gordon had outrun Dale Earnhardt by almost two seconds to win the Tyson Holly Farms 400, which had been advertised all year as the final NASCAR Cup race in the speedway’s history.

Gordon won races in those days—and a lot of them. It seemed appropriate—and, at the same time, oddly inappropriate—that Gordon won that Sunday at North Wilkesboro. He won 10 races that season, after all, and the NWS win was his third in a row.

But North Wilkesboro, steeped in the grime and glory of NASCAR’s pioneer days, was not of the Jeff Gordon era. North Wilkesboro was painted in the colors of the Flock brothers and Buck Baker and Curtis Turner and track operator Enoch Staley, men who grew up in the days when the only thing modern about speedways might be a string of bright new light bulbs hanging across the track at start/finish.

And Junior Johnson. He personified North Wilkesboro Speedway more than any other individual.

Growing up on the edge of the nearby Brushy Mountains and a moonshine hauler even though he was so young he barely could see over the steering wheel, Johnson was both the guy owning the next farm down the road and a legend in his own time. He was a rough-hewn country boy who drove cars fast—legally and illegally—and showed no fear and backed away from no man.

He was the perfect hero for the locals, and they came to see him as the de facto king of their speedway. He came from the same dirt and, unlike most of them, raced on it.

They named a grandstand after him at the speedway, and to think that they might close Junior’s place was unthinkable in those days, for NASCAR’s two annual visits with its Cup circus had provided North Wilkesboro’s lifeblood since 1949. The drivers, the cars, the fans – they all came to town in the spring and fall, and it was as if the speedway grounds were hosting a carnival that would never end. The local mom-and-pop motels and restaurants – we’re talking about you here, Williams Motel and Captain’s Table – saw the cash flow in as manna from heaven, even if it was the hellions of the fast track who brought it.

But it was all too real that fall Sunday. Gordon finished all the post-race hoopla, and the last fans wandered down the hill to their cars. Empty beer cans and food wrappers dotted the parking lots.