Rockingham, N.C. ? NASCAR will pack up and leave this little town forever.

The 2005 Nextel Cup schedule will no longer include North Carolina Speedway, better known as “The Rock.” And nearby Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, stock car racing’s original superspeedway, will have just one race.

For a sport that was born among moonshiners hauling whisky through mountain hollows and came of age on sun-baked Southern speedways, the announcement Friday was another milestone in NASCAR’s move away from its roots.

“We can’t pick the racetrack up and move it,” said Chris Browning, executive vice president of North Carolina Speedway.

Plenty of factors chipped away at The Rock in recent years. Attendance was mediocre, which is never a good sign in a sport where sellouts have become the rule. Its rural location offered few amenities, meaning most fans were unable to stay near the track.

It also is within an hour of Darlington, which has staged two races since 1960, and Lowe’s Motor Speedway, outside Charlotte.

The Rock held two races in NASCAR’s elite series every year from 1966-2003. But the track lost one of its dates this year, and NASCAR’s desire to move out of saturated markets and into major markets made the announcement inevitable, Browning said.

For residents, the news was greeted with a resigned shake of the head — and some bitterness.

“(It’s) bad that they took it away from us,” said Kathy Ard, who manages a Days Inn. “After all the work that’s been done at that racetrack, with road construction and everything else, I think it’s sorry of NASCAR. I think they just got a little too big for their britches.”

The decision to take the races away from Rockingham and Darlington is part of a schedule realignment and comes a year after NASCAR ended its association with its longtime sponsor, North Carolina-based Winston.

Texas Motor Speedway, outside Dallas, will get one of the races, and Phoenix International Raceway the other, meaning both tracks will have two events starting next year.

Busch bags Busch win
RICHMOND, Va. — Kyle Busch started first and stayed there almost all the way, leading 236 laps and earning his first career victory Friday night in the NASCAR Busch series race at Richmond International Raceway.

On a night when many eyes were on how the new asphalt surface held up and whether a second racing lane developed, Busch showed the front was the place to be. He repeatedly pulled away on long runs and restarts, including two after a 13-minute red-flag stoppage with 12 laps remaining.

On the last one, with three laps to go, Busch never got closer than a car length ahead of Greg Biffle, but hung on to win by 0.150 seconds.

“This is only one of many hopefully,” said Busch, who had three second-place finishes in his career.

Vickers wins Richmond pole

RICHMOND, Va. — The track record fell again and again in qualifying at Richmond International Raceway, but two drivers also crashed Friday when the new asphalt went from grippy to slippery.

Twenty-nine drivers broke Ward Burton’s 2-year-old record of 127.389 mph, led by rookie Brian Vickers. He won his first career pole with a lap at 129.983. Ricky Craven and rookie Kasey Kahne crashed early in the session, causing others to turn conservative instead of trying for the pole on the three-quarter-mile oval.