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Racing returns to former Cup venue.

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The one-mile North Carolina Speedway at Rockingham has been saved from possible extinction after veteran driver and race school owner Andy Hillenburg tabled the winning bid when the facility went up for auction last month.

The circuit, known as ‘The Rock' hosted 78 Cup Series races between 1965 and 2004 and became established as the traditional post Daytona 500 stop on the Cup schedule. However NASCAR's realignment plan coupled with Rockingham's comparatively meagre seating capacity meant that it hosted just one race in 2004 before its remaining date went to the Texas Motor Speedway.

For more than three years the track sat in virtual silence with occasional Cup and Busch Series testing pretty much the only activity barring an occasional stint as a film set and when owners Speedway Motorsports Inc announced that it would be sold there were grave fears that the facility would be bought by developers and the site would be raised.

However Hillenburg, who won the 1995 ARCA Championship and has made 16 career NASCAR Cup Series starts including one in the final Cup event held at the Rock in February 2004, submitted the winning bid of some four million dollars to become the venues new president.

Hillenburg will open a high performance driving school at the one-mile oval and has already announced a massive coup for the entire Rockingham region when he confirmed the first major race at the newly re-christened Rockingham Speedway will be the inaugural Carolina 500 ARCA event on May 4th next year.

The ARCA race, which will carry the name of the first Cup race held at the track in 1965, will be the longest event on the series schedule and have the biggest field with a maximum of 50 starters. Such is the rich NASCAR history in the Rockingham area a sell-out crowd of 60,000 is expected for what could be the richest ARCA race of all time.

The revitalisation of Rockingham will give fans hope that North Wilkesboro, another former Cup Series track currently decaying away, can also be saved from the real estate developers and restored to its former glory.