In its third season of hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race, the calls for the historic North Wilkesboro Speedway to return to being part of the points-paying schedule are louder than ever, and rightfully so.
The 2025 edition of the All-Star Race was by far the most successful race at North Wilkesboro since the facility's long-awaited return from being left for dead in 2023.
It featured a record number of lead changes for the event and put on exciting side-by-side action all night long, with Christopher Bell emerging with the win after making a late pass on Joey Logano.
The experiment to revive the historic site can officially be considered a success, and it's time to take the next step. Finding a place to put North Wilkesboro back on the 36-race Cup Series calendar might seem like a challenge, but there's one route that seems obvious.
North Wilkesboro should take over Darlington's spring date and throwback theme
It just makes too much sense. Darlington Raceway, a romanticized staple of the Cup Series schedule itself, has held multiple race dates since the 2020 season. However, it can be argued that the South Carolina circuit is the type of track that would feel more special if it held only one date, the crown jewel Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend.
That was the case for Darlington between 2005 and 2019, with the Southern 500 leaving its traditional Labor Day slot in 2004 but returning in 2015.
That 2015 weekend saw the debut of NASCAR's throwback weekend to celebrate the occasion, but when Darlington was awarded a second date again in 2021 (following the success of two additional races the track unexpectedly held in 2020 due to COVID-19), it was moved to spring.
This has taken some of the mystique out of the throwback theme, and it only feels right to give that weekend a new home in Wilkes County while leaving Darlington to exclusively hold its 500-mile event.
NASCAR could market the return of a points race at North Wilkesboro in the same way they did the return of the Southern 500 to Labor Day weekend in 2015, and it would be a win-win for everyone.
In an era when NASCAR is prioritizing schedule diversity more than ever, this needs to happen. Currently, 27 unique tracks (counting Charlotte Motor Speedway's oval and infield road course as separate entities) hold dates on the Cup Series calendar, but there is still room for more. Giving Darlington's second date to North Wilkesboro would be a victory for not one, but two historic pillars of American stock car racing's most prestigious circuit.