WILKES COUNTY, N.C. — Before the water and Sun Drop and champagne shower rained down in Victory Lane at a once-forgotten racetrack — and really before every little thing that made Wednesday night as magical as it was — Dale Earnhardt Jr. stood outside his car and soaked in the atmosphere at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
“When I was standing here before the race started, getting ready to get in the car, I almost wanted to cry,” Earnhardt Jr. said, his words captured in a widely circulated video taken by a reporter after the race Wednesday night. “It was so emotional. Every seat was filled. I still can’t believe this happened.”
Stars rarely align like this — in racing, in sports or in life.
First, Dale Earnhardt Jr., a NASCAR Hall of Fame driver in his own right and son of a legend, was here, driving a car in a late-model race in rural North Carolina.
Then, after telling reporters before the Window World 125 CARS Tour event his goal was to “have fun” and “run every lap,” Earnhardt made a bold move into the top 10 with 20 laps to go, and into the top 3 with four laps to go — the position in which he ultimately finished while his company’s 18-year-old driver, Carson Kvapil, took home first.
And then, of course, there’s the venue itself. Wednesday’s race was expected to be one of the biggest late stock car model races in the region. Drivers acknowledged it. One called it “one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of.”
Why? Because of the track. North Wilkesboro Speedway once stood near the center of NASCAR and Southern culture before being largely abandoned after its last Cup Series race in 1996 and quickly falling into disrepair.
“This place was forgotten about,” Earnhardt continued. “Everyone on the planet was ready to argue with you: ‘They ain’t bringing that back. It ain’t never coming back.’ There were a lot of people who believed in it. But not enough. But enough switches got flipped. And enough fortunate things happened that here we are.”
He added: “You could feel it, the energy, it was so amazing. It felt exactly like being here in 1990. You know what I mean?”
‘I’m glad it’s back’
When the two-time Daytona 500 winner delivered his impassioned post-race thoughts — punctuating his comments with “you know what I mean?” — it’s fair to say that a lot of people knew what he meant.
Ricky and Cathy Roten certainly did.
The Rotens, who’ve lived in or around Wilkes County all their lives, were among the first people Dale Jr. met Tuesday when he hosted a meet-and-greet with the fans in the infield at North Wilkesboro Speedway. They wore matching gray T-shirts made specifically for the event, and carried a freshly signed die-cast replica of the Sun Drop No. 3 car, modeled after the one Earnhardt would drive on Wednesday.
During Tuesday’s event, separated for a moment from the pack of revelers, the Rotens looked around the racetrack in comfortable silence, in pleasant disbelief that it was all happening again. They were looking into the grandstands, searching not for people, but for lost memories and emotions.
“First time I came was actually with my mom and dad, as probably a 9- or 10-year-old,” Ricky told The Observer on Tuesday. He then fixed his Chevrolet hat and let his sunglasses conceal the emotion welling in his eyes: “I hated to see the race leave in ‘96,” his voice cracked. “Glad to see it’s back. When they left, it really hurt the area. A lot of people have been involved in getting it back, so I’m glad to see it back.”
Said Cathy: “They’re all just fond memories. This is a big part of my life. I’m glad it’s back.”
In some ways, life in Wilkes County, which North Carolina ranks among the most economically-distressed counties in the state, has been stuck in time since the races left all that time ago.
Ricky said he used to work for Holly Farms Chicken Restaurant, and that the restaurant used to provide all the meals to the drivers and the pit crews on race weekends. Life in Wilkes County, in so many words, always intersected somehow around the racetrack, he said.
“Back in the day, that’s what everybody did here in the county,” he said. “That’s where everybody went. That was your entertainment for the year. People saved up their money for the two weekends a year here to come to the races, so I guess that’s why it’s special to see it again.
“And to see somebody like Dale here to help bring it back. I know it ain’t all him, but he played a big part, a big role in it. Just happy to be here today and to see everything going on.”
