Engines roared and a sellout crowd got rowdy. Drivers bumped, rubbed and spun their cars as they raced their way around the bull-ring asphalt track that's flatter than a penny.
When it was all over on Sunday night, fans left Winston-Salem's Bowman Gray Stadium having seen something that hadn't happened in nearly 54 years: a NASCAR Cup Series event at the historic venue.
In his No. 9 Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet, Chase Elliott led 172 of 200 laps and took the checkered flag at the Cook Out Clash, winning the first Cup Series race at Bowman Gray since 1971.
"I hope we put on a good show," Elliott said. "It seemed like a success. … I just feel like if we're going to race on a football field, this is good a place as any to do it."
That sentiment from the race's winner is shared amongst some of his peers in the highest level of NASCAR. This event — the Clash — was a non-points race that serves as a preseason exhibition of sorts for the sport. From 1979 to 2021, it was held in Daytona Beach, Florida, as a lead-up to the Daytona 500. But for the past three years, it had been held on a temporary track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — which, like Elliott said, is typically used for football, not racing.
But Bowman Gray has long served both sports. Nestled near the campus of Winston-Salem State University, the stadium carrying the namesake of a former RJ Reynolds Tobacco board chairman opened in 1937 — then a $2.2 million public works project to create jobs during the Great Depression — and hosted its first college football game the next year. Soon after, it became one of the many venues in North Carolina that was home to stock-car racing. Bowman Gray hosted Cup Series races from 1958 to 1971, and the list of winners during that stretch features some of the legends of the sport, from Junior Johnson to Richard Petty to Bobby Allison. Winston-Salem State's football team still plays there, too.
In the past five decades, while NASCAR's nationally-televised series abandoned Bowman Gray, racing in its purest form never did. Lower levels of NASCAR kept racing there, as did bandoleros, which are akin to go-karts, and modifieds. And while those races didn't attract media attention in the same way, fans often came in droves, giving the venue a reputation that lived up to the hype for Cup Series drivers.
Ryan Blaney, who grew up in High Point, is one of eight Cup Series drivers who had previously raced at Bowman Gray in one of those lower circuits.
"There's not a lot of places we go where (the fans) are that close and that passionate," said Blaney, who finished second on Sunday night. "They're hardcore race fans."
Some of the drivers that competed in the Clash this weekend had grandfathers who raced at Bowman Gray. One of those was Tim Brown, who has long been one of the most successful racers on the modified circuit. Compared to Cup Series cars, modifieds are lighter in weight, wider, shorter in height, have a different suspension set-up, and more horsepower. It's a style of racing that has long been part of the fabric of the culture at Bowman Gray, where Brown has won 101 races and 12 championships — making him the winningest driver in the stadium's history.
However, Brown — a 53-year-old from Yadkinville — had never raced in the Cup Series. He got that chance on Saturday and Sunday, driving the No. 15 Mustang for Rick Ware Racing in an attempt to qualify for the Clash. Brown came up short and missed the 23-car field but made the most of soaking up his Cinderella-like moment at a track that feels like home to him.
"It means everything to me," Brown said. "Just to be at this level, to get the shine, is just outstanding."
Bowman Gray has earned the nickname "the Madhouse" because of the close-quarters, scramble-style of racing that the tight track produces. Collisions are unavoidable, and the fans get into it, ready to tell drivers they're No. 1 in a variety of unique ways. Over its long history, the track has garnered a penchant for producing fights in the pits and garages, but this weekend went by without a single punch thrown.
"If you race here for 30-something years, you want to fight sometimes," Brown said with a laugh, adding that he's been in about 10 instances of fisticuffs at Bowman Gray. "It's just the passion. We take a lot of pride in our equipment and our racecars are immaculate. So, we don't make a lot of money to do this at (the modified) level. So, if you tear my racecar up, I'm going to come see you."
Last March, NASCAR acquired the lease to the track and began managing racing at the stadium — a deal that runs through 2050.
To transform Bowman Gray into a venue suitable for the Cup Series, NASCAR worked with the City of Winston-Salem and WSSU to install a new lighting system, catch fences and a SAFER barrier — the life-saving steel and foam energy reduction system lining most of the walls at today's tracks. Funding for some of those upgrades came from North Carolina's Motorsports Relief Fund, which used money from the Biden Administration's American Rescue Plan Act. The City of Winston-Salem was given a grant for $530,020 for upgrades to Bowman Gray through that fund three years ago. It's the same funding structure that paved the way for NASCAR to return to North Wilkesboro after a long hiatus, and provided a launching pad for NASCAR's Craftsman Truck and Xfinity Series to return to Rockingham for the first time since 2013 this April.
Additionally, classrooms and offices at Bowman Gray became VIP suites for the weekend's races, the football team's weight room turned into a media center, and a parking lot just outside the stadium became a makeshift pit road. And none of the changes seemed to bother the capacity crowd that filled the 17,000-seat stadium over the weekend, made up of fans from near and far.
Per a NASCAR spokesperson, 60% of the tickets sold for the weekend's events came from people outside of North Carolina's Triad region. Folks from 44 different states and five countries attended the Clash.
"The people that come here are just race fans. They just like racing," said reigning Cup Series champion Joey Logano, who placed fourth. "The energy is real. … Standing-room-only is a special feel. There's not a bad seat in the house."
As the NASCAR Cup Series begins its 77th season in earnest later this month with the Daytona 500, the top motorsports league in the U.S. finds itself being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, the sport has returned to some of its grassroots beginnings, with Saturday's event at Bowman Gray being a chief example of that. On the other, it's aiming to attract fans from far and abroad, and will race in Mexico City on June 15.
Elliott, who grew up in Dawsonville, Georgia, called NASCAR holding events in smaller markets where the sport has real history — from Winston-Salem to North Wilkesboro to Rockingham — "paramount."
"You hate to see those cornerstone racetracks – that paved NASCAR to be what it is today – shut down or go away. We need to do as much as we can to make sure those places stay in business," Elliott said. "What happens if the effort from (North Carolina) didn't happen, and Rockingham goes away, and North Wilkesboro goes away? … I just think it's important to do what we can to make these places continue to be special here in the region. I think we can expand and grow and try new things while doing that all at the same time."
Still, it's unclear if and when the Cup Series might return to Bowman Gray again.