On a basic level, it seemed to be an odd mix-a racetrack nearly 60 years old and idle for over eight years hosting a group of 26 young drivers looking to make their way up the NASCAR ladder.
When Roush Racing held a round of tryouts in late October in search of a driver for its Craftsman Truck Series team, the venue was North Wilkesboro Speedway, located just 45 minutes north of Roush's truck shop in Mooresville, North Carolina. The location turned a few heads, primarily because the track's owners, Bob Bahre and Bruton Smith, had allowed little to happen at the 51/48-mile facility in the years since Jeff Gordon won the track's last race, on September 29, 1996.
Since then, there was the private test of a soft-wall system a few years ago, and in May of 2001 Darrell Waltrip turned some laps in the Chevrolet he drove to the Winston Cup championship for Junior Johnson in 1985. Other than those events, the only significant activity occurred when an occasional storm blew through the area and damaged one or more of the buildings on the property.
That changed when Smith and Bahre agreed to allow Roush Racing to conduct one of its Gong Show tryouts at the track. The name is a take on a '70s television show hosted by Chuck Barris, in which a giant gong was struck as a signal to eliminate poor performers from the talent show format. (The tryouts were also dubbed the "Race for the Ride," an obvious take on NASCAR's Chase for the Championship.)
Most of the drivers participating in the tests had never been to the track, and most assuredly none had competed there. Therein lies the beauty of conducting the tests at North Wilkesboro. When the Roush crewchiefs were polled on where to hold the tryouts, the choice to go to North Wilkesboro was unanimous. They all agreed that the track offered a unique situation in that it presented a level playing field for the Gong Show participants. No driver could possibly have an advantage at a track where none had competed.
"I was stunned because I wondered what would make them want to come here," said Timothy Peters, 24, the 2004 Late Model Stock champion at South Boston (VA) Speedway. "But you get to thinking about it and realize nobody has an edge on anyone here. That's the good thing."
In fact, the history of the place meant little on the damp October morning when Roush haulers deposited two trucks at the quirky track with the uphill backstretch. This wasn't a time for sentimental remembrances of a historic track, where NASCAR itself can trace its roots from the red clay of the North Carolina foothills and where its top series ran every year from 1949 through the '96 season. Team members quickly went to work getting the trucks ready for Roush driver Jon Wood to shake down the trucks with some early laps.
If not for the peeling paint on the track's concrete retaining wall and on assorted infield buildings, the facility could be mistaken for one of the hundreds of active asphalt tracks around the country. With Gong Show participants hanging around the covered garage area on this Monday morning, alongside Roush employees at work tuning the trucks and a half dozen or so media members who were present, the overcast skies and light drizzle gave the sense of a hurry-up-and-wait mode that occurs thousands of times a year at tracks across the country.
History? An 8-year layoff? None of it mattered. The focus was on the weather, the wet track, and the 25 laps that each of the participants-seven on the first day-were to run.
At 9:57 a.m., two hours past the scheduled start time, Roush President Geoff Smith and John Reiser, father of crewchief Robby Reiser and the Roush employee who put the tryout together, began addressing the drivers. "We've had good success in doing these, to give opportunities to people like yourself," Smith told the group.
Reiser reminded the drivers that speed is not the only measure during the tests. "Try and keep the truck in one piece," he said.
The format called for nine drivers to try out the second day and 10 on Wednesday, the last day
MultiPart TestThe North Wilkesboro tests comprised the third Gong Show held by Roush Racing. The tryout is best known for producing Roush driver Kurt Busch, who emerged from the first Gong Show in 1999. A subsequent tryout was held in 2001, but no current drivers were selected from that group.
A strong Roush contingent turned out for the North Wilkesboro tests. Roush attended all three sessions, although he arrived late in the afternoon for the Monday session. Carl Edwards, a Truck Series driver who may run the No. 99 on the Nextel Cup circuit this season, was there on Monday and Wednesday to offer advice and serve as an evaluator. The group also included crewchiefs Pat Tryson, Tony Price, and Tony Liberati.
"My biggest role is just to talk to some of these guys and try to make sure they're not too nervous," said Edwards. "I know if I was in their shoes I would be shaking and unable to sleep for the last week."
The support system for the Gong Show is set up to at once address the concerns of the drivers and to test their ability to communicate with others.
"You are free to engage in any dialogue with anybody, just as you would if it were your race car," Smith, the company president, told the drivers. "You're going to treat it just like that. If it were your race car, who would you be talking to around here? You can try to get information from anybody who can give it."
Smith emphasized that Roush's marketing department would have a say in the process, as well. "Regardless of how fast you are in the truck," he said, "we've got to figure out whether or not your personality fits into what our organization is looking for. It's less about whether you're going to be a glamour superstar on the television, because it's amazing how speed can overcome any of those things. But we do like to see whether or not you have a personality that can work with our team."
EpilogueAfter developing a working list of 140 resumes from over 200 received, Roush employees continued to whittle the list of potential drivers until going to North Wilkesboro with 26.
"We got from 140 pretty easily down to 60," said Smith. "And then to get the 60 down to 25 it took a meeting with Jack [Roush] and John Reiser and the crewchiefs and some of our Cup drivers to go through that. After 25 we would have taken 10 if it had been clear that 10 were all that superior."
Ten was the number that survived the tryouts at North Wilkesboro. Those 10 advanced to the second round of testing, at Darlington Raceway in November.
"Narrowing down the list to 10 was much more difficult than any of us anticipated," said Roush. "I was very impressed by the level of talent we saw at North Wilkesboro. It was a very challenging track for all of the drivers, but they rose to the occasion.
"For the next test, we wanted another track that would be just as technical and demanding. Darlington was an obvious choice."
As Stock Car Racing went to press, Roush Racing had not released the names of the drivers who advanced to the Darlington tryouts. The driver or drivers selected for a spot in Roush's driver development program will be included in a future issue.
Agreeing To AgreeWhen Roush Racing decided to pursue the possibility of testing at North Wilkesboro Speedway, it had a slight in-house advantage. Joyce Caron-Mercier, director of sponsor operations for Roush, worked for North Wilkesboro Speedway co-owner Bob Bahre for 7 years and was Bahre's vice president of marketing at New Hampshire International Speedway when she left to work for Roush.
Caron-Mercier still talks to Bahre via telephone once a week, but she didn't know what to expect when she made the call to Bahre concerning Roush holding its Gong Show at North Wilkesboro.
Bahre's reaction? Recalled Caron-Mercier: "He said, 'Wow, that's a great idea. I've always said no to everybody, but with Jack Roush and that organization, you guys are doing something real great for the future. Call my partner [Bruton Smith] and tell him it's OK with me only if it's OK with him.' So that's how it started."
The lack of cooperation between Bahre and Smith is well chronicled, however, as neither will sell his half to the other or, until the Roush test, allow anything significant to happen at the track. Needless to say, there was more apprehension when Caron-Mercier called Smith.
Smith's reaction? "Bruton just said, 'You tell Jack Roush to call me and we'll make it work.' It was that quick. It was really fast," said Caron-Mercier.
Bahre and Smith purchased the track after the death of one of its founders and a primary stockholder, Enoch Staley, in 1995. Both wanted the track's race dates-Bahre for New Hampshire, and Smith for Texas Motor Speedway.
Jerry Gappens, a spokesman for Smith, said there are no immediate plans to revive North Wilkesboro Speedway. Gappens said the track would have to undergo major upgrades before it could become a full-fledged test facility.