North Wilkesboro Speedway

A while ago, of all places, North Wilkesboro Speedway was trending on facebook. It was because this video of a guy flying his drone over the dilapidated speedway surfaced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyfn-_AW1h4

The track was one of those good ol' tracks in the south that hosted NASCAR events since the beginning, but got pushed out of the sport due to not being in a major market. My dad went to the last Winston Cup race there, in 1996. The track would probably need millions put into it to even host anything, let alone the top racing series in the country.

But I'm coming to the rescue! The track lies pretty close to the other true short tracks of Bristol and Martinsville. My thinking is that nostalgia would be the driving force into restoration. Many drivers think that more tracks like this should be put on the schedule, so here's my attempt to make it.

So North Wilkesboro is outside a small town of the same name. There isn't much of a population, but neither does Bristol and Martinsville. The track lies right next to some houses and a highway. There isn't much parking, so that would be the biggest thing. There is space, so a ramp from the highway and pedestrian bridges from a massive parking lot on the other side of the highway would be two things that would help the track. 

The track itself may need to be scrapped. It needs new stands, to be weeded, and paved. But the somewhat flat track still remains. My plans is to keep the track the same, and build around it. The walls are old, and would need to be replaced. Since the incident at Daytona with Kyle Busch, I made sure every inch of wall that could be hit from the track was protected. The walls would also be painted like the old days, red and white stripes to add to the nostalgia. The infield would be completely paved and have a garage for teams, a media building, and a tunnel leading outside, where the haulers would be. My thinking was to make the inner buildings one story for sight lines. The tunnel would be somewhat shallow, since only cars, and emergency vehicles would have to go through. The haulers take up a lot of space, and would have more space for 3 series to run at in a weekend.  The tunnel would also make the stands go completely around, and no wall would have to be temporary. Outside the track, they would repave over all the empty areas for easy walking capability.

Now to the stands. I designed this after a football stadium. The current covers about 3/4ths of the bottom bowl. I would raise it up, then complete it around. Raising it helps the fans get out through tunnels under the stands leading to the outside. There would also be a walkway on top of the stands that more people could walk around, or head up to their 2nd deck seats. There would be ramps to the ground level near the press boxes that tower over the stands. I put a big video board on the end zone, so there wouldn't need to be several. There would be advertisements behind the end zones to keep the sound in for the surrounding area too, and for highway advertisement for tickets. Finally, I put a lot of solar panels because I think renewable energy should be put into any new stadium built.

I made the initial plans a month ago, but I finally finished the master plan, and thought everyone would love to see just how this turned out.