Report- Clash coming to Bowman Gray in 2025

Spotter22

Spotter22

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Fantastic if True. Great Venue with Loyal Fans who have packed that place every Saturday night. It holds 17,000 but I imagine with hospitality suites it will be around 20,000 Teams will save a huge amount of money on travel and Hotels. Gonna be a made for TV event for sure, just load a car that you dont care if it comes back and leave your feelings at the entry gate.

 
I wonder who will get tickets? Really think the demand will be quite high. While I prefer a Daytona Clash, this makes sense for a number of reasons. Goof choice.
 
Spotter22 said:
Snowed in WS last year
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Must not have been a measurable snow. Several NC meteorologists have noted that Central NC (Charlotte, the Piedmont and the Triangle) are in the middle of the longest snowfall deficit in recorded history.

Caraway Speedway had a race in the middle of January this past year.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Must not have been a measurable snow. Several NC meteorologists have noted that Central NC (Charlotte, the Piedmont and the Triangle) are in the middle of the longest snowfall deficit in recorded history.

Caraway Speedway had a race in the middle of January this past year.
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We've (east Tennessee) haven't had much snow the last several years. But we got hit with 9 inches in mid January. You never know.
 
Pretty sure the place needs plenty of improvements. This will give Nascar plenty of write offs. Next, maybe there is an abandoned mall parking lot somewhere in Virginia.
 
StandOnIt said:
Pretty sure the place needs plenty of improvements. This will give Nascar plenty of write offs. Next, maybe there is an abandoned mall parking lot somewhere in Virginia.
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Besides SAFER barriers, which may not even be necessary there, what improvements does Bowman Gray Stadium need?
 
Color me not impressed, I've never had a desire to see Cup cars run this place. Saying that when its winter here in the Chicago area and its dark, cold, snowy and miserable with the racing withdrawl at its highest you damn sure I'll be tuning in.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
Color me not impressed, I've never had a desire to see Cup cars run this place. Saying that when its winter here in the Chicago area and its dark, cold, snowy and miserable with the racing withdrawl at its highest you damn sure I'll be tuning in.
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Me too lol. They don't have anything close to a decent pit area, but that didn't stop the clash from happening in L.A.
 
StandOnIt said:
They will get posted.
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Bowman Gray does not need that much work though. They've had nationally televised K&N and Modified races there.

As for safety, if it's safe to run those 600 horsepower Modifieds that weigh 2,610 pounds with large ass tires that maximize handling and performance, I'm sure a 3,400 pound ****box with 670 horsepower will be fine.

The place packs in close to 17,000 people every Saturday night during the summer.

Anything else NASCAR needs, they can probably put up and take down within a month like they do in Chicago and Los Angeles.

It's so cool that NASCAR is honoring its history by having The Clash and the All Star Race at two of the sport's most historic and iconic venues.
 
One more thing, the races I've gone to there, the shenanigans were actually kept to a minimum and I was surprised at how good the actual racing was.

It may not be as good with the NextGen since this car's a ****box on real racetracks... but it's still a cool event.

Don't let the reputation of Bowman Gray Stadium deceive you.
 
Cup cars shouldn't be on any track that is under a 1/2 mile in length. I expect it to suck just as bad as the LA coliseum did, but that won't stop me from watching.
 
Daytripper said:
Cup cars shouldn't be on any track that is under a 1/2 mile in length. I expect it to suck just as bad as the LA coliseum did, but that won't stop me from watching.
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Bowman Grey is worse. It's narrower than the Clash was. It's the racing equivalent of the gong show most nights.
 
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AndyMarquisLive said:
One more thing, the races I've gone to there, the shenanigans were actually kept to a minimum and I was surprised at how good the actual racing was.

It may not be as good with the NextGen since this car's a ****box on real racetracks... but it's still a cool event.

Don't let the reputation of Bowman Gray Stadium deceive you.
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I think you have your S' box's mixed up. lol
 
Makes me wonder if they will put an inside wall around the track. Some of the clown show happens when they cut across the grass to try to nail the offender and it turns into a combination crash derby/bull fighter safety personnel dodging event. The regulars would probably crap on themselves if they put a wall up.
 
