Never Stop Driving #131: The Madhouse

Last weekend, NASCAR opened the 2025 season at The Madhouse, the nickname NASCAR fans have given Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The circuit is known for weekly fisticuffs racing that blurs the line between motorsports and professional wrestling—in other words, high entertainment. NASCAR’s decision to move the Clash, its season opener, from Los Angeles to Bowman Gray was widely celebrated. Five months ago, I purchased two tickets—about $100 each per day—so my 16-year-old son and I could attend.

This was our second visit to Bowman Gray, after a 2022 road trip in a 1986 Ford Mustang GT that we later sold on Hagerty Marketplace. I first learned about Bowman Gray from a 2010 History Channel series called, yep, MadHouse. The venue was built in 1937 to host football games and soon added a short, quarter-mile track around the field. Bill France, Sr., took his then-new stock-car racing series to Bowman Gray in 1949 and many legendary drivers, including Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, and Bobby Allison, won there until the premier NASCAR class left the stadium in the Seventies. Richard Childress, the team owner who employed Dale Earnhardt, is said to have sold peanuts at the track. Among the NASCAR faithful, Bowman Gray is hallowed ground.

It’s a charming venue that retains much of the original concrete grandstands, ticket booths, and ornamental details. Compared with most local short tracks, which typically are scruffy ovals plopped onto a field, Bowman Gray is polished, and its proximity to downtown Winston-Salem stands out. That polish belies the full-contact racing that happens here. The track is flat and narrow so passes typically require the overtaking driver to bump the car ahead and create an opening. What’s an appropriate nudge? Depends on the driver doing the bumping and the driver getting bumped, a constantly shifting matter of opinion that boils the blood. Offended drivers often seek retribution by chasing each other after the checkered flag, sometimes in the car and sometimes on foot. YouTube is littered with videos like this one. The fans love it and few of the 17,000 seats sit empty each week.

Rain canceled the racing during our 2022 visit so we were excited to see how the top NASCAR drivers might cope with the unusual track last weekend. There was also the added drama of qualifying for the main 200-lap race. On Saturday, drivers raced in short heat races, the top five finishers advancing to the Sunday feature. Several top drivers like Ty Gibbs and former champion Kyle Larson failed to finish their heat races in the top five. They had one last chance to make the show, the so-called Last Chance Qualifier, where the top two advanced. Larson moved on, Gibbs did not.

We spent about four hours in the Bowman Gray grandstands each day, often standing. There is not a bad seat in the house and the cars are so close you can see the drivers at work. The crowd was hyper-enthusiastic, and many of the diehards took advantage of the chilly early February temps to wear brightly colored team jackets. There was a communal excitement that NASCAR was playing to its fanbase rather than chasing the Hollywood set in L.A. These fans loved it, standing at race starts, twirling their hats, and pumping their fists.

The spectators acted like they were among long-lost friends. One man shouted across the stands to another and when he finally got his attention, yelled, “Hey, I like your coat.” At the start of one race, the dude behind me, possibly inebriated, grabbed my shoulders and shook me back and forth while shouting, “I’M SO EXCITED, LET’S GO!” My ingrained Midwestern reserve prevented me from summoning a response to this well-meaning but awkward gesture. My son, who’s likely the biggest NASCAR fan back in Ann Arbor, the college town where we live, was highly amused. My new friend then puffed continually on a vape pen, his cherry-scented smoke wafting over our heads. There were constant high-fives, cheers, and boos, a veritable party in the stands. But we quickly learned that fans show their displeasure as quickly as their approval.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., hit local favorite Burt Myers, sending the 53-year-old hard into the wall. During the yellow flag, everyone booed and held up the one-finger salute as Stenhouse passed. Behind us, my new friend announced, “I already posted on my Facebook. I don’t give a F***!” This crowd was every bit as entertaining as the racing.

I consider myself reasonably well versed in NASCAR but remained mystified by some fan responses. One is the general dislike for Ty Gibbs, the grandson of NFL coach turned NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs. During a three-mile walk back to our car Saturday night, a journey undertaken to avoid the seemingly endless line for the shuttle buses, I asked my son about it. He explained that Gibbs is considered entitled, the beneficiary of a deep-pocketed family that funded his racing. That makes no sense, I suggested, since there are so many second-generation NASCAR drivers, such as Chase Elliott, a fan favorite. Why does Elliott get a pass, but Gibbs doesn’t? Elliott drives a Chevy, he replied, and Gibbs a Toyota. When I pointed out that Toyota builds many cars in the U.S., including a full-size pickup, and Chevy used to build the Camaro in Canada, he just sighed, knowing his old man’s logic has no sway with fandom.

The final 200-lap feature was a comparative snoozer. The last 50 laps, when we all hoped for fireworks, clicked off quickly. A lap at Bowman Gray only takes about 14 seconds, four per minute, and the Cup drivers didn’t seem in the mood to start grudges with each other at the beginning of the long season. Chase Elliott led 172 laps and won, while 2023 NASCAR Champion Ryan Blaney proved that clean passing is possible at Bowman Gray by starting last in his Mustang and finishing second. The fans seemed satisfied with the result, although there was no sign of our vaping friend, and who knows what he thought about it all.

My recommendation is for every motorsport fan to watch a race at Bowman Gray, and to that end, here’s the 2025 Bowman Gray schedule of events. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend with the latest from Hagerty Media.

• Why modern cars need a smoker to diagnose problems.
• The upcoming Amelia Concours honors Helio Castroneves.
• Check out this gorgeous 1936 Ford that won the Grand National Roadster show. 
• Henry Catchpole drives a Porsche 911 with an F1 engine.

And this week on Hagerty Marketplace, bid to buy a 2000-mile 1986 Ford Thunderbird.

Have a great weekend!

Larry

P.S.: Your feedback and comments are welcome.

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media and receive the award-winning Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.