Why Rockingham Speedway's second comeback will be more successful than its first

The Rockingham Speedway in Rockingham, N.C., is a curious case of a sports venue’s life cycle.

In 2004, the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and NASCAR Busch Series held what turned out to be the final NASCAR races at "The Rock" for nearly a decade. Like North Wilkesboro Speedway before it, it was thought that Rockingham was going to end up rotting in North Carolina as nothing more than a footnote in NASCAR history. 

Unlike North Wilkesboro, however, Rockingham was able to draw one of NASCAR’s top divisions back in its first attempt at revitalization. In 2012 and 2013, the NASCAR Truck Series raced at Rockingham, though its departure following 2013 appeared to be the final nail in the coffin for the venue.

That was until 2024, when NASCAR announced that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series would race at Rockingham on Easter weekend in 2025. With the NASCAR Cup Series on its lone off-weekend, NASCAR’s developmental series, along with Rockingham, would be at the forefront of stock-car racing on a holiday weekend.

But what makes this different than the first attempt to revitalize "The Rock" when the Truck Series came back in 2013? Unlike North Wilkesboro’s NASCAR return in 2023, the NASCAR Cup Series won’t be present, and Rockingham’s journey from the dead didn’t have quite the cult following that North Wilkesboro’s return did.

For starters, the Xfinity Series’ return to Rockingham — 21 years after the series last raced at the 1.017-mile oval — can’t be understated. The Xfinity Series is a series that, in recent years, has regained a distinct identity. All nine Xfinity Series races have drawn over 1 million viewers this season on The CW, and the series’ uptick in popularity should carry over to Rockingham. 

With Saturday’s race scheduled for the afternoon on a holiday weekend with a national broadcast, another audience of 1 million viewers wouldn’t be surprising at all. The attendance for Saturday’s doubleheader — the ARCA East Series is also scheduled to race on Saturday — is expected to be much better than the Truck Series’ initial return in 2012-13, with grandstand tickets for Saturday being sold out. 

Friday’s Truck Race is slated for a 5 p.m. ET start, which isn’t ideal for a Friday afternoon. However, the return of the Truck Series to "The Rock" after more than a decade should still be alluring enough for decent TV and attendance figures to materialize.

Perhaps the biggest thing that Rockingham’s third chance has going for it, however, is the timing with which it came about. Like North Wilkesboro’s failed revival from 2009-11 with various series due to a lack of funding, it’s possible that the wound of the track becoming dormant was too fresh for those in the Rockingham area in 2012 and 2013. 

Like Wilkes County and the North Wilkesboro Speedway, the Rockingham Speedway is the only game in town for residents of Rockingham and the surrounding areas. It wasn’t just race fans in the area, but all residents of the area who lost out when those tracks left and took a significant chunk of the local economy with them.

Rockingham is 21 years removed from its last Xfinity Series race, and over a decade removed from its last Truck Series race. Those extra years have given the race fans in the area, as well as those still understandably hurt by the track’s exclusion from the NASCAR schedule, time to heal and rebuild the passion they had for the facility.

This time, Rockingham’s return has the opportunity to be more than just a flash in the pan.