The speedway operated during the period when dirt ovals were the dominant format of American stock car racing, and it served as a competitive venue during the early growth of what became NASCAR's premier series. The track was paved in 1957, midway through its active lifespan as a NASCAR venue. Situated in the mountain community near Weaverville, the track drew crowds during an era when regional short tracks formed the backbone of the NASCAR circuit.
Over its nearly two decades of NASCAR competition, Asheville–Weaverville Speedway hosted an array of the era's greatest drivers. Winners at the facility included Richard Petty, Bob Flock, Fonty Flock, Lee Petty, Rex White, and Fireball Roberts. Other notable drivers who made appearances at the track included Banjo Matthews, Ralph Earnhardt, Junior Johnson, and Cotton Owens.
The races held at Asheville–Weaverville Speedway were part of the Grand National Series schedule, making them points-paying events in the sport's top tier. The track contributed to the careers of many drivers who shaped the history of American stock car racing.
The speedway's end came not from a lack of racing interest but from community opposition. A citizen group petitioned local government to shut down the track as early as the 1970 racing season, citing noise complaints. The track officially closed in 1970. In subsequent years, the property was repurposed: during the 1970s and 1980s it was used as softball fields and sports practice grounds, with earthen barriers placed on opposite sides of the oval to disable it for racing, followed later by concrete barriers installed at eight locations around the track. Urbanization of the area and an anti-noise ordinance were the determining factors in the facility's permanent closure.
The property was eventually redeveloped for educational use and is now occupied by North Buncombe High School.
A separate facility known as New Asheville Speedway should not be confused with the Asheville–Weaverville track. New Asheville Speedway was a 1/3-mile oval located on Amboy Road in Asheville, approximately 12 miles south of the original Weaverville site. That track operated independently and closed in 1998 when its owners sold the property to RiverLink, an organization dedicated to developing the French Broad River corridor as a public park. The former New Asheville Speedway site became Carrier Park, with the old racetrack converted into a banked concrete bicycle track.
Asheville–Weaverville Speedway represents a chapter in the dirt-track and early-asphalt era of NASCAR, when mountain and piedmont short tracks across the Carolinas and Virginia formed the circuit's geographic core. The names associated with victories at the facility — the Flock brothers, Lee and Richard Petty, Rex White, Fireball Roberts — are among the most celebrated in the history of the sport's premier series. The track's conversion to pavement in 1957 and its subsequent closure in 1970 trace the arc of an entire generation of NASCAR's foundational venues.