After nearly three decades away, NASCAR is preparing to bring a Cup Series points race back to North Wilkesboro Speedway next month, restoring one of the sport’s most storied venues to the national spotlight. The return marks the first points‑paying Cup event at the track since 1996, and the entire weekend is shaping up to be a celebration of NASCAR’s earliest roots.
Before the Cup Series takes center stage, the Truck Series will open the weekend on July 18, and that race will feature a familiar name climbing back into a NASCAR vehicle. Ryan Newman, a former Daytona 500 champion, 18‑time Cup winner, and one of the sport’s most decorated qualifiers, will drive the No. 25 Ram for Kaulig Racing, marking his first NASCAR start since 2023.
The No. 25 entry has become one of the most unusual storylines of the season. Instead of relying on a single full‑time driver, Kaulig has turned the truck into a rotating seat for high‑profile veterans and versatile racers. The lineup has included former champions, X‑Games icons, television analysts, and road‑course specialists. The group’s best finish so far came when A.J. Allmendinger steered the truck to sixth place at Watkins Glen, but the entry has yet to reach Victory Lane.
For Newman, the return carries personal significance. He spent the prime of his career driving Dodge equipment, and during the manufacturer’s modern Cup Series run from 2001 to 2012, no driver won more races for Dodge than Newman’s 12 victories. His 2003 season remains one of the most statistically unusual years in NASCAR history: he won eight races, earned Driver of the Year, and posted an average starting position of 6.3, the best in the series that season.
Five years later, he delivered Dodge its final triumph in the Daytona 500, winning the 50th running of the event. Newman’s Cup career eventually spanned 725 starts, producing 18 wins, including the 2013 Brickyard 400, where he set a track‑record pole speed of 187.531 mph before winning the race. He also captured the 2002 All‑Star Race, and in 2023, NASCAR honored him as one of its 75 Greatest Drivers.
Although Newman rarely competed in the Truck Series, his results were remarkably efficient. Across seven career Truck starts between 2008 and 2018, he finished in the top five six times and won at Atlanta Motor Speedway, now EchoPark Speedway, in his very first attempt. He also earned seven victories in what is now the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Newman has long been associated with success at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, one of the tracks that inherited North Wilkesboro’s former dates when the schedule shifted in the late 1990s. He is one of only five drivers alongside Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, and Denny Hamlin—to win three or more Cup races at the one‑mile oval. Even after stepping away from full‑time NASCAR competition, he continued racing Modifieds and won a SMART Modified Tour event there in 2022.
For many fans, Newman’s name is forever linked to the frightening final‑lap crash in the 2020 Daytona 500, when his car struck the wall head‑on at more than 190 mph, flipped, and was hit again by another competitor. The impact ignited a fire and left the car sliding upside‑down across the finish line. Rescue teams worked for 16 minutes to free him before he was transported to Halifax Medical Center.
In a moment that stunned the racing world, Newman walked out of the hospital 48 hours later, holding the hands of his two daughters. The incident became a powerful testament to the safety advancements implemented since Dale Earnhardt’s 2001 accident. Now, as NASCAR prepares to race again at North Wilkesboro, Newman returns to a track that mirrors his own career: historic, resilient, and impossible to overlook.
His appearance in the Truck Series adds another layer of significance to a weekend already steeped in nostalgia, and it gives fans a chance to see one of the sport’s most accomplished veterans take on a venue that helped define NASCAR’s earliest decades. His return also brings a level of competitive intrigue, as Newman’s experience on short tracks has historically made him a threat regardless of the equipment he’s in.
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