Rockingham Speedway: Death via Proximity

Rockingham Speedway’s Logo

I’m not entirely certain Rockingham Speedway has a future, even as a housing development.

When I was in college I went to a NASCAR race at Rockingham Motor Speedway. It was a nice facility, easy to get in and out of. You could see the entire track, and it provided close racing. At the time Rockingham was everything you wanted in a racetrack, and now it’s heading for a forced auction, and rightly so.

With all due respect to Andy Hilllenburg I just don’t think that Rockingham is a viable entity in today’s economy and culture. Indycar’s audience is still small, and NASCAR’s viewership and attendance has been steadily declining. Interest in racing as a whole is on the wane and Rockingham is located beside two of the NASCAR’s more iconic venues.

The Rock was built back when NASCAR was regional sport, and having a racetrack an hour and half away from Charlotte Motor Speedway and an hour away from Darlington Raceway made sense. Those three tracks once hosted a fourth of all NASCAR races, but now Charlotte is removing seats and Darlington only hosts one race a year. Still, those two tracks are what will eventually seal Rockingham’s fate.

The Carolinas have changed, and NASCAR has become more expensive both for fans and sponsors. Neither the of NASCAR’s two support series draws a crowd at standalone weekends in America, and the Sprint Cup series is never going to return to Rockingham. Hillenburg tried to make Rockingham viable with ARCA races, Camping World Truck races, testing and movie shoots and it didn’t work. There isn’t the need in North and South Carolina for another lower-tier NASCAR race in that area, between the two-weeks of racing at Charlotte in May, Darlington and Charlotte’s fall date that area is well served. There’s not enough testing, nor enough movie shoots to keep the facility profitable.

NASCAR doesn’t need another oval in the South, but Indycar does, so that could be a solution right? Yeah, probably not.

While the crew at Barber Motorsport Park have shown that Indycar can work in the deep South Indycar hasn’t had a lot of success with ovals outside of Indianapolis and Texas in the recent past. Beyond paying Indycar’s sizable sanctioning fee, Rockingham would likely have to be repaved to get the most out of the low-slung open wheel cars. So beyond purchasing the track there’d be an additional $2 to $3 million investment, and no one will buy spend that much on a risky Indycar date.

The other problem with Rockingham is that it’s an oval, and ovals can only be used for one thing, professional racing. Before Indycar came to Barber the track had built a following with track days, motorcycle races, the Porsche driving school and corporate events, and you can’t really do those things on an oval.

Atlanta Motorsport Park was built as a private club course two years ago, and has/will have enough private/corporate revenue that it doesn’t need to host large spectator events. Rockingham can’t do that. If you have a shunt on a road course you maybe damage your expensive track day car. If get loose on an oval you destroy your expensive track day car and probably take a trip to the hospital. Between crash damage and personal injury track days and club racing on ovals just doesn’t work. Also, because of the physics of oval racing tires last a lot longer on road courses.

In short a rich guy can run his Audi R8 around a road course a lot longer, and a lot safer with a lower chance of crash damage around Barber than they could around Rockingham.

For the sake of argument say whoever buys Rockingham manages to engage the corporate community of the Raleigh-Durham area, and starts turning a profit as a corporate engagement center, starts hosting successful outdoor music weekends, or makes Humpy Wheeler’s idea work? What is to stop Charlotte from copying that program and undercutting its profitability? Nothing.

Further cutting into Rockingham’s revenue stream is the dragway across the street. Rockingham Dragway is just across U.S. 1 from the Speedway, and makes it impossible for the speedway to expand into that market.

So it all comes down to location. Rockingham is only an hour and half away from Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro and Fayetteville, a strong economy with a sizable middle class. That’s gold, if Rockingham were in a location like that in almost any other region in America it would be a viable business, but proximity to two of NASCAR’s biggest crown jewels will likely seal its fate.