Bowman Gray Stadium is officially a NASCAR sanctioned quarter-mile asphalt flat oval short track and longstanding football stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. It is one of stock car racing's most legendary venues, and is referred to as "NASCAR's longest-running weekly race track". Bowman Gray Stadium is part of the Winston-Salem Sports and Entertainment Complex and is home of the Winston-Salem State University Rams football team.[1] It was also the home to the Wake Forest University Football Team from 1956 until Groves Stadium (now Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium) opened in 1968. Bowman Gray Stadium was a popular venue for high school football in the 1970s and 1980s. Parkland and R.J. Reynolds High Schools shared Bowman Gray Stadium as their home field for high school football until the two schools built their own facility (Deaton-Thompson Stadium) in 1994.
The stadium 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 football game in the fall of 1938 between Wake Forest College and Duke University. In the beginning, the stadium's sole use was for collegiate football until trotter horse racing was added on the 0.250mi (0.402km) dirt oval. The first auto racing at Bowman Gray was a type of midget car racing on the dirt quarter mile track from 1939 through 1949. The track was paved in 1947, after a promoter got the City of Winston-Salem to agree to pay to have the track paved in exchange for restitution of payments through a percentage of future income from races. However, after the track was paved the promoter fled before any payments were made to the city.[2] Stock car racing at Bowman Gray Stadium was started by Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins, two men who were founding fathers of NASCAR. The track was NASCAR's first weekly track and the first paved track that NASCAR raced on. The track would run weekly NASCAR sanctioned events during the summer months.
The first NASCAR-sanctioned event took place on May 18, 1949, and was won by Fonty Flock.[3] The track was opened by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins, and remains operated by members of the Hawkins family to this day.[4] By the end of the inaugural Bowman Gray season 11 races had been run and five more were rained out. Tim Flock won the track championship with a season that included four wins.
As the racing had become extremely popular at the track, an additional 7,000 seats were added in 1953, raising the seating capacity from 10,000 to 17,000.[5]
Motorcycle races were run on a temporary dirt track at the stadium in 1970 and 1971. The stock car races were run first in the events before construction crews would lay dirt down during an intermission for motorcycles races the same night.[6]
Bowman Gray's nickname, the "Madhouse", is largely attributed to the racing antics that take place on the tight, quarter mile bull ring. In 2014, Bowman Gray's promoter, Gray Garrison described the events at BGS as part racing, part religion, and part wrestling.[8] While this is partially the reason for the nickname, it actually originated from a qualifying format the track used in the 1950s called the "mad scramble."[4]
In 2015, Bowman Gray celebrated its 1,000th NASCAR sanctioned race [9]
On November 14, 2018, it was announced that the Stadium would get a $9 million renovation. Construction started in 2020 and finished in 2022. The renovation included new restrooms, a track resurfacing, and a new name for the football field titled "Rams Field At Bowman Gray".[10][11] Currently, the track features four divisions: the modifieds, sportsman, street stock and stadium stock. The modifieds are the featured division at Bowman Gray, the division started in 1949 and the all-time wins list features some of the best NASCAR drivers including Lee Petty, Ralph Earnhardt, Ned Jarrett, Richie Evans, and Jerry Cook.
The football history of the stadium is also quite storied. Wake Forest University played home games in the stadium from its move to Winston-Salem in 1956, until the 1968 season when Groves Stadium (now Truist Field at Wake Forest) opened. Players such as Brian Piccolo, the 1964 ACC Player of the Year who led the nation in rushing and scoring, played their home games in Bowman Gray. Piccolo later became famous as the teammate of Gale Sayers with the Chicago Bears, and the subject of the 1971 film Brian's Song. The Winston-Salem high schools of R.J. Reynolds High and Parkland High also played their home games at the stadium in the late 1960s through the 1980s.
