A Raleigh-based group purchased Rockingham Speedway, affectionately known as “The Rock.” Gerry Broome File Photo Keynote USA NORTH WILKESBORO
North Wilkesboro Speedway hosted its second NASCAR All-Star Race in as many years Sunday night, putting its 27 years of neglect behind it and cementing its place on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule for years to come.
North Wilkesboro’s Year 2 success also did something else.
He offered a new dose of hope to another North Carolina racetrack in need of revival:
Rockingham Circuit.
Rockingham, or “The Rock,” as it was known during the decades it was a staple on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, is in the midst of its own attempt to revitalize itself after NASCAR folded in the fall of 2004. The The same kind of stories you used to hear about North Wilkesboro are the same ones you heard about Rockingham: Not long ago, weeds were sprouting through the cracks in Rockingham’s pavement. The corrugated metal made the stands dangerous. A place that used to be a rite of passage into sports had become an eyesore; A cultural and economic ray of Richmond County had turned to dust.
But the racetrack’s revitalization efforts have made real progress in recent years. And that, plus the sport’s emphasis on finding something new in the old, has made the owner of Rockingham Speedway hopeful.
“That seems to be proven and proven over and over again: that this is the heart of the beginning of racing,” said Dan Lovenheim, who acquired the track in 2018. “It started with the moonshiners trying to get away from the police right here. . And bringing it back home, in my opinion, has demonstrated real viability.
“NASCAR sees that too. “That gives me hope.”
Dan Lovenheim, owner of Rockingham Speedway, stands on the concourse above the grandstands in May 2023. He hopes a NASCAR Cup Series race will soon return to Richmond County, North Carolina. Alex Zietlow
Rockingham’s renovation and subsequent resurrection are underway. The venue, which is not only home to the famous 1,017-mile oval (“Big Rock”) but also a separate short track and two indoor circuits, will host its first racing event later this summer. It will be called the Crown 9 Series, Rockingham’s five-part grassroots racing series that begins in July and ends in November.
The racetrack also hopes to have close to, if not all, of the weeks of 2025 booked by the end of the year.
When will he be “NASCAR ready,” you ask?
“Right now, as it stands, it will be ready for NASCAR at the end of the year,” Lovenheim told The Charlotte Observer. “We could have had it ready for NASCAR right now if we had to, but we didn’t have to. So we focused our energy on (all parts of the place, not just the main oval). And I want to make this clear, and this is really important: everyone is focused on that one thing. ‘Hey, will he be ready for NASCAR?’ Yes, it will be. Big Rock will be NASCAR-ready in late 2024, which means you’ll be able to run your Truck race; “You could run a Cup race there if you wanted to.”
But, Lovenheim said, “we’re trying to bring the whole place back to life.” And that, therefore, requires time and energy to lift the whole place up and turn it into a race track that can and will be economically sustainable, whether NASCAR comes immediately or not.
“I think 2025 will be a surprise to a lot of people,” Lovenheim said. “We are resurrecting this track like a phoenix. “We are truly bringing him back to life.”
This Feb. 22, 2004, file photo shows a sparse crowd during the Subway 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup race at the North Carolina Speedway near Rockingham, North Carolina. NASCAR made its official return to Rockingham on Sunday, April 15, 2012, when the Trucks Series races. the beloved mile-long flat oval. It will be the first NASCAR-sanctioned event since 2004, when a long-term realignment plan led NASCAR to abandon its base tracks in favor of building larger markets such as California, Chicago and Kansas City. ERIK PEREL Keynote USA
The latest on Rockingham renovation and construction.
Reactivating a facility like this does not involve a substantial cost. The money has arrived in two different ways.
The first is from the government. In November 2021, the North Carolina state budget allocated about $50 million to renovate three racetracks (Charlotte, North Wilkesboro and Rockingham), which became available through North Carolina’s cut from a stimulus package post-pandemic federal that was approved in February 2021. It was announced that Rockingham would receive about $9 million of that sum.
The racetrack, according to Lovenheim, received approximately $3 million of that sum initially. That money was used to repave the venue’s 1.017-mile main oval in December 2022, a move that generated some buzz in the local media and put Rockingham back on the racing radar. The rest of the money arrived this year and has gone toward rebuilding Little Rock, renovating the media center, garages and other buildings at Big Rock’s infield, and installing professional stadium lights at the Big Rock infield. infield game, Lovenheim said.
The rest of that money has come from Lovenheim himself. The punk-rock owner, who made a name and a fortune by bringing nightlife to Glenwood South in downtown Raleigh, estimates he has invested “millions” in the revitalization effort because he believes in what The Rock can be: as a race track and as something else too.
As he explained to The Observer in a June 2023 profile: “Don’t get me wrong. This is a race track. It’s called Rockingham Speedway. Its main and fundamental use is a racing track. That said, the way it had been used for many, many years was twice a year, and pretty much suspended in between. “We are trying to make this an economic generator for 52 weeks a year: for us, for the community, for everything.”
NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon (far left) in a group photo at the Buck Baker Driving School at North Carolina Motor Speedway in 1990.
NASCAR drivers like the idea of returning to Rockingham
Drivers in the Cup garage are certainly excited about Rockingham returning to NASCAR. Christopher Bell said going to a place like Rockingham, one with historical significance in North Carolina and races that will also diversify the calendar, is a win-win situation. Alex Bowman said it would be great for Rockingham to “get some attention” and that “honestly, our current car would put on a really good show there.”
Bubba Wallace, who had raced grassroots races at Rockingham early in his racing career, said he “loves” The Rock. He added that he wasn’t sure what renovations were needed before breaking into a smile: “On the other hand, if we can go here (like in North Wilkesboro), we can go there.”
American motorsports leaders certainly don’t reject the idea either. Even if something like this requires patience.
Lovenheim said he and NASCAR leadership are still in regular conversations. Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing development and strategy, told The Observer last year that Rockingham has “hit” the sanctioning body’s “radar,” but also added that “there are a handful of things we think about when “We look at these new tracks.” Among them: market demand, fan interest and the viability of the track from a logistical and competitive perspective.
Those conversations are ongoing.
What else is in progress? Working to resurrect Rockingham Speedway, a vaunted place that not long ago was bloodied and bruised, abandoned and forgotten.
“We took a lead that was literally three years away from never coming back,” Lovenheim said. “And I say that because I know where the water was going under the stands and all the things we fixed. We were three or five years away from the annihilation of the track. North Wilkesboro was probably even closer. And thanks to this grant, we were able to save it and resurrect it.”
He added: “We’re just trying to do our part to live up to her story and bring her back. “We are doing what we can.”
Shane Connuck contributed to this report.
Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the North Carolina Press Associations and South Carolina, as well as by the Keynote USASE. which gave him a Top 10 finish in the Keynote USASE Feature Film category in its 2022 writing contest. He also earned two Top 10 honors in the Keynote USASE Beat Writing and Short Feature categories in 2021. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (SC) from 2019 to 2022. Support my work with a digital subscription
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