Rockingham's revival weekend was a huge success. Is NASCAR Cup Series next?

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — There was a moment on Saturday when Kasey Kahne thought back to 2004.

February 2004, specifically.

The 45-year-old driver could picture who he was 20-plus years ago, how he was feeling, as the NASCAR Xfinity Series race stalled under a red flag with less than 10 laps to go at Rockingham Speedway. He felt a lot different Saturday than he did back then — when he was a mere 25-year-old upstart, a young’un, battling tooth-and-tire with eventual race-winner and defending champion Matt Kenseth at then-named North Carolina Speedway.

“I said, ‘You were doing that, and you weren’t even that worn out after the race!’ ” Kahne said on pit road Saturday, thinking back to Feb. 2004. He laughed as he reflected on how overheated and exhausted he was. “And I’m on the backstretch just sitting under the red flag, just worn out.

“And I was just like, ‘Things were different 20 years ago.’ ”

Kahne finished 15th on Saturday, tacking on an admirable finish to a special weekend. But his parting sentiment — of thinking back to the way things were — was a universal theme to Rockingham’s successful revival weekend.

Saturday, after all, marked the first NASCAR Xfinity Series race since 2004 — the same year of that last NASCAR Cup Series race at The Rock, the one Kahne’s mind wandered to. Kahne was also part of The Rock’s “first revival” — back in 2012, when he won a standalone Truck Series race — but he said this latest revival weekend felt a bit different, in a good way.

“I don’t remember it a ton because I raced (at Texas Motor Speedway) on Friday and Saturday night, flew here and raced Sunday, so there was a lot going on that weekend,” Kahne said of that April 2012 Truck race at The Rock.

He added, “I remember I had a blast driving and it was a really cool race to be part of. I feel like there was way more people here today, and I feel like there’s a lot more excitement this weekend than what I remember then. But like I said, I was in Texas the first three four days of the weekend and leading into it.”

Success confirms Rockingham is ‘on the radar’ of NASCAR Cup Series

Kahne isn’t the only one who felt like this weekend’s resurrection felt special.

Another person who agreed with Kahne is Bob Sargent.

Sargent is the president and CEO of Track Enterprises, one of the leading race promoter companies in the country. Sargent was approached by NASCAR last year to help ready the racetrack for Rockingham’s big return to the Truck Series and Xfinity Series schedules, and he handled the communications between the facility and the sanctioning body.

After Saturday’s race, he said he spoke with all the stakeholders of the weekend’s festivities and only heard positive responses. That included the Truck Series race Friday and the sold-out Xfinity Series race Saturday.

“I’m pretty hands on, so I talked to them from Thursday night, when we got here, to all day today,” Sargent told The Charlotte Observer. “Talked to a lot of different people at NASCAR, whether they were here or weren’t here. (Former NASCAR president and current board member) Mike Helton was here yesterday, and I talked to people on the phone today. And the teams that were here, we talked to them a lot.

“Older, veteran drivers that I got relationships with, they were texting me, calling me. And then again, the sponsors who were here, I talked with them all day long. The fans. The officials. My workers. A lot of positives from everybody.”

The specific positives? Sargent said it was “a culmination of everything.” The traffic was manageable. Moving around the 250-acre facility was made easier by a friendly staff and tons of golf carts. The concessions were great. The weather held out. The racing held up.

When asked if he thought the weekend proved that Rockingham Speedway was deserving of being back on the Cup schedule, he offered nuance.

“Yes, absolutely, with the caveat that NASCAR is a big, worldwide entity, and when you look at dates, there are only so many,” he said. “There are only so many geographic regions and things like that. So there are many factors that go into when dates get put where. So it’s not a magic wand.

“But I feel comfortable, and am not saying anything out of line that, yes, we did everything we needed to do.”

He added: “It’s a process. But we are on the radar. We are in that process.”

Rockingham made for a ‘really special weekend’

It’s hard to argue with the race results. In the Xfinity Series race specifically, there were 17 lead changes and a record 83 caution laps run on a second-best 14 separate caution flags, a product of drivers seizing opportunities, taking chances.

Ostensible race-winner Jesse Love certainly thought so.

“I don’t know how much people moved around today, but I found a lot of speed on the top side of the racetrack,” the 20-year-old driver said. “We call it the top, it was more like the middle — and (Cup Series star Kyle) Larson would say it’s the bottom. But I felt like I was running higher than others around me, and I was able to make some passes there. And that’s only going to get better as it goes on and we keep running here.”

He added: “So I really hope (to come back to The Rock). It’s a cool atmosphere. The fans want it, and you gotta give them what they want. So that was a really special weekend.”

Love was ultimately disqualified after postrace inspections revealed a rear suspension issue with his No. 2 car, and Sammy Smith was awarded his first win of the season.

Regardless, it wasn’t hard to find people to rave about the success that was Rockingham. From drivers, to officials, to even fans — who celebrated the return on Thursday, before any of this week’s racing began.

They all talked about its past as a rite of passage in the sport of racing, as a bastion of small-town Americana, as a fixture in NASCAR. They praised the present, too.

All that’s left is to discuss Rockingham’s future.

And, in that regard, supporters of The Rock hope the weekend spoke for itself.