(NOTE:
I wrote this in 2008 for The Racing Journal.)
Rockin'
in Rockingham
By
Tom Gillispie
TRJ
EDITOR
ROCKINGHAM
— For the first time since 1999, there's plenty of activity on both
sides of U.S. 1, about eight miles north of Rockingham. And the two
racing facilities will be working together.
Former
ARCA champion Andy Hillenburg bought North Carolina Speedway from
Bruton Smith in January, and changed the track's name to Rockingham
Speedway. He has an ARCA race, the Carolina 500, set for noon on May
4, and a Hooters ProCup race, the American 200, set for Nov. 1. And
Hillenburg has an all-Mustang weekend, "Super 'Stang Fest",
scheduled in June.
Rockingham
Dragway remains as busy as ever. The new event at the dragway is the
All-Harley Drag Racing Association event, the Screamin' Eagle
Performance Parts Nationals. Rockingham Dragway again will play host
to two International Hot Rod Association events; the IHRA Spring
Nationals are set for April 18-20, and the World Finals will close
the IHRA season on Oct. 17-19.
Steve
Earwood, the promoter at Rockingham Dragway, says that the speedway
and dragway have worked together before, particularly providing
parking for each other, and he says he'll work together closely with
Hillenburg.
"It
can't be a bad thing," he said of the speedway reopening.
"There's more activity for our community. When the speedway
closed, it was a blow to the community.
"I
wish Andy the best, and I'll do what I can to help."
Earwood
has held several positions in racing — he was the publicist for
Raymond Beadle's Blue Max Cup team in the '80s — and he's run the
dragway since 1992.
"Steve
was just in the office right here," Hillenburg said. "He's
been helpful and cooperative and a pleasure to work with, and
definitely I can learn from, and I hope to be able to be there for
him.
"We'll
be doing stuff together on race events, where we're working closely
together. He's got some night-time events that he's going to run on
some of our weekends. We'll have rides here (for fans) on some of his
race weekends. We'll do some stuff that will help both of us and
bring people to the area."
Hillenburg
says he's also gotten a good response from people in Richmond County.
"I
like the atmosphere here," he said. "The people from the
city and Richmond County have been helpful, and I'm really enjoying
it. We've hired people from area and brought people in; it's a great
place to raise a family or for a family to visit."
Rockingham
Speedway's first action came in mid-December when five Craftsman
Truck Series teams tested there for two days. Legends, Bandolero and
Thunder Roadsters raced at The Rock in January, and Hillenburg's Fast
Track High Performance Driving School opened for the season in
mid-February.
Hillenburg,
a native of Indianapolis and one of the few drivers to start both the
Indy 500 and the Daytona 500, says he's in no hurry to fill the track
schedule. Besides the two big races, he says his driving school will
drone around the one-mile oval more than 25 dates this season, and he
hopes to run a weekly program at some point.
"Eventually,
we have so many things we want to do," Hillenburg said. "The
list of ideas and possibilities seems endless. We want to set the
groundwork with a couple of races this year and eventually get 90
percent of our driving school dates and customers over at the
speedway.
"It's
a work in progress."
Smith
bought The Rock several years ago so he could move the Cup dates to
Texas Motor Speedway. Hillenburg bought the track from Smith's
Speedway Motorsports Inc. at an auction in October, and he took
possession of the property Nov. 1.
"We'd
been working on doing a speedway for a long time with our driving
school," Hillenburg said. "We'd have better flexibility in
dates and be able to also expand the driving school programs that
we've had. So it's something I've been working on for the last four
or five years.
"And
when the Rockingham facility came up for auction, it was a matter of
taking our business plan and inserting a few things there at the
racetrack."
And
the potential races became a bonus for Hillenburg.
While
Smith was asking nearly $100 million for the track, Hillenburg found
the $4.4 million still a huge amount.
"It
is," he said, "but, hopefully, our business model will make
all of those things work for us."
Rockingham
played host to Cup and Busch races when Smith bought the track, and
the natural question is: Is Hillenburg pursuing a Cup, Nationwide
(formerly Busch) or truck race for 2009?
"There
are endless possibilities, but it would be unfair of me now to say
we're pursuing getting NASCAR back," he said. "We have to
show what we can do and get the facility open and do a great job
before that could possibly show up on their radar screen. We'd be in
a bad position if we'd go and ask right now, I think.
"So
we want to concentrate on making the Carolina 500 a great event. Down the
road, who knows what can happen?"
The
track looks good on the outside, and Hillenburg has said that safety
inspections have been done on the catch fences and grandstands. The
large grandstand on the backstretch wasn't part of the sale, and it
will be trucked to Concord for use at Smith's new drag-racing
facility being built at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
The
track drew praise from at least one of the truck racers who tested in
December.
"I've
always loved this racetrack," said Johnny Benson, a former Busch
Series champion. "It's the same old Rockingham. It's bumpy, you
slide around and stuff, but, man, I have always loved this place; it
is way cool.
"I
think the truck series would be an excellent race here; they seem to
put on great shows here no matter the series."
Hillenburg,
the 1995 ARCA champion, won't race in his own race -- he's
concentrated on the business end of racing since he last raced in
'04. Bryan Silas races for him in ARCA and with Hillenburg's
part-time Craftsman Truck Series team.
"There's
times I wish I could jump in there and do it myself, but, at the same
time, I felt I had a great career," he said.
"I'll
never say never, but, at the same time, my plate is so full that it's
not on the horizon."
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK
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