Well, I haven’t decided if this one’s good or bad yet.  This is especially close to my heart as I live in Kentucky so, this is my home track in essence.  Man, oh man….  Humpy retired yesterday and this was announced today, coincidence?  I can’t help but to think of North Wilkesboro and Rockingham when SMI purchased both of them.  We all know how well that one worked out for the pair of NC tracks.  North Wilkesboro sits in ruin and Rockingham was saved only last year from the dozers.  In the interest of being fair, I’ll reserve judgement until more info is known.  I’ll post the full press release below for your review. 

jc

Courtesy: Kentucky Speedway Media

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 22, 2008) – Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) has agreed to purchase Kentucky Speedway from Kentucky Speedway, LLC. The agreement was announced today by O. Bruton Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.  The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Kentucky Speedway, which opened in 2000, hosts one NASCAR Nationwide Series event, one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event, one IndyCar Series event and other racing events each year.  The speedway is located in Sparta, Ky., approximately one-half hour south of Cincinnati, Ohio. The speedway is easily accessible via modern highways.

Located on approximately 820 acres, Kentucky Speedway features a 1.5-mile tri-oval speedway, with chair-back grandstand seating for 66,089 spectators, 50 luxury suites with seats for approximately 2,000, 100 private RV spaces, 200 reserved camping spaces and 1,000 unreserved camping spaces. Kentucky Speedway regularly hosts near capacity crowds for its Nationwide Series events.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our company to grow into a new market in a modern speedway facility. We continue to be committed to investing in the motorsports industry,” said Smith.

Smith added that he has offered Jerry Carroll, who was instrumental in the development of Kentucky Speedway, the opportunity to remain involved in its future operations.

Kentucky Speedway will join an outstanding lineup of SMI facilities. The company also owns and operates Atlanta Motor Speedway; Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn.; Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.; Las Vegas Motor Speedway; Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.; New Hampshire Motor Speedway, in Loudon, N.H.; and Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas.

With this acquisition, the company will own race tracks in the West, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Southwest, including four of the nation’s top-10 metropolitan markets.

The breakdown includes: the sixth-largest market (Infineon/San Francisco); the fifth-largest market (Texas/Dallas-Ft. Worth); the seventh-largest market (New Hampshire/Boston); the ninth-largest market (Atlanta); the 24^th-largest market (Cincinnati); the 25^th-largest market (Lowe’s/Charlotte); the 41^st-largest market (Las Vegas); and the 92^nd-largest market (Bristol/Tri-Cities).

After I wrote the article about the Rock, I started reminiscing about the good ole days of NASCAR.  I quickly turned to thinking about other tracks that have gone by the wayside and quickly my thoughts turned to an incredible little track that a lot the newer fans haven’t even heard of, North Wilkesboro Speedway.  Why haven’t they heard of it?  That’s easy, NASCAR quit racing there way back in 1996.  That’s right, back in the 90’s about 12 years ago.  Most fans of NASCAR today are fans that have just come to the sport since the beginning of 2000.  Nothing wrong with that, but, they missed out on some really incredible racing at some really incredible tracks.

North Wilkesboro Speedway is a 5/8 Mile oval that opened in 1947.  Originally a dirt track, it was paved in 1958 and continued hosting NASCAR sanction events for 49 years until 1996.  This track is considered the home track to one of auto racing’s pioneers, Junior Johnson.  Sadly, since the track closed back in 1996, many of the NASCAR greats of today have never raced at North Wilkesboro.

The track was purchased in 1996 by Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre who transferred North Wilkesboro’s two Cup events to Texas and New Hampshire.  Since then, the track has pretty much sat idle and slowly fallen into disrepair.  A glimmer of hope did shine back in 2005 when a group, Save the Speedway, was formed to attempt to bring racing back to North Wilkesboro.  Bruton Smith agreed to sell at a price of 12 million which is more than double what the property is assessed at by the local government for tax purposes.  Unfortunately, the group has not been able to purchase the track so far.  In the fall of 2007, a land developer expressed interest in purchasing the property but so far, that has not happened either.

Now, here’s that I think should happen.  Obviously, the speedway was bought for the purpose of transferring out the two Winston/Nextel/Sprint dates to other tracks.  That has happened and Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre have both made their money back at their respective tracks.  Actually, Bob Bahre sold his interest in NWS to Bruton Smith several years ago.  In the interest of preserving this incredible piece of history, Bruton Smith should donate the speedway to Save the Speedway or some other Non-Profit associated with them.  Bruton would then be able to write off the gift as charity I believe.  I would then love to see Save the Speedway start up some kind of museum dedicated to NASCAR/Stockcar Racing history.  Anything but the bulldozer.

NASCAR made a decision to leave it’s roots in the South and begin moving west.  In order to justify their move, they claimed that declining attendance was helping to drive the move out west.  In actuality, this move appears to have been fueled by the desire to expand into the western markets.  From the reports I have been hearing, they have been having problems filling the seats in some of these new tracks.  I hope NASCAR doesn’t end up regretting letting some of these incredible little tracks go in favor of the western expansion.

Here’s a bit of trivia as I end this article.  In 1996, North Wilkesboro’s last year, the NASCAR Winston Cup Series ran 31 races at 18 different tracks.  Last year’s full season consisted of 36 races at 22 different tracks.  We’ve added 5 races and 4 tracks.  Tell me again, why did we have to lose North Wilkesboro and Rockingham?

As I researched this article, I came across some pictures on Flickr of North Wilkesboro as she stands today.  It’s both sad and nostalgic to check out.  Link Here.