Qualla: Bowman Gray Stadium

Bowman Gray Stadium: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JaeMyers14, Public domain. The track is a quarter mile of flat asphalt wrapped around a football field. There is no banking to speak of. The walls are close. The grandstands lean in over Turn Four like the upper deck of an old movie palace, and on a Saturday night in summer the noise carries half a mile in every direction. Locals call Bowman Gray Stadium the Madhouse, and they mean it as a compliment. NASCAR has sanctioned weekly racing here since 1949, longer than at any other track on the schedule, and on February 2, 2025, the Cup Series came back for the first time since 1971.

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Image: JaeMyers14 | Public domain

Bowman Gray Stadium: A Depression-Era Gift

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greenstrat, Public domain. In November 1936, the city of Winston-Salem filed plans with the Works Progress Administration for a 10,000-seat horseshoe stadium. The widow of Bowman Gray Sr., a former president of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, agreed to put up $30,000 of her own. The stadium that opened...

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Image: Greenstrat | Public domain

Bowman Gray Stadium: Paved Under Lou Franco

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The first auto races were midget cars on a dirt loop around the football field, run by promoter J. C. Calhoun in September 1939. The track sat largely quiet during the war. In 1947 a new promoter, Lou Franco, paved the dirt with asphalt under city funding, with the understanding ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Bowman Gray Stadium: The Cup Years and the Long Pause

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Kalasnik from Charlotte, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the early 1950s the stadium was clearing its debts, expanding capacity to 17,970, and attracting NASCAR's top talent. Bowman Gray hosted its first NASCAR Cup Series race on May 24, 1958, won by Bob Welborn. From 1958 through 1971 it held points-paying Cup races. The last of th...

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Image: Mike Kalasnik from Charlotte, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bowman Gray Stadium: The Madhouse Reputation

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trailers of the East Coast from Mocksville, USA, CC BY 2.0. The weekly Modifieds built Bowman Gray's reputation for what the Winston-Salem Journal called "a wild and rowdy atmosphere." Cars touched in tight corners. Drivers got out and threw helmets. Fights spilled across pit road. In 2010 the History Channel built a 13-episode reality se...

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Image: Trailers of the East Coast from Mocksville, USA | CC BY 2.0

Bowman Gray Stadium: The Cup Returns

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bandit5568, CC BY-SA 4.0. In March 2024, NASCAR took over the racing lease directly, ending a 75-year operating arrangement with the Hawkins family's Winston-Salem Speedway, Inc. Five months later, NASCAR executive Ben Kennedy announced that the Clash, the season-opening exhibition that had been run at th...

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Image: Bandit5568 | CC BY-SA 4.0