StandOnIt said:
Makes me wonder if they will put an inside wall around the track. Some of the clown show happens when they cut across the grass to try to nail the offender and it turns into a combination crash derby/bull fighter safety personnel dodging event. The regulars would probably crap on themselves if they put a wall up.
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Somebody needs their head examined if they think the Clash needs to be at Bowman Gray. The place is a safety nightmare among other things.

 
At this point, I’d like to see The Clash back at Daytona to start Speed Week with just the previous year’s pole winners. If that simplicity cant put a tingle into this fan base’s loins then just 86 the event and give the industry another week off. I found for me personally, the LA Event while novel mainly uninspiring and I think moving it to The Madhouse will be equally uninspiring
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
At this point, I’d like to see The Clash back at Daytona to start Speed Week with just the previous year’s pole winners. If that simplicity cant put a tingle into this fan base’s loins then just 86 the event and give the industry another week off. I found for me personally, the LA Event while novel mainly uninspiring and I think moving it to The Madhouse will be equally uninspiring
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I grew up watching modified racing in CT and it is all I knew for short track open wheel until my mid 20s when I relocated to Michigan. It still is by far my most preferred style of pavement racing: I only leave the house to a pavement track now to see open wheel cars and mods are obviously the most likely to see. I also have Flo, and Bowman Gray's weekly racing is on there. I have tried watching it. I watch lots of modified racing on Flo because they have deals with stuff like the SMART Modifieds and Stafford and NASCAR to do so. Bowman Gray is the worst pavement track I have watched races from in America on television. There is nothing I like about it. I have zero desire to go to that race track for the "experience". What it will provide is a situation where Cup guys are going to need to beat the crap out of each other to pass, and I guess that may appeal to folks who want to see a 2 hour window where 1/2 of it is run at 40 mph behind a pace vehicle.
 
Jorge De Guzman said:
At this point, I’d like to see The Clash back at Daytona to start Speed Week with just the previous year’s pole winners. If that simplicity cant put a tingle into this fan base’s loins then just 86 the event and give the industry another week off. I found for me personally, the LA Event while novel mainly uninspiring and I think moving it to The Madhouse will be equally uninspiring
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Every major professional sporting league in the United States has a preseason.

I don't have an issue with the current format of the Busch Clash. Of course, I hate "plate" racing with a burning passion so I'm fine with it not being in Daytona.

There are other ways to revive Speedweeks. And here are three:
  1. Bring back the mid-winter test session at Daytona.
  2. Run Daytona 500 pole qualifying and the ARCA 200 the weekend before.
  3. Bring back practice during the week.
But none of this matters if Speedweeks at Daytona will be playing second fiddle to College Basketball the entire time.

I've said it many times, but I really think the decline in excitement and anticipation for the Daytona 500 came when SPEED was taken off the air and replaced with Fox Sports 1, and hours and hours and hours of coverage were instantly placed on the chopping block for college basketball. A good chunk of the excitement for Speedweeks now comes from grassroots fans, dirt fans especially, because of the amount of racing taking place in Florida from late January through February.

In the 90s, there was a ton of coverage on ESPN and ESPN2 with live and tape delayed practice, live qualifying, nightly programming on RPM2Night and SportsCenter, live ARCA and Goody's Dash Series racing, Busch Series, Trucks, etc, while CBS had the Clash/Shootout live, Gatorade Twins (tape), Busch race, and the Daytona 500. Then Fox came in and set the bar with wall-to-wall coverage on Fox Sports Net (2001) and SPEED (2002-2013), plus coverage NBC, TNT and ESPN2 had of Speedweeks during their respective contracts. Live practice, live coverage of the twins, Totally NASCAR, Trackside, Race Day, documentaries and specials about the Daytona 500 throughout the week, and etc.

On top of that, Fox Sports has now eliminated NASCAR Race Hub, so that's another 10+ hours of Speedweeks content gone. And don't even get me started on how, when the checkered flag waves on the Daytona 500, Fox is off the air within 10 minutes.

