NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — These were some of the scenes of resurrection here last Wednesday, 11 days before the first NASCAR race in more than 26 years at the North Wilkesboro Speedway:
A woman walking around with a race car driver’s autograph in black marker on her forehead. And on her baby’s forehead, too, in something straight out of “Talladega Nights.” People, young and old, slowly walking around the five-eighths-of-a-mile track, gawking while they paced along the cracked asphalt, rough with time, small lines of tar covering up where the weeds used to climb through, back when this place was abandoned and left for dead.
No shortage of selfies along the checkered starting line, or with the flag stand in the background. Plenty of folks in faded old T-shirts with images of Earnhardt and Petty, or commemorating some long-ago race in this forgotten place. An older man in cut-off jean shorts, no shirt, a Budweiser tie, with a backwards hat and a long white beard, taking long, deep sips of beer, drinking it in along with everything else about this particular moment, savoring it.
