Is anyone else as excited as I am to have a major series racing at Rockingham Speedway again?  This Sunday, at noon est., the ARCA RE/MAX Series will take to the one mile oval for 312 laps in what could be the craziest race Rockingham has ever seen.  Andy Hillenburg, who bought the track last year, has convinced ARCA to not only run its longest race of the year at his track, but to also allow 50 cars to start the race!  The entry list for the Carolina 500 is filled and includes all the ARCA regulars plus a few others including Joey Logano, Austin Dillon (Richard Childress’ grandson), and Ken Schrader. 

When NASCAR decided years ago it was time to start moving to some larger markets, some of the older tracks like Rockingham, Darlington, and North Wilkesboro lost race dates.  Rockingham and Wilkesboro were removed completely, and Darlington lost its annual labor day Cup race.  Wilkesboro continues to sit vacant, but Rockingham was sold at auction last year and resurrected by ARCA team owner and driving school owner Andy Hillenburg.  He saw an opportunity to bring racing back to “The Rock” and also found another track to use for his Fast Track Driving School.  Besides the ARCA race, the track continues to host many test sessions for NASCAR teams, and the USAR Hooters ProCup Series will close out their season at Rockingham in November. 

Now with Rockingham active again and Darlington getting a face lift, we can only hope that maybe some day in the future a party will come along and buy North Wilkesboro.  It would be a perfect venue to bring possibly ARCA, Hooters ProCup, and maybe even a Truck Series race back to.  At the very least, it could have a weekly Saturday night show.  These tracks have a lot of history and they deserve to continue hosting some form of racing.

The Truck Series is off this weekend and the Nationwide and Cup Series race Friday and Saturday night.  So if you are looking for your racing fix on Sunday, hit up Speed Channel at 12PM EST, it should be a very entertaining race.  I know I’ll be watching!

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