Today
Opening Night, Bowman Gray Stadium, April 2011
Bowman Gray's weekly racing tradition continues as part of the NASCAR Weekly Series, with races Saturday evenings from the end of April through August.[12] The track can seat 17,000 people in the stands, with an additional 2,000 standing-room around the wall above the seating areas. The weekly races during the year normally have an average attendance between 12,000 and 15,000 per night. Many events are standing room only, as some events have had estimated crowds of more than 23,000 show up.[6]
Weekly races include the modified, sportsman, street stock and stadium stock divisions. Bowman Gray is also a part of the special events including classic modified coupes and East Coast Flathead Ford Racing Association (ECFFRA), monster trucks, demolition derbies, chain races, skid races and INEX Legends Car and bandolero races. The History Channel show MadHouse was taped at the track during the 2009 season. The showed aired in January 2010 and ran through April 2010. On October 29, 2018, a new show titled "Race Night At Bowman Gray" aired on Discovery Channel. The show focused on the Modified Division. After the first few episodes, the show was moved to the Discovery Go App, after fear of cancellation. The show would later go on to eventually be canceled.
Spectators listen to the officials during the races on frequencies 461.200MHz, 463.625MHz, and 466.600MHz on a scanner or "race radio." Many, if not all of the drivers also communicate via a two-way radio during the race. Most of them use a frequency between 450 and 470MHz, but there are exceptions.
On October 11, 2021, NASCAR announced that they will be running a tire test at Bowman Gray for the Next Gen (NASCAR) car, in preparation for the 2022 Busch Clash, which would be held in the L.A. Coliseum with a track layout similar to the Madhouse. This was the first time in over 50 years that NASCAR Cup Series cars ran on the legendary track.
For the 2022 racing season, along with the other previously announced renovations, new concession stands and drains in the apron of the turns were added to help remove water in the event of rain.
In July 2023 the stadium played host to baseball for the first time as the Winston-Salem-based Carolina Disco Turkeys hosted Albemarle's Uwharrie Wampus Cats and the Winston-Salem Moravians in a series of games featuring independent teams.[13]
On March 21, 2024, NASCAR announced that they had acquired Winston-Salem Speedway Inc, holder of the lease of the track and would begin managing racing at the facility through 2050.[14]
On August 17, 2024, it was announced that Bowman Gray would host the Clash at Bowman Gray on February 2, 2025.[15]
Chase Elliott won the Cook Out Clash on February 2, 2025, leading 172 of the race's 200 laps. It was the first NASCAR Cup Series race at the track since 1971.[16]
In 1971, the Grand National Series allowed drivers to choose a smaller car from the Grand American division, which ran smaller pony cars, like the Ford Mustang which Bobby Allison chose for the race, alongside cars like the Chevrolet Camaro and AMC Javelin. Allison's usual car was the Ford Galaxie, but for this race at the shortest paved track on the schedule, he chose a shorter-wheelbase car with a much smaller engine, 302cui, 5.0ltr. V8 versus the Galaxie's 427cui, 7ltr V8. The shorter wheelbase allowed much better handling on slow, narrow short tracks like Bowman-Gray, but gave Allison an advantage that was seen as unfair by his competitors, such as second-place runner Richard Petty, whom filed an official complaint with NASCAR officials at the close of the race. NASCAR officials agreed, and stripped Allison of his win and prize money. However, instead of declaring Petty the winner, NASCAR left the race without an official winner until 53 years later they awarded Allison as the official winner.[17]
Modified and Sportsman car counts were thin during the latter part of the 1950s and the track combined the two and let the V6s run with the V8s and named it the "Modified-Sportsman Division". Leading into the 1968 season, the track dropped the Sportsman cars and title, hence officially named the featured division as the Modifieds.
The Amateur Division was the support division to the Modified-Sportsman and ran from 1950 to mid-1958, where the division dissolved and the track picked up the Hobby Division.
The Claiming Division was tabbed as a third weekly division in 1964. It was a division that cost only $99 to run, it was so popular that the track had to cut the fields down to two races with ten cars apiece. The division ran from 1964 to 1972. The track changed the name to what is now the Sportsman Division.
The Hobby Division, which was the predecessor of the Street Stock Division, ran from mid-1958 to 1974. Then the following year, the division was renamed to the Street Stocks.
Bowman Gray ran Blunderbust races as a fourth division from 1977-1989 until they replaced that division with the Buzzbomber Division in 1990. The following season, the track kept the cars, but changed the division to what is now the Stadium Stock Division.
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