The quarter-mile Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem is where NASCAR will begin its 2025 Cup Series campaign. The Clash will be held at the historic venue following a three-year visit to the L.A. Coliseum. Several drivers have expressed their enthusiasm for traveling someplace with extremely passionate fans. But this one incident from 2012 reflects why Bowman Gray is regarded very highly.
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The ARCA Division East held the NASCAR Hall of Fame 150 race in the stadium between 2011 and 2017. It was during the 2012 race when Bubba Wallace and Brett Moffitt got entangled in a chaotic fight with the thousands around edging them on. Things unraveled after Wallace spun Moffitt around and pushed him in a bid to explain himself.
Fortunately, officials intervened before things could get out of hand and Wallace walked away amidst a roar from fans. He recalls the incident to Sportsnaut.com, “I remember getting into a fight with Brett Moffitt. And I went to apologize to him! I ran there with JGR and finished third. It was nuts then and back then, that was the biggest car I had been in.”
The thing about the quarter-mile track is that it is completely flat and narrow. The configuration forces drivers to come up with creative ways to pass each other. So basically, they need to nudge each other out of the way with varying degrees of force to get ahead. The complications that arise out of such efforts are why the crowd at the stadium is almost always high on infectious energy.
And that’s probably why the track came to gain the nickname “madhouse” as well. It is where NASCAR sanctioned its first pavement race in 1948. The Cup Series, which was then known as the Grand National Series, held 29 races there between 1958 and 1971. When NASCAR departed, it continued to host weekly series divisions from April to August every year.
Other Cup Series drivers who’ve turned a lap in the stadium are Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Corey LaJoie. LaJoie even won a race. Suarez remembers his time there as, “The fans are super passionate. Everyone wants to fight each other there. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.” In all likelihood, next season will begin with an action-packed evening at the most exciting of them all.
