NASCAR iRacing extended with return to North Wilkesboro Speedway
By Asher Fair
The eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series has been extended with a race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, which hasn’t hosted a NASCAR race since 1996.
What was initially scheduled to be a six-race virtual NASCAR series was extended to seven races, as a track which hasn’t hosted a NASCAR race since 1996 is set to host the final race of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series this Saturday, May 9.
During Sunday’s live broadcast of the race at virtual Dover International Speedway, the Fox broadcast team announced that the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series finale is set to be contested at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
The four-turn, 0.625-mile (1.006-kilometer) oval in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina hosted 93 Cup Series races from 1949, the sport’s inaugural season, to 1996.
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North Wilkesboro Speedway hosted two races in each year in all but three of those 48 years.
It also hosted four Xfinity Series races from 1983 to 1985 and two Truck Series races, one in 1995 and one in 1996.
The track was recently scanned by iRacing after Dale Earnhardt Jr. led a group of drivers and broadcasters to clear its surface in December. It is one of iRacing’s newest tracks and has not yet been released for the use of the iRacing community.
This Saturday afternoon’s race marks the first race of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series that will not be contested at the virtual version of the track originally scheduled to host a race before the coronavirus pandemic brought the season to an unexpected halt.
Homestead-Miami Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway and Dover International Speedway were all scheduled to host real-life Cup Series races on the weekends when their virtual variants hosted eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series races amid the pandemic.
Martinsville Speedway was initially scheduled to host a race this Saturday, but that race was also postponed as a result of the pandemic.
NASCAR is aiming to get real-life racing back underway at Darlington Raceway on Sunday, May 17 after releasing an altered schedule last week.
More changes are slated to come to the schedule at some point in the near future, as three of the four races scheduled to take place from now until the end of May were races that were not on the sport’s original 36-race schedule for the season. The sport still intends to complete a 36-race season.
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Fox, Fox Sports 1 and the Fox Sports app are set to simulcast this Saturday’s race live from virtual North Wilkesboro Speedway beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET, so be sure not to miss the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series finale.