The Madhouse is under new management.
NASCAR announced Thursday that they have taken over as the lessee of Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem North Carolina.
The stadium was built in 1937 during the height of the Great Depression in part to provide jobs. The first football game was played there in 1938 and a horse track was added soon after. That 0.250 dirt oval had its first auto racing starting in 1939, and the track was paved in 1947.
NASCAR was formed in 1947 and the first NASCAR sanctioned race was held at Bowman-Gray in 1949. It became the first paved track NASCAR raced on and the first to hold weekly races for the series.
Through the years the Stadium has become known as the Madhouse for the intense racing that happens on the quarter mile and morphed out of the qualifying format used in the 1950s known as a “mad scramble.” It has a capacity of 17,000 and is nearly always filled to capacity during the racing season in the summer when it holds races that are part of the Whelen All-American Series.
Bowman Gray hosted several NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Series races from 2011 to 2015. Ben Kennedy, great grandson of Bill France Sr., won an East Series race there in 2013. Other winners include two-time NASCAR Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes and NASCAR Cup Series driver Corey Lajoie.
“As NASCAR’s first weekly racetrack, Bowman Gray Stadium holds a special place in the history of our sport,” said Kennedy, now senior vice president, Racing Development and Strategy, for NASCAR. “We are grateful to the Hawkins family’s multi-generational legacy of leadership at this historic track, and we’re thrilled to oversee racing at one of the crown jewels in NASCAR Regional. We look forward to leading the racing operations of the facility in partnership with the City of Winston-Salem to preserve the history and legacy of the racetrack for the next generation of fans and racers.”
The City of Winson-Salem has owned the track since it was built and leased it out. NASCAR acquired the current lessee Winston-Salem Speedway, Inc., and will now take over that role and manage racing operations under the lease with the City of Winston-Salem that runs through Dec. 2050.
“Bowman Gray Racing has been a part of the fabric of Winston Salem for many years. In fact, some attribute NASCAR’s beginning to the races held at Bowman Gray Stadium,” said City of Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines. “It is for that and other reasons that the City of Winston Salem is delighted that NASCAR is acquiring Winston-Salem Speedway Inc. I am doubly happy that NASCAR has committed to the continuance of the weekly races at the stadium, that are so popular with our citizens and visitors.”
Austin Shuford has been named the new general manager of racing operations for Bowman Gray Stadium. Shuford has worked with Track Enterprises’ Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, where he annually promoted and managed 25 events a year at more than 15 racetracks throughout the south and Midwest since 2020.
In October 2021 NASCAR staged a tire test at the Stadium with the Cup series Next Gen car marking the return of that series to the track for the first time since 1971. The test was in preparation for the 2022 Clash at the L.A. Coliseum which has a similar configuration.
Now that NASCAR is managing the track operations, and with the contract for the Clash at the L.A. Coliseum has expired, the speculation now turns to a return of the NASCAR Cup series in competition there in 2024, perhaps as a pre-season event like the Clash. Though the weather may not rival that in Los Angeles in February, the average high temperature there is 69 degrees, while Winston-Salem’s is 53 degrees, NASCAR has shown that not only can they hold an event on a track like that of Bowman-Gray, but they certainly aren’t afraid to take a chance.