Concord Speedway is actually the third track to carry the name. The first was built off Poplar Tent Road in the 1950s and hosted seven NASCAR Grand National races between 1956 and 1959 - the era when stock car racing on dirt half-miles was still figuring out whether it was a sport or a hobby. Winners included Speedy Thompson, Marvin Panch, Fireball Roberts, Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, and Jack Smith. The second track, also off Poplar Tent, hosted five more Grand National races between 1962 and 1964 and ran into the 1970s. Both properties are now housing developments. The third Concord Speedway, the one most people remember, opened in 1982 - built by Henry Furr as a dirt half-mile, paved in 1986, reconfigured in 1991 into a tri-oval with three uniquely banked turns.

The half-mile's signature series was the Big 10 for Super Late Models, started in 1987. Jack Sprague won the first championship; Rich Bickle won back-to-back in 1991 and 1992; Freddie Query took titles in 1993, 1994, 2004, and 2005 and became the track's all-time wins leader. Super Late Models are full-bodied stock cars with serious horsepower running on short tracks - drivers learning the trade in cars built for closer-quarters racing than the superspeedway designs. The competition got close because the track demanded it: three different banking angles meant drivers had to set up for the entire lap, not just for the corners. The Big 10 ran in two stints, 1987-1996 and 2003-2005, and trained a generation of regional racers.

Starting in 2003, the half-mile hosted the North-South Shootout - a marquee event built around a 125-lap race for Tour-type Modifieds. The series also brought ARCA/CRA Super Series, PASS South Super Late Models, ISMA Supermodifieds, SK Modifieds, and Vintage cars. The marquee race was eventually renamed the John Blewett III Memorial 125, in honor of a Northeast modified racer killed in a 2007 crash at Thompson Speedway. The Shootout ran at Concord from 2003 to 2010, moved away after the death of original promoter Charles Kepley, then returned to Concord in 2015 through 2018 before relocating to Hickory Motor Speedway as Concord's future became uncertain. A short-track event named for a fatal crash and a deceased promoter has its own gravity - the kind a sport only acquires after enough years.

Concord sat in the geographic heart of NASCAR country - close enough to Charlotte Motor Speedway and the manufacturer shops that virtually every Cup Series driver passed through at some point. Dale Earnhardt Sr. raced here. Dale Earnhardt Jr. did too, before he was the Dale Jr. people line up to meet. Ernie Irvan ran laps here, as did Bobby Labonte and Justin Labonte, Ryan Preece, Daniel Hemric, Bobby Gill. The track also drew Shaq Vs. - the Shaquille O'Neal TV show, which opened its second season with Shaq racing Dale Jr. at Concord. The track filmed commercials for Mountain Dew, Coors Light, ESPN, the National Guard. Concord was a place where the camera came when the camera needed a track.

Weekly racing on the half-mile tri-oval stopped in 2012. The quarter-mile track inside it kept going, hosting INEX Legends, Bandoleros, mini cups, go-karts, and quarter midgets - the entry-level rungs of the stock car ladder. Touring series returned to the half-mile briefly in 2015 with PASS South and the revived North-South Shootout, and CARS Tour ran here for three seasons through 2017. By January 2019 the North-South Shootout's promoter Darren Hacket announced the event was moving to Hickory; in July 2019 the track was sold to Copart. iRacing's 2005 laser scan keeps the track racing in simulation. The actual half-mile is quieter now - one more place where America's smaller circuits used to be, then weren't.