NASCAR’s ‘Field of Dreams’ turns into reality this weekend

Above: Three NASCAR Cup cars testing at North Wilkesboro this past March, with construction still being done to the historic speedway. NASCAR will return to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the NASCAR All Star Race this weekend for the first time in 27 years.

Submitted Photo

When the MLB started the “Field of Dreams’ game back in 2021, it was something unique to sports. In the middle of nowhere up in Iowa, two Major League teams battled it out for the love of the game. Now what if I told you that NASCAR will be conducting their own version of that very thing?

North Wilkesboro Speedway, which is located in Wilkes County, N.C. up in the Appalachian Mountains, was a staple of NASCAR history back in the day. From 1949 to 1996, it hosted at least two events on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar, until replaced by Texas Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway to expand NASCAR’s market.

Its last race, the 1996 Tyson Holly Farms 400 on Sunday September 29., was won by NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon - his only win at the historic venue. The somber day left longtime fans wondering if NASCAR would ever return to Wilkes County, and if there would ever be racing at North Wilkesboro ever again.

After several failed attempts to reopen the historic speedway, it was none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his friends at iRacing that got the ball moving. Jr and iRacing cleaned up North Wilkesboro back in December of 2019 to scan the track for the iRacing servers, to have the sacred track online incase it would ever go away. After the clean up, they realized it isn’t too late to save the abandoned track.

In April of 2022, it was announced that Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI), the owners of North Wilkesboro Speedway, would repair the track in preparations of local racing for the summer of 2022, and plans to rip the old asphalt out to host dirt racing, with plans of repaving in the spring of 2023.

That plan went well until September of ‘22, when it was announced the dirt races were canceled. While some were worried that the track would close again, that was farther from the truth. In late September of ‘22, SMI and NASCAR announced that North Wilkesboro would host the 2023 NASCAR All Star race in May of 2023, with the original surface intact.

Now that race is just a few days away, and the All Star event has had more buzz around it than ever before. The days of NASCAR replacing historic tracks for unpopular speedways in major cities are now officially over, and days of stock car racing in Wilkes County are back and better than ever.

So why should you, the casual reader of the Katchin’ Up with Kaleb column, care about a race nowhere near Vernon County? Because this major feat has never been done before. Never in the history of sports has a league/organization abandoned a region of passionate fans/historic venue, to come back and host once again.

A track, once left to rot and be covered by earth, is back in action this weekend. A track once considered “a fantasy to come back” has now made its way into reality once again. A new generation of cars will race on a track with a historic past, in a season where NASCAR will race in the big city streets of Chicago as well as the small hick towns of North Carolina. Many race fans' dreams came true. Racing at North Wilkesboro is back.

You can catch the action at North Wilkesboro Speedway this Sunday evening at 7 p.m. Central on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.