Mr. and Mrs. NASCAR

Visit North Wilkesboro Speedway

In early November, I finally got my act together medically, and we left to go visit an aunt and uncle who live in Murphy, NC, in the extreme west side of the Great State of NC. Coming south from the Toronto/Oshawa area, the best route to take is to go east about 150 miles on HWY 401 to Brockville, cross the St Lawrence in to New York State, and pick up Interstate 81. (thus avoiding all the crazed Canadian cross-border shoppers taking advantage of the ridiculously-strong Canadian Dollar...i.e. spending Canada's GNP.. in Buffalo, NY...)

I81 is always real quiet for the first couple hundred miles, and takes a long curved trajectory thru NY, PA, grazing WVA, thru Virginia into Tennessee, finally ending up at Knoxville. For our purposes on this trip, we planned to swing south at Wytheville, TN, onto I77, then pick up 40, over to Asheville. Then it's a 3-hour drive thru the mountains to Murphy. Our only deviation was we left I81 at Buchanon, and did a few hours on the Blue Ridge Parkway, over to I77 well south of Wytheville. Fantastic scenery, and in November the fall colours are spectacular, and the traffic is non-existant...Likely I81 straight to Knoxville then south on I75 is faster, but then you'd miss the Blue Ridge parkway, and the Yadkin Valley wineries... and North Wilkeboro...

After a few hours sampling excellent NC wines (far superior to New York wines, we found; almost as good as Niagara in many cases...) we hopped onto the Junior Johnson Highway to check out North Wilkesboro, to see how the track looked after a decade of neglect. Back in the day, this was one of my favourite NASCAR tracks, and I was sorry to see it abandoned when Bruton bought it to get at the race dates.

When we got there, it was a crisp sunny afternoon, and very...very... quiet. There appear to be homes along the road leading to it, but no one was stirring, and, other than a truck in front of the old ticket office, no signs of life around the facility itself. Being the reticent, non-assertive Canadians we are, we did not make any attempt to go onto the property, but I did snap the accompanying shots that show how the old girl is slowly fading away.

(Subconciously, I guess I'd fantasized that some old caretaker guy would see us and our "MRNASCAR" Ontario plates, and say to me: "y'all came all the way from Canada?? Say, how'd you like to take that vehicle out onto the track for a couple laps? I've got the key to the gate right here!" Didn't happen... sigh...)

For me this was one of the hight points of the trip, but kinda sad. Later on the way home, we went down to Charlotte... sorry, Lowes... Motor Speedway. The contrast couldn't be greater... concrete condos and gleaming glass and steel, compared to faded white clapboard, shingles and cement. In a way you can understand how time has passed NW by, but it also emphasizes what NASCAR has lost in its rush to mainstream popularity.