ROCKINGHAM
Down the steps they rumbled: the fathers holding their 2-year-old sons on their hips, the mothers who’d been cracking jokes all morning, the race fans who wanted to be reminded of something old by doing something new.
All of them, all 300 or so of them, marched down into the gravel.
And all of them, at least it seemed like, were greeted by NASCAR royalty.
“How are ya?” said a smiling Kyle Petty, over and over again, extending his hand for a handshake.
“Have a great time,” he said, in one way or another, his smile wide.
NASCAR legend Kyle Petty greets fans at they exit the Rockingham Special for race day at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April, 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
It was just past 10 a.m. on Saturday. The fans were marching down the steps of an Amtrak train — the “Rockingham Special” as it’s called. They boarded from Raleigh Union Station, or from a stop at Cary or Southern Pines, and took the train all the way to the tracks just outside Rockingham Speedway. The first iteration of such a route was in April 2025, the year NASCAR returned to The Rock for the first time in over a decade.
And this year, a giddy Petty wanted to see it for himself.
“I saw on the blip on the internet that there was a train coming out of the Raleigh area to Rockingham, and I was like, ‘I raced down there for a million years, I’ve never heard about a train coming,’” Petty said. “I knew the train tracks were here. So I set my alarm. I set my alarm for 9:40 a.m. so I could just walk over here and see the train.
“I’ve flown to racetracks, I’ve driven to racetracks. I’ve never taken a train to a racetrack, so I had to see what that was like.”
Who he met was a bunch of Carolinians. Some first-time NASCAR race attendees. Some NASCAR veterans. Some NASCAR fans who were hoping to reconnect with a sport that maybe they’d lost touch with over the years — who saw this train as a path back into the sport’s grasp.
And if there’s anyone you ought to meet coming off such a train — however you identify as a NASCAR fan — Petty might’ve just been the right person to meet.
An Amtrak employee pokes her head out of one of the cabins as the Rockingham Special approaches its stop near gate E for race day at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April, 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com NASCAR fans are ‘pumped about being here’
Petty considers Rockingham Speedway his home track. He grew up in Randleman, after all, 65 miles due north of the speedway. He’d won three Cup races here — all three between the years 1990 and 1992. He’s the son of Richard Petty, the King, the all-time Cup wins leader in all of NASCAR and the all-time wins leader at Rockingham, too.
He loves that The Rock is back, he said. Rockingham Speedway, after all, was a longtime fixture of NASCAR racing back when it opened in 1965. It was on the Cup schedule twice a year for decades before NASCAR left in 2004. And now, thanks to some serendipity and hard work and community magic, it’s a giant piece of history that is back on NASCAR’s radar, successfully eluding a fate of abandoned disrepair and staying very much alive.
You could tell Petty loved his home track by the way he greeted those who hopped off the train. When passengers asked him for a photo, he obliged. When they initiated a conversation, he obliged. When passengers bid their farewells, having to march across the gravel and through the woods and into the speedway fray to catch the ARCA race at 11 a.m. (eventually won by Tristan McKee) and the O’Reilly Series race at 2:30 p.m. (won by William Sawalich), he pointed them in the right direction, matching everyone’s energy.
“Richmond County, these people are pumped up down here,” Petty said. “And that’s something I noticed more than anything else: the excitement of being at racetracks. So many times, you go to a track, they’ve been there forever, and you get jaded to the experience.
“These people were pumped up about being here.”
NASCAR legend Kyle Petty, cenrer, poses for a photo with a fan as people exit the Rockingham Special for race day at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April, 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com The NASCAR fans Kyle Petty met
Among the people Petty saw walk by was a father and son from Wake Forest. Nyle Wadsford, a longtime NASCAR fan who used to go to Rockingham for decades, was introducing his son, Braxton, to the track.
Braxton, 21, is more of a Formula 1 follower. But as the two put it: Saturday was a chance for Braxton to start his stock car racing fandom — and for Nyle to “start over” with NASCAR.
“I’m looking forward to him showing me around,” Braxton said about what he was most excited about on Saturday.
His father smiled: “It’s gonna be interesting, man.”
There were many others curious like them. Take Tyler Long and Hannah Long, a married couple from Franklinton, who as the train cut through pine trees explained their interest in visiting all the old racetracks — from Martinsville to Bristol to North Wilkesboro to, yes, Rockingham. And the train afforded them the opportunity to do that.
“There are old, old tracks in between Raleigh and Durham that are buried in pine trees now — really classic, old dirt tracks, and now they’re overgrown,” Tyler said. “I like the history behind all that.”
Blake Wade, and his son, Hayes, 2, rode the Rockingham Special from Raleigh to attend the NASCAR races at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
One duo, in particular, was trying to start a tradition. It featured a father, Blake Wade from just outside of Raleigh, wearing a JR Motorsports hat and a Chase Elliot T-shirt. And then it featured a son, Hayes, whose 2-year-old enthusiasm made you recognize the wonders of the world around you: the soothing rhythm of a train’s wheels over metal; the anticipation of hearing snarling racecar engines; the shared ground between generations of fans sharing the same train — of how much the suburb of Apex has grown, of how beautiful the pine trees look pressed up against a cloudless sky, of how sports have changed and represented a vanishing way of a simpler life.
A sampling of the conversation between the endlessly curious, Lightning McQueen-fan son and the patient father:
Where are the train tracks?
Underneath us, buddy.
Where’s Mama?
She’s meeting us there with the pickup truck, bud.
Why are we slowing down?
Cuz we’re here.
“I’m just looking forward to seeing his reaction, having some fun with him, letting him see the cars,” Wade said. “My family traveled all over and went to NASCAR races when I was his age. And I’m just excited to do the same thing with him.”
Race fans exit the Rockingham Special for race day at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April, 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com ‘There’s going to be another one’
After 20 minutes or so of greeting passengers, Petty was about to hop in a golf cart back to the racetrack, back to his duties in the infield. But before doing so, the former Cup driver was asked about his father.
Specifically about one of the King’s most important wins.
“It’s funny,” Petty said, when asked if he remembered his father’s last win at Rockingham. “No you don’t. Because he’s won so many, you just think he’s won so many, there’s going to be another one. There’s going to be another one. You remember 199 and 200 then you remember 195 or 196.”
He knew, in other words, that his father’s reign over the sport would end. Just as all things do. He just never knew when such an end would come, when to savor and when to move on.
Saturday, he didn’t risk letting such a Rockingham experience go.
A makeshift station for riders of the Rockingham Special, an Amtrak train that transports race fans from Raleigh, Cary and Southern Pines, to Rockingham and back, for the NASCAR races at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday, April 4, 2026. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
The Charlotte Observer
Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22.
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