This should piss NASCAR off as much as it pisses me off. There's no way in hell any other sport would allow the pomp and circumstance surrounding marquee events to be curtailed so dramatically. Hell, Fox got IndyCar by INCREASING the amount of televised coverage the series and The Month of May will get. IndyCar, a series that gets a fraction of the audience NASCAR gets. In fact, NASCAR is now second fiddle to ****** IndyCar on this network.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
In the 90s, there was a ton of coverage on ESPN and ESPN2 with live and tape delayed practice, live qualifying, nightly programming on RPM2Night and SportsCenter, live ARCA and Goody's Dash Series racing, Busch Series, Trucks, etc, while CBS had the Clash/Shootout live, Gatorade Twins (tape), Busch race, and the Daytona 500. Then Fox came in and set the bar with wall-to-wall coverage on Fox Sports Net (2001) and SPEED (2002-2013), plus coverage NBC, TNT and ESPN2 had of Speedweeks during their respective contracts. Live practice, live coverage of the twins, Totally NASCAR, Trackside, Race Day, documentaries and specials about the Daytona 500 throughout the week, and etc.
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There seems to be sufficient data that exists from the interviews with those who have ownership stakes that fans need to accept that there is no desire nor any demand for practice for any NASCAR race, the Daytona 500 included, to increase. There are costs associated with doing so and it is too much for the teams, especially as NASCAR seems to be of the mindset that they will not be sharing much more revenue with them than the current deal provides.

Second: The Daytona 500 used to have up to three rounds of qualifications culminating in a race to make the show featuring far more than the number of allotted starters. When was the last year in which more than 43 cars (the old maximum) showed up to make the 500? In one of the recent years I recall DJ Kensington just showing up and being able to make the field because there was no bumping. All of that intrigue is gone and never coming back, which is honestly a somewhat similar tale to the Indy 500 (which used to have way MORE practice/qualifying). On top of that: Dash Series is gone. They no longer run Mods on the backstretch on a temporary circuit, nor do I think they're doing flat track back there either.

You're right in that a lot of the excitement for Speedweeks now revolves around the short tracks like Volusia and New Smyrna: well, who's fault is that? No one put a gun to the NASCAR C-suite's heads and told them not to produce a national late model race. It's easy to blame Fox, but the owners and the series have really been at the forefront of that shift, not Fox.
 
Fans are burned out on Daytona. They even tried the road course. Not enough cared. The Clash in comparison got better response. Curious to see what they come up with.
 
virtualbalboa said:
There seems to be sufficient data that exists from the interviews with those who have ownership stakes that fans need to accept that there is no desire nor any demand for practice for any NASCAR race, the Daytona 500 included, to increase. There are costs associated with doing so and it is too much for the teams, especially as NASCAR seems to be of the mindset that they will not be sharing much more revenue with them than the current deal provides.

Second: The Daytona 500 used to have up to three rounds of qualifications culminating in a race to make the show featuring far more than the number of allotted starters. When was the last year in which more than 43 cars (the old maximum) showed up to make the 500? In one of the recent years I recall DJ Kensington just showing up and being able to make the field because there was no bumping. All of that intrigue is gone and never coming back, which is honestly a somewhat similar tale to the Indy 500 (which used to have way MORE practice/qualifying). On top of that: Dash Series is gone. They no longer run Mods on the backstretch on a temporary circuit, nor do I think they're doing flat track back there either.

You're right in that a lot of the excitement for Speedweeks now revolves around the short tracks like Volusia and New Smyrna: well, who's fault is that? No one put a gun to the NASCAR C-suite's heads and told them not to produce a national late model race. It's easy to blame Fox, but the owners and the series have really been at the forefront of that shift, not Fox.
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My point here is that Speedweeks at Daytona was already a shell of its former self before practice was eliminated. When Fox Sports 1 came along, hours and hours of Speedweeks content was replaced with College Basketball. That was the beginning of this downhill slope for Speedweeks.

As for the cost cutting... I think NASCAR and the teams would be smart to look at these streaming services if they want to see what being in perpetual cost cutting mode can do. In the streaming world, it goes like this: Content and features removed > Prices increase > People unsubscribe > More content and features removed > Prices increase > More people unsubscribe > More content and features removed > Princes increase > People unsubscribe ... and it goes on and on and on.

The only argument I'd make for taking The Clash back to Daytona is that Fox cares more about the Clash now, but them caring more about the Clash had more to do with Fox Sports being in Los Angeles and the race being at Memorial Coliseum.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Every major professional sporting league in the United States has a preseason.

I don't have an issue with the current format of the Busch Clash. Of course, I hate "plate" racing with a burning passion so I'm fine with it not being in Daytona.

