THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 28, 1996 TAG: 9609280518
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. LENGTH: 164 lines
There are no cars in the shop of Junior Johnson. There are a few tools scattered about, but the place is mostly empty.
There are no race cars in the shop because he no longer races. The famous Junior Johnson race shop closed its doors after the 1995 season when he sold his team to Brett Bodine.
On Sunday, they'll be writing the last chapter on another NASCAR institution in Wilkes County - North Wilkesboro Speedway.
They're calling it ``The Last Lap'' - the final Winston Cup race. It's Junior's home track.
``I'm not going,'' he says matter of factly.
Outside the speedway, Nancy Mattade of Blakeley, Penn., and Judy Tuit of West Milford, N.J., have settled down in a small motor home parked on a grassy knoll outside turn 4.
``Of course we're going,'' Nancy says. They're not only going, they arrived five days early just to hang around. It's part of their fall racing vacation with their husbands. Martinsville, North Wilkesboro, Charlotte and then back home for the winter.
Their only question about North Wilkesboro Speedway is whether they will have anything to come back to next year.
The tide of progress has rolled over North Wilkesboro Speedway, and after 50 years of stock-car racing, the black flag falls on the facility as a major league NASCAR track. And on the eve of what appears to be the final Winston Cup race, the future of the facility is fraught with uncertainty.
``I don't know what's going to happen,'' says track president Mike Staley. ``As soon as the owners let me know, I'll be the first to let everyone know.
``I know what I'd like to do. This track still would be great for the Busch series and truck races and a lot of great events. But it's up to the owners.''
For 50 years, Mike Staley's father, Enoch, took care of the place. For almost that long, he's had two big NASCAR races - one in the spring and one in the fall. Enoch Staley started North Wilkesboro Speedway and was its only president until he died in the spring of 1995. His death set off a chain of events that led to the demise of North Wilkesboro as a Winston Cup track.
Johnson sees no reason to attend the farewell race.
``Enoch is not there. That's part of it,'' he says. ``Jack Combs (former co-owner), he's not going
to be there. It would be more of a sad deal for me - to go out and just stand around and look at something disappear, something I can remember almost since I've been around.''
In a single year, the NASCAR pulse that used to beat so strongly in this region has almost disappeared. First, Junior retired. And now North Wilkesboro Speedway has lost its Winston Cup identity.
``It is a sad day in this area that NASCAR's top dog show will no longer be part of our county,'' said Lin Brooks, president of the Wilkes Chamber of Commerce. ``This allowed North Wilkesboro to have a national identity. This allowed the name North Wilkesboro to be circulated around the country.''
Of course, the lost income will hurt, too. Brooks does not have a figure. It will be in the millions of dollars. On the other hand, a look around this county suggests that the folks of Wilkes County are not exactly slaves to the NASCAR dollar.
The stereotype of a dirt-poor county with bad soil whose residents were compelled to make moonshine to pull themselves up by their bootstraps simply does not wash. It hasn't for generations.
There's a huge Tyson chicken -processing plant in Wilkesboro. Nearly all the country folk throughout the region raise chickens for the plant, where more than 3,000 people work.
The Lowe's home-supply chain was founded in Wilkes County and is headquartered here, providing jobs for another 1,600 people.
The American Drew furniture plant employs more than 700, and Carolina Mirror employs 600.
In fact, the existence of the racetrack is barely a ripple in the lifeblood of the Wilkes County economy, at least as represented by the chamber's own 40-page guide. It contains only one small photo of the track and this single, out-of-date mention: ``Grand National NASCAR racing is available at the North Wilkesboro Speedway.''
But any time you have a crowd of 40,000 packing an arena situated in a rural county of fewer than 60,000, there will be an impact.
``For me, the loss of these two races means as much as one month's income,'' says Eric Williams, pausing from the task of fixing a broken toilet in a guest room.
Williams is the owner of the Williams Motel, which has 34 rooms. His dad built the place in 1953, and he took over in 1978.
