The Clash's New Madhouse

Only a few days until the 2025 NASCAR season gets underway with the Clash, let's meet our new host of NASCAR's preseason race: the Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

great view of downtown to boot

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Overview and History

One of stock car racing’s memorable smaller venues, the Bowman Gray Stadium has stood as a symbol of Winston-Salem for nearly a century. Built in 1937 as a public works project to give people much-needed jobs during the depths of the Great Depression, the stadium’s first event was a college football game between Wake Forest and Duke in 1938. Trotter horse racing was soon a fixture on the dirt oval encircling the playing field along with midget cars for about a decade until the dirt was replaced by pavement in 1947. NASCAR’s first sanctioned race at the track was held in 1949 to the tune of Fonty Flock in victory lane, but the first Grand National race didn’t happen for nearly another decade until 1958. 

I forgot how older football goals looked, glad rugby's kept them

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The stadium turned track went on to host multiple races a year for the next decade from late May 1958 until 1967, then one per year from 1968 to 1971. 29 Grand National races in all were held, all of them before the football season got started, of which the Parkland and RJ Reynolds high schools shared until 1994. The 1971 race in particular is historic for multiple reasons, some resolving themselves as recently as the past year. By this time, this and Islip were the only tracks on the schedule a quarter of a mile long or less (Islip the smaller at 0.2), a fact that wouldn’t be true by the following January as both tracks were left off the quite drastically reduced 1972 Winston Cup schedule. 

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But perhaps more intriguing is the fact that NASCAR never recognized winner Bobby Allison as the winner, doing so on the grounds that Bobby won with a non-Cup car despite the fact that it was a “combination race” between the Winston Cup and Grand Am cars. Bobby competed in both series at this time, and opted to use his Grand Am car to race, leading 138 of 200 laps en route to victory. The win was never recognized for more than 50 years until recently in late October 2024 after discussions surrounding an event that would put Bowman Gray back on the map in the first place.

someone should have ran a throwback scheme of this for the Clash

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Before the Next Gen car was used full-time in 2022, NASCAR held some tests with it at Bowman Gray, with retired drivers Clint Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr on hand to get some laps in the car in October 2021. A little over 2 years later in March 2024, NASCAR got the lease to run events at the racetrack, and announced 5 months later that Bowman Gray would become the 4th track to host the Busch Clash. Following on from the LA Memorial Coliseum experiment of the last 3 years, Bowman Gray will welcome NASCAR back for the first time in 53 and a half years, not since before the modern era of NASCAR even began.

Dale Jr ripping laps in an original Next Gen is both cool and terrifying to see in hindsight-

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Did You Know?

- Bowman Gray is often referred to as NASCAR’s first weekly track, and held its 1000th sanctioned race in 2015.

- The “Madhouse” nickname, while thought to be due to the wild antics on the racetrack, refers to the qualification procedure back in the 1950s, an inversion format that is still used in races at the stadium today.

- With the win retroactively awarded to Bobby in 2024, Allison is now in sole possession of 4th place on the NASCAR Cup Series’ all-time wins list with now 85 victories to his credit, behind only Richard Petty with 200, David Pearson with 105, and Jeff Gordon with 93; he previously held a tie with Darrell Waltrip with 84 before the revision.

- Bowman Gray was the home of Wake Forest’s football program from 1956 to 1968, moving out once Groves Stadium was opened.

- The track was only paved because of an agreement struck between the city of Winston-Salem and a track promoter to give a percentage of income back to the city in exchange for the paving of the track; the promoter fled with the cash and bounced.

- Bowman Gray is said to be the place where Bill France Jr’s summer job allowed him to meet Betty Jane Zachery, whom he’d marry and have 2 children with: Lesa and Brian France.

- Richard Petty scored his 100th Cup Series win at Bowman Gray in August 1969, a race utterly dominated by Bobby Isaac for 241 of 250 laps until Petty got past with 9 laps to go to win by about 4 seconds.

- In 1952, Bobby Myers became the youngest Stadium title winner at Bowman Gray at 25 years old; 47 years later, his nephew Burt broke his record at the age of 23. Now close to 50, Burt will drive the #50 in the Clash in 2025.

keep an eye out for this particular car that's got a Bowman Gray legend in it

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How Do You Win Here?

Bowman Gray is the typical tiny track with tight turns and not a lot of space on the racetrack to pass cars. The tight quarters of the quarter mile lends itself to cause a lot of incidents out on the track, and it can get pretty crowded pretty quickly. For a Next Gen Cup car that is wider than its predecessor, the SAFER Barriers will approach drivers quite rapidly and sooner than expected. Usually SAFER Barriers aren’t present for races at Bowman Gray, but they’re mandated for the Cup Series which only reduces the width of the track even further. If the Coliseum notes are anything to go by, a quickly qualifying time and knockout performances in the heats should very much help in avoiding the absolute chaos that will go down once the green flag drops to start the 2025 season off with many bangs.

let's also all be thankful that THIS isn't still the wall design for the Clash

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Along with the Clash, Bowman Gray hosts a WIDE variety of weekly racing from April to August before football season, and will have the eyes of the stock car racing world firmly upon it when the NASCAR Cup Series season kicks off at the Madhouse this Sunday night on FOX.

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May we see a sight like this on Sunday... please

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On the next episode of 2025 Daytona 500 Countdown...

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