Bob Pockrass
Fox Motorsports Insider
Rockingham, NC – Jeff Burton walked through Rockingham Speedway on Saturday. This was Rockingham Speedway where he celebrated winning the October 1999 race in the Oval of a mile a couple of hours east of Charlotte.
Now he has retired, but he has dual roles as a television analyst and as the leader of a group of drivers who helps work with Nascar in ideas to improve sport. Then Burton knows the philosophy that moved Nascar from some of the smallest places in the southeast and took her to Dut’s track races in the markets throughout the country.
“I don’t think trying to grow the sport was wrong,” Burton said. “If you look at mine 30 years ago, I would say that I must be in many places as possible, but not run as much races … I do not think that the way to follow is in the past and try to do everything.
“But return and connect with our unconditional fans who were with us forever? That’s not bad. You have to find a way to do both.”
Nascar returned to the track on Fridays and Saturdays from the Easter weekend for national series events for the first time in 12 years. The 2012 and 2013 years saw the first rebirth of the track, with truck series races on a Sunday after a Saturday night’s race in Texas.
The assistance gives in the second year and since then, Rockingham has been inactive to Nascar races.
A Cup race lasted in 2004, when it was closed by Speedway Motorsports after he obtained the track as part of the Ferko demand agreement, where an SMI shareholder sued Nascar to obtain a second race in Texas.
Rockingham’s only removal date was for Texas, and the track has passed through some different owners in recent decades. His current property group is headed by Dan Lovenheim. Track Enterprises, a track promotion company that has Nashville Fairrogrounds Speedway Racing and the old truck races at the Milwaukee mile between its events, got the agreement to prepare the track and promote a weekend of trucks and Xfinity Racing in 2025.
Fans responded.
The assistance figures were not announced, but approximately 16,000 ATTREED on Friday and then an exhausted crowd of approximately 25,000 attended the race on Saturday.
The buzz was real. And Kasey Kahne was a driver who noticed.
Kahne finished second in the last race of the Cup in 2004, won the 2012 truck race on the track and made his first Nascar start since 2018 the weekend. Kahne, who runs Sprint cars regularly throughout the country, was in an early accident and ended 15th upon return.
“Many things was happening that weekend and I remember conducting an explosion and it was a really great race to be part of,” Kahne told Compile on Saturday to 2012.
“I feel that there were many more people here today and there was much more emotion this weekend than what I remember then.”
A repaviment of the song certainly impacted the races. The drivers did not have to get up much about the accelerator, especially in trucks. The truck race did not have so much round trip as this track has traditionally seen. But Xfinity’s career became a chaotic event, with several late precautions. The drivers competed for their position, all while facing the possibility (and for some, reality) or run out of fuel.
The infrastructure was certainly tested in the handle.
Part of that was to have an installation that had a crowd as large as Saturday in 21 years. The main marker was not operational (but the track brought large video screens) and fans had long -awaited stories to enter the parking lots.
But this felt another victory for Nascar. It was similar to the rejuvenation of the All-Star race in North Wilkesboro Speedway, similar to carrying the pre-season clash to Bowman Gray Stadium. Both historical short clues are found in North Carolina.
And currently, Nascar celebrates 11 or 38 Cup events in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia.
Then, the question raises: If Nascar returns the Cup to Rockingham, will Nascar oversature the market?
“When we thought it was too much concentration in one place, what did that do us?” Burton said. “I am not saying that we need to be all those pavilions twice. I am not saying that.
“But look where all your highest TV ratings are locally [in North Carolina]. To build, we have to take care of our current fans. This is how we get new fans. “
That also raises another question: Rockingham needs to have cup races?
A Cup race can be a payment day of approximately $ 10 to $ 15 million for a racing track, and that is only the television money that comes with it. That compares with $ 1 to $ 2 million for an Xfinity race. The costs to organize a Cup race, with sanction rates and other necessary safety and infrastructure requirements, will also find millions.
It would probably require lights in the installation. And more stands. And then the prices of the hyghet to cover the costs in an area where many of the locals have limited discretionary income.
But if Nascar wants to reinforce his development series, they could have found the perfect place in Rockingham.
“They are here for us,” said the winner of the Tyler Ankrum truck series. “It’s really great … I hope this remains at the schedule.”
Ankrum and the driver of Xfinity Jesse love both of California and celebrated in Victory Lane (love was then disqualified by having a rear suspension that complied with Nascar’s rules). Love was born in 2005, so it obviously does not remember Rockingham as a cup track. Ankrum was born in 2001, so he had no great stories to visit him or see him as a child.
“It was definitely really great,” said Love. “The only thing to compare it on an oval track was Bristol’s career … For an atmosphere of a racecourse, this was one of the best short road events that I have taken.
“I am lucky to win in a place with a lot of history and many eyeballs over us.”
Love could not always say that I had many ball balls looking at him. And the trucks and teams of Xfinity are rarely the stars of the show. The only other track where Xfinity will run this year this year will be Portland International Raceway.
Trucks have a more scheduled pair for this year, in Lime Rock (Conn.) Park and Indianapolis Raceway Park.
None are clues where the cup once ran. Rockingham is alone in that regard.
Then, when evaluating the weekend races, there will be a clamor for an event of the Great Cup. But Nascar had a big thing that was going last weekend. And to take advantage of that, Nascar needs to concentrate on making the current weekend excellent before biting, perhaps more than you can chew.
Bob Pockrass covers Nascar and Indycar for Fox Sports. Decades have passed engine sports, including more than 30 Daytona 500s, with periods in ESPN, Sporting News, Nascar Scene Magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow it on Twitter @Bobpock.
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