MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 17, 2025) — When JR Motorsports rolls into Rockingham Raceway this weekend, it will mark the first time the NXS has run at the 1.017-mile track since Feb. 21, 2004.
That is 21 years, 1 month and 30 days between races, to be precise.
The final race at The Rock, which was one of the nine active tracks that were on the NASCAR Xfinity Series inaugural season’s schedule in 1982, was won by Jamie McMurray, who bested Martin Truex Jr., who was driving for Chance2 Motorsports…owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. The second-generation driver had finished second in the final race the year before for Chance2.
McMurray would later give JR Motorsports-founded in 2005-its first victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2008.
“The Rock” is still a hard place to race, as the somewhat asymmetric oval has its quirks. Chief among them is Turn 2, which is slightly off-camber and tighter this time around due to the SAFER barriers required at all NASCAR ovals.
It does have new pavement, however, and that caught the attention of the only driver in the JRM HQ who has run there in a top-level NASCAR race: team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Now, they got new asphalt and I don’t want anything to do with that,” he said on his award-winning podcast The Dale Jr. Download. “I don’t like new asphalt. Give me the oldest asphalt you got, that’s the kind of track I like.
“When I was young and started racing in the NXS and Cup, I hated Darlington, Rockingham, all the wore-out places and I ran great at the high-grip repaves. We went to Pocono after they had repaved it and man, we were hooked up. Michigan, they paved it…hooked up. But now, I like the old worn-out tracks.”
There is a love-hate relationship for the 50-year-old NASCAR Hall of Famer and Rockingham, one of the cornerstones of NASCAR’s empire until it dropped off the schedule in 2005.
“I am glad (it’s back in the schedule),” he said. “I didn’t think Rockingham had a shot. I hated that place until the very last race, and then I was sad that I didn’t get more shots to run there.
“I ran there in the NXS in 1997 and drove the Wrangler car. My track bar was dropping on the right side as we ran and I ended up running 14th or something like that. I ran there again in 1998 and 1999 and I don’t think anything great happened.”
Now it’s back on the schedule, and NASCAR officials have indicated that it might return to the Cup Series slate as well. Despite his mixed opinion of the older track, Earnhardt Jr. was bullish on the future there.
“It just made me have a hard time appreciating the track because of how brutal it could be,” he said. “I went there as a rookie in the Cup Series and literally ran last all day, not knowing what the hell I was supposed to be doing. It was a track I didn’t appreciate, and it was hard.”
In the final race before Rockingham exited the schedule, it all clicked for Earnhardt Jr.
“The last race, I ran fifth and I had a good car and felt like I had figured it out. I was like, ‘man, that was pretty fun.’ Then they quit going.”
Now that it’s making its return, his JR Motorsports team will hit the new facility with eyes on getting to Victory Lane.
