[BringBackWilkesboro]

Many people do not realize the significance of the North Wilkesboro Speedway in Nascar's history, nor do they realize what its closing in the fall of 1996 has done to the economy of Wilkes county. Opened in 1948 as a half mile dirt track, NWS race winners include the biggest names in Nascar. Names like Bob, Fonty and Tim Flock who dominated the track in its dirt days, as well as Buck Baker, Fred Lorenzen, Lee and Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon.

For a long, long time, the time period from late February through the month of April was referred to as short track season. After Daytona, It was on to Richmond, Martinsville, Bristol and North Wilkesboro, and the process would repeat in the fall. This was in a day when it wasnt a big deal to use the chrome horn to get by, a day when people believed that if you could get to another guy's bumper, he must be holding you up. But those days are gone, and much like the North Wilkesboro Speedway, show no signs of reutrn.

In 1995, #207 of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, Ollen Bruton Smith and longtime track promoter Bob Bahre purchased and co-owned the track. Bahre, who bought his half of the track from the Staley family, had promised them that he would not sell his half to Bruton. Bruton and Bahre had plans for the new Texas Motor Speedway and N8ew Hampshire International Speedway. TMS, owned by Smith, would replace the spring race. It was learned the weekend of the final spring race that there would be no fall race the following season either. Barhe had taken it for a second date at NHIS, spelling the demise of the North Wilkesboro speedwway.

The track's closing sparked major controversey and chaos in the 10 years since it's closing, and has not completely gone away. Jobs in Wilkes county were lost and tourism dropped dramatically. Many people want answers. Not just in North Carolina, but race fans across the country who saw Nascar history vanish in a matter of months. Why would bruton let the track sit dormant and rot away is one question. That answer may go back to the promise between Barhe and Mike Staley. It is believed that Bruton will not sell the track because of his grudge with the staley family who kept him from full ownership. He is letting the dreams of the Staley family rot away out of greed. That has truned many of the sports long time fans on him. Many will not even go to a track owned by Bruton.

If Bruton does not plan to use the track, sell it. Junior Johnson has shown plenty of interest in buying, but Bruton wont sell. Again, out of greed, he is burying Nascar history and the Wilkes County ecomony in the grass fields of North Carolina. Right now, the speedway is just sitting there doing nothing, Bahre says. “A lot of the people in the North Wilkesboro area have wanted us to open the track back up for a Busch or truck race there, and I’m all for it. Bruton says he’s not going to allow it, so hell, there really isn’t a lot I can do." Again, pure greed on Bruton's part.


Bob Bahre spoke the few, but powerful words of encouragement to the many citizens who are rallying for the restoration of the North Wilkesboro Speedway:

"I think someday someone will have a race there, but that will be after Bruton and I have gone to heaven or hell." Barhe is now 80, and says there is a possibility of a sale of NHIS after his passing because his son would never run it alone. A top candidate... one Bruton Smith.


More:
rpm.espn.com: Town struggles with track's closure
NASCAR.com - North Wilkesboro: A town decimated without racing

[TN_Gal]

Please list the tracks owned either 100% or partial ownership by Bruton. Please speciify weather it is 100% or not.

If you need to put pressure on the jerk, do it at the tracks where it is not just him...put pressure on him by making the people he's "in bed" with seem just as bad as him...Bruton might not care but there's a chance they won't be happy about it....trickle down effect works.. ..with the power of the Internet and key word searches this is one way to get people to know of the demise of North Wilkesboro...

Keep posting BBW........and have a fun time moving

[Quality88]

Pathetic Bast#$@! I hope the pressure on him increases and he caves one day. It would serve him right for something to happen to him at that track one day.

[david murray]

Man that would be neat if Junior Johnson could purchase the track! There is an excellent article on Junior in nascar.com right now. I didn't realize he had started family and has young children!

[oncea3fan]

how old is bruton smith?
I feel we will have to wait until his passing, by then the track maybe beyond repair and not worth trying to reopen

[TN_Gal]

Help support BBW & the N.WB Speedway....sign this online petition


Save North Wilkesboro Speedway Petition

[TN_Gal]

Anniversaries can have a strange way of becoming relevant to the present day, and this unhappy anniversary may wind up with a happy postscript. 2006 will mark the tenth anniversary of one of the sadder chapters in recent NASCAR history, the end of NASCAR's major league competition at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Track co-founder Enoch Staley's death in May 1995 set in motion a series of events culminating in the purchase of the speedway by Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre. With that purchase the track lost its two annual NASCAR weekends, the first going to the then-new Texas Motor Speedway, the second going to a second annual weekend at New Hampshire International Speedway.

But recently a group called Save The Speedway has been active, and been effective enough to have gotten notice from Bruton Smith to name a price tag for selling the Speedway, with the local county possibly being involved in any purchase. It is a big potential undertaking, for nine years of neglect has left the speedway in very worn shape, requiring some big cleanup effort to make it raceable again.
And yet, having gotten this far, it becomes harder to discount Save The Speedway. Certainly one is hard-pressed to find someone who has been involved in the sport for longer than the ten years since Enoch Staley's death who sympathizes with the shuttering of the facility. Mike Staley, Enoch's son, has noted that campers still came to North Wilkesboro and held their own vigil there during Texas Motor Speedway's April 500-mile weekend.

