No driver has won a points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway since Jeff Gordon in September 1996, but that is set to change this coming July.
For years, it was thought that the four-turn, 0.625-mile (1.006-kilometer) North Wilkesboro, North Carolina was gone from the schedule for good, until a revitalization project, spearheaded by Dale Earnhardt Jr., came together and turned out to be a complete success even beyond its initial iRacing goal.
In 2023, North Wilkesboro returned as the host of the NASCAR All-Star Race. It retained its slot as the host of the exhibition race in both 2024 and 2025, making it just the second track in NASCAR history to host the race for more than two straight years.
Kyle Larson won the All-Star Race in 2023 before Joey Logano won it in 2024 and Christopher Bell won it in 2025.
But the North Wilkesboro revitalization did not stop there.
For the first time in three decades, North Wilkesboro is back on the Cup Series schedule as the host of a points race in 2026.
The race, which technically debuted all the way back in 1949, is dubbed the Window World 450, and it is scheduled to take place on Sunday, July 19. It was initially the Window World 400 before it was extended from 400 to 450 laps.
While it marks North Wilkesboro's first time on the actual Cup Series championship calendar since 1996, 2026 also marks the track's first time on the schedule with only a single race since 1956.
The track hosted a single race in 1949 and then again in 1950, but from 1951 to 1996 (except for 1956), it hosted two races per year.
Tim Flock was the lone race winner in 1956. Who will join him as the lone winner in 2026, seven decades later?
Unfortunately, the return to North Wilkesboro did come at the expense of another historic venue, one which had hosted at least one points race each year since it opened in 1969, and that track is Dover Motor Speedway.
Fortunately for Dover, even though it will no longer host one of the series' 36 points races this year, it is still scheduled to host the All-Star Race, replacing North Wilkesboro in that capacity. That race is scheduled to take place on Sunday, May 17.
Dover, like North Wilkesboro, also used to host two points races per year, doing so each year from 1971 through 2020 after hosting just one in 1969 and 1970, but it had only hosted one each year from 2021 through 2025.
The start of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season is just under a month and a half away, with Fox set to provide live coverage of the 68th annual Daytona 500 from Daytona International Speedway starting at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, February 15.