Exploring Historic NASCAR Country!

so right now i'm in uh north carolina about two miles away from north wilkesboro speedway and it's like one in the morning probably not gonna be able to see a whole lot but i was kind of like you know what i'm gonna dip off the highway here and see what you can see from wherever you can see it from um the whole argument that the they left the place because it was not uh not well accessible is absolutely true i feel like i'm in the middle of nowhere right now i can't imagine all kinds of trucks and trailers and stuff trying to get down this road like in a mass quantity this is really tight quarters here i've never been here before i don't know uh i don't know what to expect i don't know if i'm gonna see anything from the road or if i can drive up to the gate or for what so gotta risk it to get the biscuit i guess we're gonna find out well at the entrance to speedway lane there's this big sign here that uh is all faded out so it has nothing on it says it's a quarter mile down the road so uh i'm trying to make too much noise here because it looks like there's people actually live on this road which is even stranger imagine the big haulers coming down through here there's just people like this this looks like a neighborhood road that's crazy well i don't think i would be able to see anything because it looks like they got a couple attack dogs here the there's definitely activity you can see the big winston cup sign i'm just gonna try to turn around here [Music] let's see how can i even get back i'm trying to get these dogs out of the way they're kind of all up in my face here um please move mr dog made it out of uh north wilkesboro without getting attacked by any dogs another landmark back there if you haven't figured it out already that is the barn from days of thunder figure i gotta crash an old hotel silverado somewhere so where better to do that than right here uh well not literally right here i'm not gonna sit in this little gravel lot i'll go to a parking lot where i look uh less suspicious but uh yeah i'm gonna go over there and check that out in the morning whenever it's light so we can see a little bit better until then go park my rig so this morning uh the next little bit stiff a little rig right over there i've been here one time before this but it was also dark outside so i didn't really get to see anything but there it is not a whole lot going on here no i don't know um if somebody does have any idea if they actually filmed shots inside the barn i'd like to know because i don't know if it was used for exterior or if the i'm gonna shape you like a bullet thing was actually done inside there because they had that like ramp that went up into that main floor i respectfully acknowledge the private property sign i'm not going to go in the barn i just wanted to stand here to look at it better so it does look like you could work on stuff on that upper floor although uh maybe in 1990 you could park a car on it but now i'd be freaking death wish well that's about all the looking around i can do over there without uh trespassing which i'm not gonna do so i'm gonna go get some food probably demolish some pancakes ihop and then i'm gonna go check out dei and maybe him i'm kind of feeling that so we'll see it's cool looking i remember being here very vaguely when uh i was like six or so i came here with my dad just get out and check it out [Music] this is it it doesn't look like anything's really been changed it's in good shape but it looks like the light fixtures and stuff for like original to whenever this place was last popping uh i outside of figured it'd be close but it's still worth looking at trophies up there upstairs and this whole place is like a time capsule like really i also come back here whenever everything's back to normal there's really not a whole lot to do anywhere in this area most places are closed over there is where the 8 and 15 shops used to be back when those were still thin now they make like coilovers and like suspension parts in there that's pretty much it stay in the right lane uh it's a good looking building from the road real good in 4.1 miles take a slight right turn onto odell school road that entrance right over here is was actually dale's driveway um he used to live in the house right back there and dale jr used to live over there that was junior's driveway so he's got the gate big big opening for a motorhome a little double wide and just like that back to nothing it's pretty cool see that stuff kind of like makes it real if you listen to the stories on junior's podcast to talk about living across the street whatever this is real buildings real people normal stuff all happened right here everything how many times dale drove up and down this road doing whatever it was this is the old stomping grounds it's a real nice scenery i can only imagine what the rest of his property looks like [Music] so we made it over here to rockingham there's nothing out here nothing i don't know i haven't been able to find anybody there's definitely evidence of life here somebody lives in that little house hoping they would come out and try to say something to me looks like they put all the winners names on the rock i think matt kenseth was the last guy to win a cup series race here and his name looks the newest down there opposed to really old dale earnhardt here alan kalicki davey allison both of those guys died in the early 90s so this is [Music] that's super cool bill elliot mark martin curtis turner how old is this rock i feel like that had been added after the fact i don't know what's going on here this is uh interesting i don't know if there's like a doorbell i can ring or something there's i mean there's nothing nothing going on here really i must just not notice i think the drag strip's over there it looks like it's still open so some guy did just come out and he asked he's like yo good man i'm like yeah i just wanted to see the track i'm from out of town um he's like yo so i wish you could anywhere outside this parking lot it's like a liability zone or something and he said the security guys down there or dicks or they'll get a gallop on it because i was like what kind of walk like is there any place like walk up to and take a picture i don't have to drive through it but um we'll see if the security guys are down there maybe let's say something different i don't know so i drove by this way just kind of see you can see the old winston cup banner up there it's all faded there's a big budweiser ad over there it's all faded out man i wish so badly that i could walk around this place i could spend all day so you can see the backside of that winston cup thing better that ticket booth looks all overgrown you can see the tunnels under the track picnic tables out there the camping world truck series i think they use this place as recently as 2012 if i'm not mistaken but that was still eight years ago that's a long time like in my head 2012 doesn't seem like that long ago but eight years is a long time to not do anything this place is i gotta say that property manager dude probably has the freaking life he's got a little slingshot he can probably just go dick around in there whenever he feels like it like can you imagine how cool that would be like yeah your job is to manage an abandoned race track but you're the manager you do what you want you go in there and just have a good time that history is just amazing thinking about all the all the haulers coming down this road back in the day i get even just the roads that i took to get here we're so tiny like through the actual town of rockingham i'm just like i can't even imagine the circus of a nascar race coming through there it just it had to be a spectacle well now i'm headed to darlington because that's where the motorhome is at that i'm gonna go inspect um if it's nice and the price is right i'll probably buy it but it's really you can't tell from pictures what these things are like you got to go see in person you know test everything to get a dig through it like there's a lot a lot to be inspected so that's what i'm about to go do this one was formerly owned uh originally built for by al unser jr and then allegedly later sold to robbie gordon i can't i haven't validated that part of yet but it was definitely al juniors because his name was in the paperwork so he configured everything from the paint job of the interior and all that stuff it looks pretty cool the guy selling it is like a 73 year old guy near darlington um got a couple a couple coaches he's got a prevost h345 also so he's no stranger to this stuff so i'm hoping that it was properly taken care of but we'll see getting close now um that is darlington right there the dude doesn't live more than 15 minutes from here so i figured i would drive by just to see it i've never been here before either and i don't know i just like like seeing it that looks like the main entrance and then the tunnel's under there it's pretty wild how close all these old tracks are to each other kind of really shows you what the tour was like back in the day that and how close they are to the freaking road like look at that it's it's not more than like 50 yards from the road but rockingham was right on the road too like it's crazy you get the the more modern tracks like michigan that are way way way far away from the road like they were built with lots of space in mind but not here none of these og places they just put it somewhere because there wasn't enough people to worry about it