Repaved North Wilkesboro Speedway “not even the same track”

Again this season, the iconic 0.625-mile track will host two days of racing, a Truck Series race on May 18 followed by the Cup Series’ all-star race on May 19.

Last year’s events – the first NASCAR races at the track since a Cup race in 1996 – were held on the same surface, despite millions of dollars in renovations to the facility by Speedway Motorsports.

Wednesday’s Goodyear tire test with Cup drivers Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs and William Byron – as well a test Tuesday with three Truck drivers – was the first on-track action since the iconic speedway underwent a repaving last November.

“They did a good job, there’s still some character, it’s still a unique shaped race track, which is all good,” Logano said. “There’s a pretty big bump down in Turn 1, I think where the wall was out too long and they cut it, and it’s kind of an interesting area.

“There’s a huge bump leaving (Turn) 4, which really kind of upsets the cars. I don’t think that’s bad. I’m OK with that. That’s something that made this race track so cool in the past, was that it had a lot of character, it was bumpy, you were forced to move around on it because it was challenging.”

More action?

Byron said he thought the repave, combined with the fact North Wilkesboro is a short track, could be a recipe for a lot of action in the race.

“I think it being a short track it would probably be a lot like Richmond was when they repaved it, so I don’t know, I vividly have seen some of those races and I feel like it was pretty treacherous, a lot of guys would get in crashes or there would be a lot of restart wrecks,” he said.

“I think the racing could actually be pretty exciting with a repave on a short track, but you won’t have the style of comers and goers I don’t think. The guys who are up toward the front will be racing hard and there’s probably just going to be more wrecks.”

Goodyear Tire Test at North Wilkesboro Speedway

Photo by: Will Tharp / Charlotte Motor Speedway

Gibbs, in his second full-time season in the Cup Series, said he was impressed with the effort put into the track’s repave job.

“It definitely has taken some rubber. You can visually go out there and look at it, right? You can look at how different the line looks,” Gibbs said. “It’s definitely a lot better, I don’t know a lot better,…