WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. —Fresh off a big weekend at Bowman Gray Stadium, NASCAR faces a fork in the road. Does it return to the historic venue in 2026 for another race, or does it continue the recent trend of finding success in new places?
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"I would love to see this thing get rotated every year between NASCAR regional short tracks," Christopher Bell told FanBuzz and The Athletic outside his hauler on Sunday night. "Clearly, NASCAR has said that they're willing to dump money into this event.
"So why not just pick a short track and put some money into it, have an event there? And you know that the track's gonna benefit (from) it. Clearly, the fans will show out to a new venue."
By all accounts, Sunday night's Cook Out Clash was a success. The action on the track was better than many drivers expected, and the fans delivered an unbelievable atmosphere from the first moment Cup Series cars headed onto the quarter-mile track.
These fans, more than 60% of which traveled to Winston-Salem, packed out The Madhouse for the first Cup Series race at the track since 1971. They were loud, they were rowdy, and they entertained the drivers throughout the weekend with their antics.
But will this raucous crowd return in 2026 or 2027 to support another Cup Series race weekend?
10/10 flyover. #HotPass pic.twitter.com/RCtFf19sf8
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 3, 2025
"You're going to pack it out," Ryan Blaney said after a top-five finish. "There's going to be just as many people here next year as there was tonight. I don't think it would lose any of its luster."
The closest comparison to last weekend's event was the Clash at the LA Memorial Coliseum, which ran from 2022-24 on a purpose-built quarter-mile short track.
Attendance was strong for the inaugural trip to the historic venue in 2022, which made the event a success. However, the number of fans in the stands decreased in 2023. Rain then completely disrupted the event last season and forced NASCAR to run it a day earlier than planned.
Of course, there was another noticeable difference between the Clash at the Coliseum and the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium.
One was a hybrid event featuring musical performances from Ice Cube, Pitbull, Wiz Khalifa, and Cypress Hill. It was geared more toward new fans and helping the sport grow in an important market.
The other event was all about racing. The appetizer for the Clash was a Modified race featuring some of the biggest names in the weekly series. The weekend was built for NASCAR's diehard fans.
Would Noah Gragson like to see a points race at Bowman Gray?
“F*** Yeah” pic.twitter.com/TBKWSNsU2E
— Andrew Kurland (@AndrewKurlandTV) February 3, 2025
NASCAR drivers enjoyed the trip out West for the Clash at the LA Memorial Coliseum. However, they also saw the decreasing attendance and they heard about the financial investment required to build and tear down the track in Southern California.
As Bell explained, he fully supports NASCAR spending millions of dollars to take the Cup Series to different venues. He would just prefer the investment go toward upgrading some historic short tracks.
"I think at the Coliseum, we saw that the first-time event was really the money grab — not money grab, the big bang," Bell said. "So I would love to go to New Smyrna next year.
"I would love to go to Pensacola next year, or Nashville Fairgrounds or Hickory (Motor Speedway). Any of these NASCAR short tracks, NASCAR regional short tracks. I think that'd be really cool."
Is there a perfect strategy for the Clash? Going to historic short tracks caters to diehard racing fans and shows that NASCAR cares about its roots. Yet it may not bring in the same number of new fans as taking the Cup Series to a new market.
At this point, the answer remains unclear. What the drivers do know, however, is that the decision to use the Clash as an experiment continues to pay off.
"We've seen the success of our sport moving to new racetracks," Joey Logano said. "I'm a big fan of going to new racetracks, bringing the racetrack to the fans that don't typically get to see us because it's so hard for a lot of people to travel a long ways to see our races.
"Going to new races is huge for our sport. We've done that over the last five, six years. We've added new racetracks quite often. I think that's successful."
