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NASCAR triple-header coming to North Wilkesboro Speedway

Fans filled the grandstands to watch the 2025 All-Star Race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway
Courtesy North Carolina Speedway
Fans filled the grandstands to watch the 2025 All-Star Race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway.

The North Wilkesboro Speedway is gearing up for what could be its biggest race week ever.

The speedway has announced its first-ever NASCAR triple-header race weekend coming in May. Officials are predicting it will be the most historic series in the track’s 80-year history.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will run on Friday, May 21. The O’Reilly Auto Parts series returns the next night for the first time since 1985. And the Sunday grand finale will be the NASCAR All-Star Race, featuring a $1 million winner's purse.

The All-Star event was held in North Wilkesboro from 2023 through 2025 before a one-year stop at Dover Motor Speedway. This year’s race will be televised on Fox Sports in prime time.

NASCAR CEO Ben Kennedy says the triple-header weekend is a testament to the “extraordinary” revival of the North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.