NASCAR Holds First Points Cup Race at North Wilkesboro in 30 Years

NASCAR will stage a points-paying Cup Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway on Sunday for the first time since 1996. The Window World 450 is set to start at 7 p.m. ET on the 0.625-mile oval and will be shown on TNT and truTV with a pre-race show at 6 p.m.

ET. The event can be streamed on HBO Max. The race covers 450 laps for 281.2 miles and is divided into three stages of 80, 185 and 185 laps. Ryan Blaney will start from the pole after rain canceled qualifying Saturday, placing him there as the most recent winner.

Blaney won last weekend at EchoPark Speedway in overtime for his second victory of the 2026 season and sits third in the standings, 65 points behind leader Denny Hamlin. The track first opened in 1947 as a red-dirt oval. It last hosted a points Cup race in 1996, won by Jeff Gordon.

Richard Petty holds the record with 15 wins at the track, followed by Darrell Waltrip with 10. North Wilkesboro returned to the schedule for the All-Star Race in 2023, which Kyle Larson won, followed by Joey Logano in 2024 and Christopher Bell in 2025. Four drivers remain in the $1 million In-Season Challenge: Todd Gilliland, Chase Elliott, Blaney and Bell.

Six races remain before the postseason Chase begins. The starting lineup includes Blaney in the No. 12, Ty Gibbs in the No. 54, Bell in the No. 20, Carson Hocevar in the No. 77, Tyler Reddick in the No.

45 and Denny Hamlin in the No. 11. Ross Chastain’s No. 1 car failed inspection three times and will serve a drive-thru penalty. Austin Hill and Connor Zilisch’s cars failed inspection twice and face crew-member ejections.

The race is a sellout. Dale Earnhardt Jr. led cleanup work at the track in 2019 for an iRacing scan. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper directed $18 million from the American Rescue Plan Act for improvements in 2021.