Every spring and fall, the track has rented the entire motel for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights of the race weekend. It's been that way since the 1950s.
Williams undoubtedly would suffer even more than one month's income loss but for one fact that makes him a rarity among motel and hotel owners on the Winston Cup circuit: The Williams Motel does not raise its rates for a race weekend.
Prices are $24 and up. And at the Williams, $50 is well beyond the upper end of up, even on the Saturday night before the race, when you couldn't scare up a room for any price 50 miles in any direction.
The departure of the Winston Cup series won't kill business at the Williams Motel. For one thing, if the track lands dates for Grand National or NASCAR truck races, the motel undoubtedly will sell out for those events.
Beyond racing, The Williams fills up for the town's annual apple festival and the Merle Watson bluegrass festival. ``And we fill up every weekend in October for the fall foliage,'' Williams says.
The motel will carry on. But it's more than an economic loss. It's an emotional loss.
``I'm just like everybody else around here,'' Williams says. ``I grew up with these people comin' in here. I know 'em all by name. I know their wives by name. I know their kids by name. They know me and my family.
``It's going to be sad if they don't come here because I won't see them again. So it's not just the money.''
And it's not just that Wilkesboro will be losing the Winston Cup series. The Winston Cup series will be losing Wilkesboro.
You can stay at Hampton Inns and Holiday Inns all over the country, but it is special at the Williams. It has character. Personality. It is real America, unburnished by corporate sheen. And, by goodness, it has an owner who doesn't think it's fair to jack up the prices when the races come to town.
And it's those home-cooked meals at Harold's Restaurant, where the banana pudding is so good, Darrell Waltrip still sends for a carryout order even when he doesn't have time to stop by.
There is a sense of time standing still in Wilkes County.
Willie Clay Call, an old moonshiner who lives just a couple of miles up Speedway Road from the track, recalls that in the years before his death, Enoch Staley used to slip out of his box during the race and ride over to Call's home, where they would watch the action live on television.
But business must prevail over sentimentality.
``I hate to see it go, but I reckon the whole world's for sale if you've got the money,'' Call says.
After Staley's death, the family of Charlie Combs, Staley's founding partner, sold their half of the track to Speedway Motorsports Inc., and O. Bruton Smith. Smith wanted the other half, but the Staley family sold it to New Hampshire International Speedway owner Bob Bahre.
That did not sit well with Smith, who won't communicate with Bahre, at least directly.
Still, they managed to agree on the most important issue - the future of the Winston Cup dates. Smith agreed to take the spring date for his new speed palace outside Fort Worth, Texas. Bahre took the fall date for a second race at his New Hampshire track.
But as of now, there is no plan for the future of North Wilkesboro Speedway itself, even though it is fancier than 98 percent of the short tracks around the country, with luxury suites and more than 30,000 seats.
As you might expect, folks around here are not particularly fond of Smith or Bahre.
``I've got Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre over here on the wall,'' says Harold Call, owner of Harold's Restaurant. ``See the picture of the two hogs?''
``Bruton Smith has angered so many people around here, it's unreal,'' said Brooks.
``That's wrong,'' said Johnson. ``They don't have a real reason for not liking Bob or Bruton.''
Junior Johnson is nothing if not pragmatic, and in this case, business is business. For the same reason, he sees North Wilkesboro Speedway as a viable business for years to come, if not at the level of the Winston Cup series.
``When the race is over, I think you'll see North Wilkesboro Speedway shake itself out and continue on in a smaller capacity,'' he said.
``I think you'll see the Busch Grand National series upgrade to North Wilkesboro from other smaller tracks just as you're seeing the Winston Cup series upgrade out of North Wilkesboro.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
North Wilkesboro Speedway, the 0.625-mile track that has been part
of NASCAR's premier series since 1949, will hold its final Winston
Cup race Sunday. On a clear day, fans in the track's South
Grandstands were offered a stunning view of more than 100 miles of
the Blue Ridge Mountains.
NASCAR legend Junior Johnson retired last year. On Sunday, his home
track, too, will leave the Winston Cup series. by CNB