A future NASCAR All-Star Race should be held at South Boston Speedway.
We’ll discuss the practical challenges of the logistics in a minute but I first want to lay the background for how I reached this conclusion in the first place.
Earlier in the month, I covered the South Boston 200 for Short Track Scene, one of the most prominent Late Model Stock Car races for the Mid-Atlantic region discipline. I did so the night after covering an ASA race at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida.
I point out the other race, because despite having two Cup Series champions in attendance, South Boston matched the attendance and energy produced by Pensacola with nothing more than the weekly heroes of Late Model Stock Car competition.
Connor Hall
Peyton Sellers
Mike Looney
Deac McCaskill
Bobby McCarty
That’s all South Boston, Virginia needed to pack out one of the most legendary short tracks in the country so imagine how they would respond to the likes of Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch.
I mean look at this place.
In this same spirit as the Major League Baseball Field of Dreams Game or the Rickwood Field Game, the NASCAR All-Star Race should become a rotating showcase for both the grassroots and its own storied history.
In the case of South Boston, it’s already owned by the same family that operates Pocono Raceway so an agreement would need to be cut with Speedway Motorsports, which currently holds the rights to that event. It’s not entirely out of character as both Speedway Motorsports and NASCAR have leased facilities it does not own to run races at Circuit of the Americas and Road America, for example.
But even beyond Pocono, which is by far the nicest facility you could take Cup to right now, there are no shortage of continental facilities that could benefit from the Rickwood Field, Field of Dreams treatment right now.
If you don’t like that the pitch is coming from me, you’ll be pleased to learn that a pair of industry notables actually placed the idea in my head in the first place.
Flashback to the inaugural Clash at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2022, where both crew chief Chris Gabehart and spotter Frankie Kimmel pitched taking an exhibition race to short track across the country. Their argument had two layers:
First, NASCAR’s broadcast partners got a novel television concept, which always produces a bump in the ratings based on races at Los Angeles, North Wilkesboro and Downtown Chicago over the past three years.
Second, an exhibition race should funnel TV money into those facilities to make them ready for such a race while also investing in the long-term viability of such tracks decades into the future. Both Gabehart and Kimmel correctly argued that many of these tracks are either closing or are in a state of disrepair and losing them eliminates important connective tissue from Saturday nights to Sunday afternoons.
Imagine such a race being hosted at Hickory Motor Speedway, Stafford Motor Speedway, Berlin Raceway, Irwindale Speedway, Orange County Speedway, Slinger Super Speedway, Evergreen Speedway …. Endless possibilities.
NASCAR puts up TV money and tells the tracks where to spend it in exchange for one date and now they have facility that will stand the test of time for a couple of more decades.
“First thank you for asking me that question,” Gabehart said over the weekend in Chicago. “I’ve been an advocate for years of investing naturally in our short tracks by moving a few Cup dates around every other year or so to the short tracks.
“South Boston is a prime market for that. I think you can inject a lot of natural capital into it because you bring Cup and TV money and everything with that to the facility, you force that facility to use X amount of money for capital upgrades, and that’s a natural renovation of sorts.
“Then we move on to the next town and that next track and these events will carry the short track community for the next 15 to 20 years. These are medium to long term investments and it’ll take years to see the benefit of that but we as an industry need to invest in the infrastructure to keep building our future.”
Like Gabehart, Cliff Daniels is a former Late Model driver turned elite Cup Series crew chief and he endorses the idea and points out that it’s already happening with Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray.
“It seems to be already, right,” Daniels said. “We didn’t think Wilkesboro could be resurrected and what an amazing event that’s been the past two years. There’s rumors about Rockingham and I think there’s some reality to that. We’re going to Bowman Gray so I think to your point, it’s valid and we’re already starting to do that.”
Think about that for a second, especially if you are an old school fan who rejected the races at the Los Angeles Coliseum or Downtown Chicago, because NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports is absolutely working to serve your audience too.
With 38 events a year, NASCAR can do a lot of creative things and that includes going to Mexico City or Montreal or major domestic downtowns like Los Angeles and Chicago.
Brad Keselowski wants to see the best of both worlds, a short track in Canada.
“I have always been an advocate for, and I still am, for going to an oval somewhere in Canada,” Keselowski said. “The race fans there, I’ve learned over the years, are very passionate and enthusiastic. We’ve seen that when we’ve gone over there for Mosport and Montreal and I think an oval race would create a really special atmosphere.”
If only there was a turnkey oval with the footprint to spread out and create such an event … oh wait, Brad, there is!
That’s the old Cayuga Motor Speedway near Hamilton, Ontatio, a track you may know as Jukasa Motor Speedway, closed since the pandemic but still otherwise standing. Sure, there’s been some development on the greater property, some expanding marijuana and tobacco farms, but there is a tremendous amount of space here to host such an event.
And it’s a spectacular race track should NASCAR ever want to present an offer to Grand River Enterprises.
Speedway Motorsports is still diligently working towards an agreement to bring the Cup Series back to Nashville Fairgrounds, an idea strongly endorsed by Chase Elliott anytime he is asked where he wants to race his Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 the most.
William Byron, who has raced many of these tracks in recent years with his Super Late Model program, echoed that.
“There’s plenty but the Fairgrounds is always front of mind,” Byron said. “I feel like there, and I haven’t been to a lot of the North Carolina tracks, but there’s Tri-County, Orange County, but the Fairgrounds is big enough to put on a good Cup race. Rockingham too, even though it’s been repaved.
“Looking at the way the NextGen races on short tracks, the shorter the track and the slower the speeds right now, the better the racing is too so it opens up a lot of these bullrings.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.