ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — Jeff Burton walked through Rockingham Speedway on Saturday. This was the same Rockingham Speedway where he celebrated winning the October 1999 race at the one-mile oval a couple of hours east of Charlotte.

He’s retired now but has dual roles as a television analyst and as the leader of a drivers’ group that helps work with NASCAR on ideas to better the sport. So Burton knows the philosophy that took NASCAR away from some of the smaller venues in the Southeast and brought it to newer racetracks in markets across the nation.

“I don’t think trying to grow the sport was wrong,” Burton said. “If you look at quotes from me 30 years ago, I’d say I think we need to be at as many places as possible but not run as many races as possible. … I don’t think the way forward is to go back in the past and try to do it all like it used to be.

“But going back and connecting to our hardcore fans that were with us forever? That’s not wrong. You’ve got to find a way to do both.”

NASCAR returned to the track on the Friday and Saturday of Easter weekend for national series events for the first time in 12 years. The years 2012 and 2013 saw the first revival of the track, with truck series races on a Sunday after a Saturday night Cup race at Texas.

The attendance waned in the second year and since then, Rockingham has sat dormant as far as NASCAR races.

It last had a Cup race in 2004, when it was shuttered by Speedway Motorsports after it obtained the track as part of the settlement of the Ferko lawsuit where an SMI shareholder sued NASCAR to get a second race at Texas.

Rockingham’s lone remaining date went to Texas, and the track has gone through a few different owners over the last couple of decades. Its current ownership group is headed by Dan Lovenheim. Track Enterprises, a track promotion company that counts Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway racing and the former truck races at The Milwaukee Mile among its events, landed the deal to get the track ready and promote a weekend of truck and Xfinity racing in 2025.

The fans responded. 

Attendance figures were not announced, but approximately 16,000 attended on Friday and then a sold-out crowd of approximately 25,000 attended the race on Saturday.

The buzz was real. And Kasey Kahne was one driver who noticed.

Kahne finished second in the last Cup race in 2004, won the 2012 truck race at the track and made his first NASCAR start since 2018 over the weekend. Kahne, who races sprint cars regularly across the country, was in an early wreck and finished 15th in his return.

“There was a lot going on that weekend and I remember having a blast driving and it was a really cool race to be part of,” Kahne said when comparing Saturday to 2012.

“I feel like there was way more people here today and there was a lot more excitement this weekend than what I remember then.”

A repave of the track certainly impacted the racing. Drivers didn’t have to lift off the throttle much, especially in the trucks. The truck race didn’t have as much back-and-forth passing as this track has traditionally seen. But the Xfinity race turned into a chaotic event, with several late cautions. Drivers jockeyed for position, all while facing the possibility (and for some, the reality) of running out of fuel.

The infrastructure was certainly tested to the hilt. 

Part of that was having a facility that hadn’t seen a crowd as big as Saturday’s in 21 years. The main scoreboard wasn’t operational (but the track did bring in big video screens) and fans had stories of long waits to get into parking lots.

But this felt like another win for NASCAR. It was similar to the rejuvenation of the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, similar to taking the preseason clash to Bowman Gray Stadium. Both of those historic short tracks are in North Carolina. 

And currently, NASCAR holds 11 of its 38 Cup events in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia.

So the question begs: If NASCAR brings the Cup Series back to Rockingham, will NASCAR oversaturate the market?

“When we thought it was too much concentration at one place, what did that get us?” Burton said. “I’m not saying we need to be at all those racetracks twice. I’m not saying that.

“But look at where all your highest TV ratings are locally [in North Carolina]. To build, we’ve got to take care of our current fans. That’s how we get new fans.”

That also brings up another question: Does Rockingham need to have Cup races?

A Cup race can be an approximately $10 to $15 million payday for a racetrack, and that’s just from the television money that comes with it. That’s compared to $1 to $2 million for an Xfinity race. The costs to host a Cup race, with sanction fees and other necessary safety and infrastructure requirements, will also run into the millions.

It would likely require lights at the facility. And more grandstands. And then higher ticket prices to cover the costs in an area where many of the locals have limited discretionary income.

But if NASCAR wants to bolster its developmental series, they might have found the perfect venue in Rockingham.

“They’re here for us,” said truck series winner Tyler Ankrum. “It’s really cool. … I hope this stays on the schedule.”

Ankrum and Xfinity driver Jesse Love both hail from California and celebrated in victory lane (Love was later disqualified for having a rear suspension that wasn’t in compliance with NASCAR rules). Love was born in 2005, so he obviously has no memory of Rockingham as a Cup track. Ankrum was born in 2001, so he had no great stories of visiting it or watching it as a kid.

“It was definitely really cool,” Love said. “The only thing that I could compare it to on an oval track was the Bristol night race. … For a racetrack atmosphere, this was one of the coolest short-track events I’ve ever been to.

“I’m just blessed to win at a place with a lot of history and a lot of eyeballs on us.”

Love couldn’t always say he had a lot of eyeballs watching him. And rarely are the trucks and Xfinity teams the stars of the show. The only other track where Xfinity will run without Cup this year will be Portland International Raceway.

The trucks have a couple more scheduled for this year, at Lime Rock (Conn.) Park and Indianapolis Raceway Park. 

None are tracks where Cup once raced. Rockingham stands alone in that regard.

So when evaluating the weekend races, there will be clamoring for a big Cup event. But NASCAR had a great thing going last weekend. And to build on that, NASCAR needs to focus on making the current weekend great before biting off maybe more than it can chew.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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