What did Hickory Motor Speedway do to pack the stands and fill the pits last weekend? Simply put, the usual, for its 2026 season opener.
“Our fans may have been hungrier than normal for racing,” Hickory Motor Speedway promoter Kevin Piercy said. “They love racing and they were closed in all winter.”
Piercy added they advertised the opener the same way they typically do — on local radio and on Facebook. The weather may have helped, though.
“God gave us a tremendously beautiful day,” Piercy said. “It was nearly 80 degrees when we started the program and it didn’t even get cold when the sun went down. Furthermore, we got through the whole program and then it started raining. It was one of those nights everything went right.”
Piercy’s promoted Hickory Motor Speedway for 18 years. He’s seen his fair share of rough March weather. Nevertheless, could the season opener’s attendance signal a well-attended year overall in 2026?
“I would love to see pavement racing make a big comeback,” Piercy said. “What hurt pavement racing over the past years is that it became not cheap to race. A lot of potential drivers went to iRacing, where you can race, wreck, hit a button and race again. It costs money to race a real car on a real racetrack, but nothing compares to it.”
He feels the one division that might help entice new racers is its Crown Vic class.
“Racers need an affordable division,” Piercy said. “You can’t just run Crown Vics, though. Promoters still need the other divisions to make a show. We have a great group of competitors in all of our divisions — late models, limited late models, street stocks, trucks, Crown Vics and renegades — all bringing in the fans that support Hickory Motor Speedway.”
Hickory Motor Speedway will try to go for two-for-two with packed crowds this upcoming weekend. The Pro All Stars Series rolls into town for Easter Bunny 200 on Friday, March 13-Saturday, March 14.
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
