Repaved North Wilkesboro Speedway "not even the same track"

Again this season, the iconic 0.625-mile track will host two days of racing, a Truck Series race on May 18 followed by the Cup Series’ all-star race on May 19.

Last year’s events – the first NASCAR races at the track since a Cup race in 1996 – were held on the same surface, despite millions of dollars in renovations to the facility by Speedway MotorSports.

Wednesday’s Goodyear tire test with Cup drivers Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs and William Byron – as well a test Tuesday with three Truck drivers – was the first on-track action since the iconic speedway underwent a repaving last November.

Goodyear Tire Test at North Wilkesboro Speedway

Photo by: Will Tharp / Charlotte Motor Speedway

“They did a good job, there’s still some character, it’s still a unique shaped race track, which is all good,” Logano said. “There’s a pretty big bump down in Turn 1, I think where the wall was out too long and they cut it, and it’s kind of an interesting area.

“There’s a huge bump leaving (Turn) 4, which really kind of upsets the cars. I don’t think that’s bad. I’m OK with that. That’s something that made this race track so cool in the past, was that it had a lot of character, it was bumpy, you were forced to move around on it because it was challenging.”

More action?

Byron said he thought the repave, combined with the fact North Wilkesboro is a short track, could be a recipe for a lot of action in the race.

“I think it being a short track it would probably be a lot like Richmond was when they repaved it, so I don’t know, I vividly have seen some of those races and I feel like it was pretty treacherous, a lot of guys would get in crashes or there would be a lot of restart wrecks,” he said.

“I think the racing could actually be pretty exciting with a repave on a short track, but you won’t have the style of comers and goers I don’t think. The guys who are up toward the front will be racing hard and there’s probably just going to be more wrecks.”

Goodyear Tire Test at North Wilkesboro Speedway

Photo by: Will Tharp / Charlotte Motor Speedway

Gibbs, in his second full-time season in the Cup Series, said he was impressed with the effort put into the track’s repave job.

“It definitely has taken some rubber. You can visually go out there and look at it, right? You can look at how different the line looks,” Gibbs said. “It’s definitely a lot better, I don’t know a lot better, I’m fine with racing the old way or the new way.

“You just look at the track. It doesn’t look like a puzzle. There are some tracks on the schedule that they did repaves at, that it just looks like a mess out there. They did such a great job here. Kudos to them.”

"Not even the same track"

The November resurfacing process included milling approximately two inches of the old track, repairing failing spots, sealing, and adding a specially designed asphalt mixture in the same configuration as the original track, including the 13 degrees of banking in the corners.

Like the process used for Speedway MotorSports’ recent repave at Atlanta, a special mix was used that is expected to age faster than traditional asphalt.

Reigning Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes said he expects a completely different race this year.

“It’s not even the same race track, and really when we started the day, never having a truck or car or anything run on this place to all the rubber we put on it, it’s not the same race track as eight hours ago,” he said following Tuesday’s test. “It’s changed a lot; I think it’s rubbered in well.

“The challenge is considerable. We came here with a totally separate truck, totally separate package, way different thinking.”

Goodyear Tire Test at North Wilkesboro Speedway

Photo by: Johnny Loix

Driver Christian Eckes said he expects a better race with the repave.

“The top (lane) was nonexistent last year, and I felt like just those 30, 40 forty laps we ran (Tuesday) got it better and got it competitive, competitive enough to race,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a lot of passing compared to last year, but I really like what they’ve done so far.”