There are other ways to revive Speedweeks. And here are three:
  1. Bring back the mid-winter test session at Daytona.
  2. Run Daytona 500 pole qualifying and the ARCA 200 the weekend before.
  3. Bring back practice during the week.
But none of this matters if Speedweeks at Daytona will be playing second fiddle to College Basketball the entire time.

I've said it many times, but I really think the decline in excitement and anticipation for the Daytona 500 came when SPEED was taken off the air and replaced with Fox Sports 1, and hours and hours and hours of coverage were instantly placed on the chopping block for college basketball. A good chunk of the excitement for Speedweeks now comes from grassroots fans, dirt fans especially, because of the amount of racing taking place in Florida from late January through February.

In the 90s, there was a ton of coverage on ESPN and ESPN2 with live and tape delayed practice, live qualifying, nightly programming on RPM2Night and SportsCenter, live ARCA and Goody's Dash Series racing, Busch Series, Trucks, etc, while CBS had the Clash/Shootout live, Gatorade Twins (tape), Busch race, and the Daytona 500. Then Fox came in and set the bar with wall-to-wall coverage on Fox Sports Net (2001) and SPEED (2002-2013), plus coverage NBC, TNT and ESPN2 had of Speedweeks during their respective contracts. Live practice, live coverage of the twins, Totally NASCAR, Trackside, Race Day, documentaries and specials about the Daytona 500 throughout the week, and etc.

On top of that, Fox Sports has now eliminated NASCAR Race Hub, so that's another 10+ hours of Speedweeks content gone. And don't even get me started on how, when the checkered flag waves on the Daytona 500, Fox is off the air within 10 minutes.

This should piss NASCAR off as much as it pisses me off. There's no way in hell any other sport would allow the pomp and circumstance surrounding marquee events to be curtailed so dramatically. Hell, Fox got IndyCar by INCREASING the amount of televised coverage the series and The Month of May will get. IndyCar, a series that gets a fraction of the audience NASCAR gets. In fact, NASCAR is now second fiddle to ****** IndyCar on this network.
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Considering how little effort Fox is putting into their NASCAR coverage, it wouldn't shock me if they veto expanding Speedweeks if it was ever presented to them. The teams aren't interested in it because they don't want crews, PR people, etc. in hotels for over a week. But I agree they need to do something to get interest back up.
 
MRM said:
Considering how little effort Fox is putting into their NASCAR coverage, it wouldn't shock me if they veto expanding Speedweeks if it was ever presented to them.
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It would conflict with College Basketball. 😭😭😭😭

Which leads me to one of my predictions. Since we know the NFL is going to take President's Day Weekend for the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 will move off of it, my prediction is the next time the Daytona 500 is pushed to Monday (or even Sunday night) due to weather, it gets bumped to FS1. I also think that not all five races scheduled to air on Fox network remain there since IndyCar is now on Fox and a higher priority than NASCAR.
 
Bowman Gray.jpg
 
It would be a real clash. Bowman Gray is tight, narrow, and flat. Essentially a paved version of the track-and-field cinder track around a high school football field. There is no room for a Safer Barrier, but one is probably not needed with the speeds there. They will not erect a wall on the inside because WSSU plays its football games inside the track and another wall would be a hazard for them.

Drivers get mad at Bristol and Martinsville - this will be worse. Most races are won on starts or restarts - the two cars on the front row have a drag race into the first turn, and whoever manages to get through turn two first will lead the train race from there on out. The only way to pass is to move somebody, and with the worn asphalt it is very easy to spin that guy out. It is not unusual for a spinout to block the whole track and stop the race. It is not unusual to get several spinouts per race.

Expect tickets to be hard to get and scalpers will profit mightily. Bowman Gray seats 17,000 fans - much less than any Cup track and less than 22% of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's capacity. Capacity could be less if they decide to rope off the rows closest to the track for fan safety.

It would be better if NASCAR had the drivers drive something smaller than the Gen-7 car. Legends cars fit the track very well (they were initially designed for it) and their evil handling would demonstrate each driver's skill.
 
I just do not like the notion of Cup cars at Bowman Gray, really any better than the artificial bull ring they just left for this event. Too many cars too tight. If they raced heats, it would be a better show, but just my opinion.
 
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Bring the oldest / highest mileage cars in the fleet.
 
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