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The NASCAR Cup Series will return to Bowman Gray Stadium next year, revisiting a short track instrumental to its history for the season-opening Clash exhibition race.
The news was announced Saturday by Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president, chief venue & racing innovation officer, during pre-race ceremonies at the historic quarter-mile oval in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that his great-grandfather — NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. — helped promote with founding official Alvin Hawkins. Earlier this year, NASCAR took over management of the municipal stadium’s racing operations from the Hawkins family, starting a new chapter for NASCAR’s longest-running weekly track.
The non-points event is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 and will be broadcast live on FOX. The Clash had been held the last three seasons at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a temporary quarter-mile track based on the design of Bowman Gray’s flat asphalt that rings its football field. The stadium was used as a proving ground for NASCAR’s Next Gen car at such a track, with a Goodyear tire test and feasibility study held in the months before the first running of the Clash in LA.
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To commemorate the return to Bowman Gray, NASCAR Studios and FOX Sports Films are producing a one-hour documentary titled The Madhouse: NASCAR’s Return to Bowman Gray Stadium that will premiere on FS1. The film will explore the rich and rollicking history of the venue while weaving a narrative that focuses on preparations for The Clash in 2025. More details on the documentary, including when fans will be able to watch on FS1, will be released at a later date.
“We‘re going back to The Madhouse in Bowman Gray Stadium,” Kennedy said. “Bringing our Cup Series back there for the first time since the 1970s, it‘s going to be another historic event. I‘d say in a lot of ways, this is going to be an opportunity to celebrate our roots, our history and celebrate our NASCAR regional series.”
Bowman Gray Stadium hosted Cup Series points events from 1958-71, and its list of winners is a collection of NASCAR Hall of Famers — Richard and Lee Petty, David Pearson, Junior Johnson, Bobby Allison, Glen Wood, and Rex White, among them. Several current Cup Series drivers — including Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace — have competed in what is now called the ARCA Menards Series East. Kennedy savored a memorable victory in that circuit with his family at the stadium in 2013.
Bowman Gray Stadium has long held a special place in the France family’s collective hearts. The track has held weekly NASCAR events since the 1949 season, the same year the NASCAR Cup Series launched as the Strictly Stock division. Former NASCAR president Bill France Jr. met his future wife, Betty Jane Zachary, at the stadium in 1957. NASCAR executives Jim France and Lesa France Kennedy were on hand back in 2013 to cheer Ben Kennedy’s triumph at the quarter-mile oval.
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That same year, Ryan Preece won a race for the former NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour at Bowman Gray. The driver of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 41 Ford described the stadium’s atmosphere as “wild,” a nod to the energetic crowd that fills the horseshoe-shaped bleachers each week in the spring and summer for racing in four divisions, including the featured Modifieds. The track has earned the nickname “Madhouse,” as much for its enduring “Madhouse Scramble” lineup format as the rowdy setting.
“It’s the East Coast version of what they made at LA, so I’m all for it,” Preece said earlier this year at NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race. “I’m all for going to short tracks. I think it’s all about doing something different. As far as the fans being around there, all the way around the stadium, it’d be cool.”
The stadium is familiar with wintertime events in either NASCAR’s traditional preseason or offseason. For years, Bowman Gray hosted “Tobacco Bowl” modified and sportsman events near the New Year’s holiday.
The Clash was introduced in 1979 as a non-points invitational at Daytona International Speedway for the Cup Series’ pole winners from the previous season. The event has evolved through the years but served as host of the unofficial stock-car kickoff to Daytona’s Speedweeks up until the first Los Angeles event in 2022.
“This is the next evolution of The Clash for us,” Kennedy said. “One of the areas where we feel like there‘s an opportunity for us to continue to switch it up and go to new markets and new venues is an exhibition race like The Clash.”
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