A Quick Story About Rockingham
A Quick Story About Rockingham
It's sort of about the track. It's mostly about what to do when someone tells you something they shouldn't have.
Folks, I have been on the back-from-the-dead speedway beat for a long time now. Years before I started poking around at North Wilkesboro, I went out to Rockingham which is, once again, getting NASCAR-sanctioned racing back! In 2025! Back in 2011 though, Our State magazine sent me to town as a freelancer to write an article for its Tar Heel Towns series. That series always presented a challenge, because some of the stories tended to sound the same. The reason: A lot of towns were dealing with the same issues. Long ago, the mills were humming along. Then they closed. The town hit hard times. It sought rebirth. Somehow. That was the story of a lot of towns in across Eastern North Carolina. Including Rockingham.
Except: Rockingham had a NASCAR racetrack.
The North Carolina Speedway opened in 1965. A peach farmer was its first president. Richard Petty won there 11 times. It’s where NASCAR reconvened a week after Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001. But it was also cold there for a February race, and it was out of the way. Bruton Smith bought the track in 2004 just to close it down and move the race date to Texas. It sat dormant until 2007, when a racer named Andy Hillenburg bought the track at auction for $4 million.
That was what I knew when I showed up in town in August 2011. I’d taken a day off from my day job as a news producer for a TV station in Charlotte, and I bopped around Rockingham on a Tuesday, talking to historians, business owners, and town leaders to see what was going on. One thing I learned was that the renamed Rockingham Speedway was pretty far away, some 10 miles from downtown.
At some point, I ended up in a room two city leaders. I introduced myself as a writer on assignment for Our State, but I also said I worked for a TV station. We had been talking for a little bit when suddenly, a third official rolled in. He was chatty and engaging, and happy to answer my questions. At some point I asked him a question about the town’s identity. When you say Rockingham, people think NASCAR, I said. But NASCAR has been gone for years. What does that mean for your identity today?
“When’s your magazine story come out?” the official asked. About five months from now, I said.
He shot mischievous glances toward his two colleagues, then looked back at me with a grin on his face. I’ve got some news for you, he said. NASCAR was coming back. The Truck Series was definitely going to be holding a race at Rockingham next year. Maybe the Xfinity series too. All of the fine print was being worked out, but an announcement was about two weeks away. All of this was obviously huge news for Rockingham. “It’s the first time that NASCAR has come back to a track that it left,” he said.
Then he got serious. Here’s the thing, he said. I’m only telling you this because by the time your article comes out in January, that news will already be everywhere. Basically, he was giving me a heads up that the story I was working on might be outdated if I didn’t include the NASCAR news. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if you worked for a TV station,” he said.
At that point, another official leaned over and said, deadpan: “He works for a TV station.”
The guy started backpedaling. Well, um, it’s not OFFICIAL official yet. And, um, well, if the news got out NOW it might torpedo the whole deal. I nodded the whole time, biting my lip.
If you’re not in journalism, this next part might sound weird. But I knew I couldn’t just go out and report what the guy had said. Now, some of you are probably thinking: Here is a public official in an on-the-record conversation with a person he knew to be a reporter, and if he didn’t want the news to get out, he shouldn’t have said anything! You should have tweeted it immediately! On the other hand, the guy had no idea that I also worked for a TV station because he came in late, and I had to take him at his word when he said that the deal wasn’t set in stone. But there was a third thing: I couldn’t unhear what I’d heard. I told him all of this. I said that while I appreciated the heads up for my magazine story, I did have a duty to report out what I’d heard for the TV station. Which is what I did. Which is how I ended up being the first to report that NASCAR would return to Rockingham in 2012.
And yes, the Our State story in January 2012 was about racin’. I mean, there was murder case and a children’s museum in the story too, but yeah, racin’!
I went back out to the track to watch Kasey Kahne win the NASCAR Truck Series race that April. I didn’t return for the race in 2013, and not a lot of other folks did either. Rockingham lost the race after that, and it looked like they may not get one back. That is, until this afternoon, when NASCAR announced an Xfinity and Truck Series race are both coming to the speedway in 2025. This time, I didn’t get the scoop. I merely got excited.
Heading down 74 to the beach, I'm always amazed to see the big water tank on the edge of town with a checkered flag emblazoned on its side. Not quite as impressive as the Gaffney peach but still an attention getter.
I was at the race the week after Dale Sr. died. It was like being at a funeral and revival at the same time. It was surreal seeing the empty parking space where his hauler should've been. That was the first race that everyone went quiet for a lap of silence on lap 3. When Jr. got put into the wall in turn 3 at the same angle as his dad at Daytona, the entire place fell silent and then cheered relief when he got out unhurt. Glad to see NASCAR return and hope more newbies make the trek out there.