NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — We are three months away from the second All-Star Race to be held at the North Wilkesboro Speedway.
If you remember the track closed in 1996 and reopened for the first time last year.
After a successful year, the town and speedway are prepping to make this year bigger and better.
North Wilkesboro Mayor, Marc Hauser, said the feeling of having the speedway back is hard to describe.
"You start walking through those gates and get on the stands and your heart starts beating faster and it's just something about the air at that track," said Hauser.
He said the thrill from last year's race left an impact.
"It was very nostalgic and it was great," Hauser said. "I was surprised at the level of participation and I was thrilled with the response, the enthusiasm, and the fan base."
It brought in thousands and with that momentum, Hauser said the area is preparing for another year of it.
"In Downtown Wilkesboro, we've done a lot of beautification of the planters, right now we are working on sidewalks, and we're going to redo some paving," he said.
The town is hard at work and racing to prepare for the thousands to come back in May. It's not just the town getting ready, but the plans are coming together for the big weekend.
"We're going to have another fan fest," he said. "We're going to have a repeat of what we did before and then we already got together and said what worked and what didn't. The bouncy houses weren't the best. We probably won't have that, or the Ferris wheel but there'll be more, two, maybe three bands next year and we will do a better job with even more food trucks. People had to wait a little longer than they wanted to. We understand that we're going to take some steps to just improve the amenities, and prove service, and make things faster, and more efficient."
He said there will also be more signage to make it easier to find things.
"If you think 2023 was good, you better come back for 2024. It's gonna be bigger and better," said Hauser.
As for the speedway, Scott Cooper with Speedway Motorsports said crews are fixing up the pavement.
"The biggest change that I think any fan is going to notice when they come back for the All-Star Race this May, is that we have completely repaved the track for the first time in decades," said Cooper. "It was past due to say the least and we were able to patch some things together to get through the race weekend last year, but even last year, NASCAR talked to us and said, 'Hey, after we do this all-star race week, if you come back again, we're going to have to get in and we're going to have to repave the track.'"
Sports betting will also be a new thing for fans and be legal in North Carolina in a few weeks.
"Stay tuned for North Wilkesboro Speedway for later and we would anticipate that whatever we see early, and this is going to be for basically anybody in the sports betting world, everything's going to start primarily online before you see anything on site," Cooper said. "We have identified a partner that we're starting to work with for North Wilkesboro Speedway, they're not ready to make any announcements or to try to go live yet with that. We have announced that our sister track at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a partnership with BET MGM. They are planning to go live as soon as sports betting is live within the state, so if you want to check out something with sports betting, I'd encourage people to start following things for Charlotte Motor Speedway."
Cooper said the Speedway expects over the next three to four weeks that there will be more announcements about sports betting partnerships, concert plans, and entertainment. These will be put out on the North Wilkesboro Speedway's social media pages.