The facility opened in October 1965 as North Carolina Motor Speedway, built by a group of eleven investors led by attorney Elsie Webb and co-founded by Darlington Raceway founder Harold Brasington. It ran on a flat one-mile oval before being reconfigured in 1969 to its permanent 0.94-mile D-shaped layout with steep banking — 22 degrees in the first two turns and 25 degrees in the last two — which gave the track a challenging and distinct character that drivers frequently cited.
After Webb's death in 1972 and the subsequent decades-long tenure of NASCAR team owner L. G. DeWitt and his family, the track passed to International Speedway Corporation via the Penske Motorsports merger in 1999.
Roger Penske's Penske Motorsports won a protracted and contentious bidding war with Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. in 1997 to acquire control of the facility. Majority stockholder Carrie DeWitt had explicitly declined to sell to Smith, citing concern that he would abandon the track as he had done with North Wilkesboro Speedway. Penske formally took control through a merger of the NCMS board into Penske Motorsports in late 1997.
In February 1998 the facility was renamed North Carolina Speedway. Penske invested heavily: the backstretch Hamlet Grandstand was completely rebuilt with a 28,021-seat stand in time for the 1998 AC Delco 400, bringing total seating capacity to 60,122, the highest figure in the track's history. Pit road was also reconfigured to a single pit lane and extended to 1,436 feet. In 1999, Penske Motorsports merged with the France family's International Speedway Corporation.
The early 2000s brought sustained attendance problems and NASCAR's continued push toward larger, newer markets. In 2003, the track's fall Cup date was transferred to Darlington Raceway due to lack of fan support. The Ferko lawsuit — in which an SMI minority shareholder argued NASCAR had promised Texas Motor Speedway a second Cup Series date — placed the remaining Rockingham weekend under threat. When the lawsuit settled in May 2004, NASCAR transferred North Carolina Speedway's last Cup date to Texas Motor Speedway. ISC simultaneously sold the facility to Speedway Motorsports for $100.4 million.
The 2004 Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 in February was the final NASCAR Cup Series race held at the facility. No NASCAR events were scheduled for the following years under SMI's ownership, with the track restricted to filming, driver testing sessions, and driving schools.
SMI announced plans to auction the facility in June 2007. NASCAR driver Andy Hillenburg won the auction in October 2007 with a bid of $4.4 million. Hillenburg renamed the track Rockingham Speedway and set about reopening it for lower-series racing. The track has since operated under that name through subsequent ownership changes, including a 2018 purchase by a group led by Dan Lovenheim and a 2025 acquisition by the International Hot Rod Association.