Bowman Gray to host 1st Cup Series race since 1971 with preseason Clash

NASCAR is back, old-school style, as 2025 opens with a return to the “Mecca of Madhouse” for Sunday night’s preseason Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium.

The Winston-Salem quarter-mile notorious for its rough-and-tumble racing style and numerous fights will host its first Cup Series event since 1971 with the non-points exhibition race.

“I think it’s great that the location is changing, and I think it should change every year,” Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman said. "We have the capability of doing it. Continuing to evolve it and do different things is kind of what NASCAR has become all about. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds.”

The unofficial kickoff to the new season was held at Daytona International Speedway from 1979 to 2021 as the warm-up act to the Daytona 500. NASCAR stepped outside the box in 2022 and moved it across the country to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was transformed from a football stadium into a temporary short track for three seasons.

Last year's rain-impacted Clash forced NASCAR into an unprecedented scramble to cram all on-track activities into one day — resulting in a financial bloodbath for the sanctioning body.

The racing at the Coliseum was by no means good as drivers struggled to string together multiple green-flag laps, resulting in caution-heavy crash fests that was anything but entertaining. So NASCAR decided to return to its simpler roots and stay closer to home in 2025.

But racing purists love historic Bowman Gray and the Clash sold out its 17,000 seats two months ago. The facility is owned by the city, is home of Winston-Salem State University’s football team, and was built in 1937 as a public works project to provide jobs during the Great Depression. The first event at the new stadium was a 1938 football game between Wake Forest and Duke.

The first Cup race was held in 1958 and won by Bob Welborn. Rex White's six victories is the Cup Series record. Hall of Famer Glen Wood won four times — and logged a total of 29 victories across all divisions — and his sons remember the fun they had watching Daddy race at one of the most volatile circuits in NASCAR.

Wood Brothers Racing fittingly kicks off its 75th season of NASCAR competition with this weekend's return to Bowman Gray.

“There were probably a dozen people that went every Saturday night and you sat at the same place. You’d go get french fries with vinegar on them. We couldn’t have peanuts. I wanted some, but they wouldn’t let you because of the (superstitious) peanut thing,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. "Bowman Gray is really special to me. When I first heard they were even thinking about going to the stadium to race the Clash I thought, ‘Man, that’s the coolest thing ever.’

“There’s something about Bowman Gray that brings out the worst in people, or the best,” he continued. “You can say it either way you want it, but I think everybody is really amped up about doing well there.”

Weekly local racing has remained a fixture at Bowman Gray since NASCAR pulled out of the stadium, and the lower divisions have made the track notorious for the brawls that often ensue after on-track altercations. When NASCAR was asked this week about Bowman Gray's penchant for fighting, an official said in somewhat jest, “We just ask that (the drivers) do it on the frontstretch” — meaning in view of the spectators.

There are 39 cars entered this weekend, and eight have previous stock car experience at Bowman Gray. They are Bowman, reigning Daytona 500 winner William Byron, Cole Custer in his return to the Cup Series, Chase Elliott, Justin Haley, Kyle Larson, Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace.

Ryan Preece and Cody Ware have raced modifieds before at the track, as well as Bowman Gray weekly regulars Tim Brown and Burt Myers, who both secured Cup rides for the event. Brown is Bowman Gray's record holder with 101 victories and 12 championships and will drive for Rick Ware Racing, where he is a mechanic and will work on the No. 15 Ford he will drive.

“Now that it’s actually coming to fruition it’s mind blowing. Anybody that knows me it’s very seldom that I’m ever speechless, but this has kind of made me speechless,” Brown said. "A lot of the Cup drivers that I’m buddies with were like, ‘Man, I was going to get you to be my driver coach or something,’ so now I don’t even talk with those guys because we want to go run as good as we can and not help those guys out at all.”

The track is too small for all 39 to be racing at once, so the cars will be split into three groups that receive two eight-minute practice sessions on Saturday night. The cars will then be split into two groups for one final four-minute practice session where their best lap will set the lineups for the heat races.

Four heats — three with 10 cars, one with nine cars spanning 25 laps — will run Saturday night. Only green-flag laps count, there will be no overtime, and the top five in each heat advance to Sunday night’s main event.

The remaining 19 cars will compete in a 75-lap race on Sunday, with the top-two cars advancing to the main. Of the 17 cars remaining, the driver with the highest points from last season will receive the 23rd and final spot in the main.

The main event will be 200 laps with a halftime break at 100 laps, and only green-flag laps count.

To prepare for the Cup Series, NASCAR had to fortify the catch fence and install SAFER barriers. NASCAR also added new permanent LED lighting, but will require additional temporary lighting for the two nights of racing.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing