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closeDavid Poole | ARCA racing brings a new day to Rockingham
THATSRACIN.COM OPINION
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Saturday, May. 03, 2008
Here's hoping nobody gets confused about what's happening this weekend at Rockingham Speedway.
Sunday's Carolina 500, a race for the Automobile Racing Club of America series, will mark a new beginning for the track formerly know as North Carolina Speedway. It's the first race there since Andy Hillenburg bought the track from Speedway Motorsports Inc. last year.
It will be hard not to get caught up in nostalgia at Rockingham, where NASCAR's top series last raced in 2004. This was a great place to watch stock-car racing's top stars compete, but not enough people did that to keep it on the Cup schedule.
I have no idea what kind of crowd to expect for Sunday's race. I hope, for the sake of Hillenburg and the people who have worked to make this day possible and for the people in Richmond County that the place is packed.
But even if it is, that doesn't mean Rockingham's rebirth is about returning to past glories. That ship has sailed.
What Sunday is about is what Rockingham might be. It's a small miracle cars will compete there again. It's far more typical for a track that falls off the NASCAR map to get swallowed up than it is for one to start trying to make new memories.
If the new Rockingham is to continue to be a place where cars compete, it's going to be in the kind of new reality Hillenburg is trying to forge. Sunday's race is one of the biggest on this year's ARCA schedule. On Nov. 1, Rockingham is to host the final race on this year's USAR Hooters Pro Cup schedule.
Is it impossible to believe that, if everything goes wonderfully, a NASCAR Truck Series race might someday be part of Rockingham's schedule? No, but one almost hesitates to say that could happen for fear of setting it up as a false goal.
Sunday's race shouldn't be about what Rockingham used to be. It should be about what it could be.
That would be fitting with those who will be competing Sunday. Some of the most promising drivers in the sport will be in the field.
They'll be led to the green flag by the man many believe to be "The Next." Joey Logano won the pole Saturday with a lap at 146.645 mph, putting him alongside Ricky Stenhouse.
Logano will turn 18 on May 24 and after that will embark on a Nationwide Series schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing. There are people who believe the Gibbs team might not lose too much sleep should it lose Tony Stewart after this season or the next because it has Logano, preparing to step in. Logano is that highly regarded.
Stenhouse is no slouch, either. He's driving a Roush Fenway Racing car and is in that NASCAR team's developmental program.
Michael Annett, who will start fourth alongside Justin Lofton on Row 2, won the ARCA race at Daytona this year and is in the Bill Davis Racing developmental pipeline.
Matt Carter, who will start sixth, is leading the ARCA points standings and is the son of former NASCAR team owner Travis Carter. Austin Dillon, the grandson of Cup team owner Richard Childress, will start 10th. Former Formula One driver Scott Speed, who won the race at Kansas last week, will start 25th.