Meeting Dale Jr.
Dale Jr. didn’t just advocate for racing’s return to North Wilkesboro. He became part of the end product, choosing to race in the event himself, which helped attract fans from around the country.
Roger Gregory of Richmond, Va., celebrated his 21st birthday Tuesday afternoon by meeting his favorite driver. Gregory drove more than four hours Monday, with his mother, Rechele, to make it happen.
“I’ve been trying to follow him since retirement,” Gregory told The Observer. “I’ve been to every race he’s run in Xfinity. I wanted to keep the streak going, and I’d never been to North Wilkesboro, never thought I would in my lifetime. And here I am getting ready to watch a race.”
Gregory said of meeting Earnhardt: “It’s something I’ll never forget, definitely. They tell you to never meet your heroes, but I’m glad I met mine.”
Gregory wasn’t alone.
Kay Ritz-Haines drove eight hours on Monday night from Seven Valleys, Penn., to see Dale Jr. Through connections in the racing world — her son raced professionally — she coordinated to arrive at the racetrack with Charlie Johnson, of Unicoi, Tenn., and Jared Lyons, of Johnson City, Tenn.
“I’m so thankful to get this opportunity to do this,” said Ritz-Haines. “And I’m so thankful that he is such a good spokesperson for the sport because we need it right now, to bring the fan base back. I just think he’s a great person overall.”
Said Johnson: “People love short-track racing, and they love coming to places where it all started. And this is where it started.”
For Lyons, seeing Earnhardt race and being present for the revival of North Wilkesboro was equally special. Lyons said that every once in a while, his grandfather and him would make trips from Tennessee to different racetracks in the Carolinas, and that they’d “never miss an opportunity to swing by” this racetrack.
“I can remember as a little boy, my grandfather would pull up to the front gate and just tell me about this place and about what it used to be, and about how a part of him and my father died the day this place closed,” Lyons said. “I know one day this place will be torn up and re-paved and re-painted. For this day and this day only, the track is the way it was in ‘96, the banners stand the way it was in ‘96. It’s like a time capsule of a generation that NASCAR has since passed by — but I believe and feel that it’s coming back around through the fan base.”
Lyons added: “You can really feel that the residents care about this place. … For a late-model event on a Tuesday afternoon and then the race on a Wednesday night, you’re going to have a sellout crowd because of what this track represents, more so than who’s racing in it.”
‘We owe a lot to North Wilkesboro’
Earnhardt has taken on the role of NASCAR historian and preserver in recent months.
He brought a documentary crew to North Wilkesboro as he and volunteers from the community pulled weeds from the track’s cracks to get it ready to be scanned so the track could be put on the iRacing platform. The project got the attention of Speedway Motorsports President and CEO Marcus Smith, and ultimately led to NWS hosting grassroots racing events like the one on Wednesday night so Speedway Motorsports could “learn more about what needs to be done for a grand re-opening in the future.”
But that’s not the only revitalization project about which Earnhardt has been outspoken. Among the others: He’s publicly said that he would race on the short track of the vaunted Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway if NASCAR returns there, according to Matt Weaver of AutoWeek.com.
Generally, he’s an advocate for racing in all of its tenses — its past, present and future.
“I just know that there’s a lot of fun to be had at places like this,” Earnhardt said. “I remember coming here as a kid and just loving it. It could be the same for a kid today. … That’s part of it. And I feel the same way about the fairgrounds. It’s been around a long time. It deserves to be around our industry and deserves to be on our schedules.
“We owe a lot to North Wilkesboro, and we owe a lot to all these little tracks that were a part of this series, were a part of NASCAR history.”
On Wednesday, a sold-out North Wilkesboro overflowed with hope and joy and screams for the first time in decades, and people from up and down the East Coast descended on Wilkes County to see it for themselves.
Dale Jr. stood at the center of it all.
“I hope everyone goes, ‘Man, I’m glad I was here for that,’ ” he said.