What would bring people to a closed speedway? Remembering its history, for starters. One of the original speedways when Big Bill France started NASCAR in the 1940s, North Wilkesboro was an annual stop for short track action, and some of NASCAR's more memorable moments have taken place there.

The 1950s and '60s were rough-and-tumble times and North Wilkesboro saw some rough stuff for certain, but the race that cemented North Wilkesboro's rough-and-tumble nature was the Wilkes 400 of 1972. The speedway was the home speedway of Junior Johnson, who'd won often there as a driver and in conjunction with Charlotte Motor Speedway president Richard Howard had fielded a competitive Chevrolet beginning in 1971, breaking the Ford-Chrysler stranglehold on NASCAR's top division.
For the 1972 Wilkes 400 Bobby Allison was the driver of the Johnson-Howard Chevy and was facing off against Richard Petty, who would finish as the track's all-time winner at fifteen career wins. The first 350 laps were a comparatively tranquil affair but a caution set up a 39-lap showdown between Petty and Allison that immediately became the hardest fight for a win of the 1972 season. The lead changed hands some thirteen times over those final 39 laps, but it was the final five laps that became a powder keg. Held up behind the slower car of Vic Parsons, Allison surged forward and both he and Petty plowed into the fencing. Both continued at speed and crashed into each other and the guardrail; Allison grabbed the lead coming to the white flag but Petty grabbed the win.

Allison got a measure of revenge in the 1973 Wilkes 400 by passing Petty for the win on the final lap, driving his own Chevy after Cale Yarborough took over the Johnson Chevy. Cale didn't get his first Wilkesboro win until September 1974 when Petty made up a lap under green but got caught by a race-ending yellow. Cale went on a tear in the Johnson Chevy, dominating Wilkesboro in the latter 1970s. In October 1978 he cut a tire and lost three laps, but made them up under green and won easily. For 1979, however, Cale led in October but wrecked and this opened up a pivotal showdown in NASCAR championship history. Bobby Allison led most of the way but Darrell Waltrip caught him in the final 150 laps. With just over 100 to go Waltrip and Allison got together hard and Darrell hammered the front stretch wall. Waltrip began crowding off Allison under caution and got personally black flagged by NASCAR Competition Director Bill Gazaway for it; Waltrip finished thirteenth while Benny Parsons took the win and Richard Petty cut a sizable point gap to less than 20, ultimately winning a seventh title.

Petty won two of the next three events at the oval while Bobby Allison dodged a disintegrating surface to win in September 1980. Then Darrell Waltrip, taking over Junior Johnson's Buick, took over for three years, a five-race streak that ended when Tim Richmond pounced past a fading Ricky Rudd for the win in 1984.

It was in the late 1980s that North Wilkesboro fireworks erupted anew. In October 1988 Dale Earnhardt led nearly half the race but got into a fender-banging feud with hard-charging Ricky Rudd that erupted in the final 41 laps. They were flagged to the rear and pounded together again with five to go. This set up a wild finish - Geoff Bodine lost the lead to Rusty Wallace with ten to go but Bodine tagged Wallace out of the lead entering the final lap. Wallace then nailed Bodine sideways and roared to the last-lap win.

This was just a foretaste of the track's most famous showdown. In October 1989 Dale Earnhardt led 343 laps but a late crash set up a two-lap showdown with Rudd, and on the final lap Rudd muscled side by side and both cars spun. Geoff Bodine pounced to his final win with Hendricks Motorsports. The wreck wiped out Earnhardt's point lead and cost him the 1989 title to Rusty Wallace.

The ancient oval then saw the most bizarre finish of the 1990s. Brett Bodine had a strong car in the April 400-lapper and had the lead following green-flag pit stops. A late wreck brought out the pace car, but the pace car picked up the wrong leader, putting Bodine a lap ahead of the field. He pitted for tires before the error was corrected and held off Darrell Waltrip and Earnhardt for his only Nextel Cup win.
Bodine showed winning muscle in April 1991, but after leading the most laps he collided with the lapped car of Ricky Rudd in a day filled with melees. The opposite happened in September 1992 when Geoff Bodine drove to an easy win on a caution-free day. Geoff Bodine's winning ways at North Wilkesboro didn't end there, as he lapped the field under green in September 1994.

But the track's future was being set by then, and 1996 proved to be its final hurrah. Terry Labonte dodged a late melee that wiped out Rusty Wallace and won in April, then Jeff Gordon triumphed in September, bringing to an end decades of history.

They haven't forgotten, however, and Save The Speedway's will gives one confidence that there will be competitive laps yet to run at North Wilkesboro Speedway

[oncea3fan]

so what is the asking price ????

[BringBackWilkesboro]

Thanks for the petition TNGal. Glad to know people are getting on the NWS bandwagon.