NASCAR is standing on the threshold of another date with its rich history and will make that become a reality this Sunday night with an exhibition race in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad.
With its offseason officially over after Team Penske’s Joey Logano captured his third Cup title, the series has rested itself and will get set for its season-opening Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem.
Let’s just say it has been a long time since NASCAR visited the tiny track that used to be a part of its Cup Series schedule.
For starters, there is the speedway and its unique dimensions.
Bowman Gray measures out at just a quarter of a mile and is as flat as a penny left on a railroad track.
The track has the length and steepness of one surrounding a high school football field where a group of erstwhile slackers may meet in the late afternoon to stick to their New Year’s resolution of more exercise.
And, yes, there is a football field there: Winston-Salem State still plays its games on the grassy gridiron.
However, NASCAR’s top series has not run there since Aug. 6, 1971, in a controversial 250-lapper that Bobby Allison eventually won over Richard Petty — a race that did not become official until NASCAR settled the dispute last October due to Allison competing in his Grand American 1970 Ford Mustang.
That awarded Allison his 85th career win, breaking a fourth-place tie with Darrell Waltrip in all-time victories. Allison passed away in November, the day before Logano’s championship-winning Phoenix race.
While Bowman Gray is the same distance as the speedway at the Los Angeles Coliseum, site of the past three Clashes, Austin Cindric said there is a noticeable difference between the two legendary facilities.
“I think it’ll feel smaller, honestly,” Cindric told the Daytona News-Journal before the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Raceway. “The Coliseum is quite a bit wider. The track shape is the same as far as the outside distance. But I think it’s going to be quite narrower.”
Toyota driver Denny Hamlin drove his No. 11 to victory in last season’s exhibition kickoff race, while Martin Truex Jr. and Logano took the checkers at the southern California stadium the previous two years.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman said the experience of competing at the wild Winston-Salem configuration over 10 years ago in the East Series against the likes of Chase Elliott and Daniel Suarez lived up to the venue’s reputation of rugged short-track racing that can lead to short tempers.
“My biggest memory of going to Bowman Gray was going to a modified race there and seeing the pace-car driver get flipped off. So that was pretty cool,” Bowman told Fox NASCAR.
Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to think that historic tracks like North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway and Bowman Gray would grace a NASCAR schedule again.
Throw in another often-raced but NASCAR-forgotten North Carolina track, too — Rockingham Speedway. The 1.017-mile, D-shaped venue makes its return with Craftsmen Truck and Xfinity Series races in mid-April.
With all these legendary speedways of days of yore resurfacing on schedules as NASCAR revisits its roots, maybe a place like Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville has a shot in the future.
–Field Level Media
