Madhouse Mecca
Bowman Gray Stadium is an unlikely, unusual place for a cradle of speed. The narrow quarter-mile track is among the smallest ever to hold a NASCAR race, and the venue wasn't purpose-built for the activity.
As a telling exhibit: The stadium's earliest race meets took place with most of its football functionality -- yard lines, a scoreboard and even the goalposts -- in place in the infield. Richard Petty won there four times, including his 100th Cup Series victory, but what stuck with him was the scoreboard, which could only display the top three positions.
"By the end of the race, I was 'Yards to Go,' running third behind 'Visitors,' who was Bobby Isaac and 'Home,' who was David Pearson," Petty told the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record years ago. "Visitors and Home were racing pretty good until I drove ol' Yards to Go right by 'em and won the race."
The place may seem like a quirky throwback now, an anachronism as big-time racing has grown and expanded its reach. But for the better part of its nearly 90-year lifetime, Bowman Gray Stadium has stood as a community hub and a NASCAR tradition – one that's given Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a claim to fame on par with Charlotte's or Daytona's as a stock-car racing cradle of civilization.
"It's certainly interesting that the community does lay claim to it," says Dr. Mike Wakeford, executive director of the MUSE Winston-Salem history museum. "I mean, it's not infrequent that you hear people refer to Winston as a birthplace -- or the birthplace -- of NASCAR. So it's definitely part of our narrative."
History will have a refresh and a homecoming all at once this weekend, when the preseason Clash exhibition (Sunday, 8 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) makes its Bowman Gray debut. The race will mark the NASCAR Cup Series' first of any kind at the flat quarter-mile track since 1971, when big-league stock-car racing transitioned to its "modern era" and gravitated toward larger speedways and more established venues.
The Cup Series' return is cause for celebration, but Bowman Gray's heyday has never really gone away. Racing started there not long after NASCAR's founding, and the sanctioning body has had a foothold there ever since. Cars at the sport's highest level have evolved through seven generations of development during that time, and new facilities and street circuits have popped up on the schedule. But all the while, the brand of grassroots, locked-horns racing that the stadium always seems to produce has endured, packing the horseshoe-shaped bleachers for decades.
Now the Cup Series gets to experience it all over again.
RELATED: Sneak peek at 'Madhouse' documentary at 7 p.m. ET, Jan. 27, on FS1
"Whenever you think about how we've got our little quarter-mile track around a football field buried up in the city of Winston-Salem, that the top level of NASCAR racing is coming to this track and that NASCAR has recognized the importance of bringing NASCAR racing back to where it started, I think that that speaks volumes in itself," says Burt Myers, an 11-time track champion and third-generation racer whose family has been there from the beginning. "I think when you lay that on the table, you realize how important it is -- not just to us, but to NASCAR. On our end of things, we're very grateful that they are taking that step to make this happen. Because, let's be honest, we're going to get a lot of recognition on the local level, and it helps our sponsors and our partners. It helps the Triad community. Everybody involved should benefit from this."
The national spotlight will shine anew on Bowman Gray come Sunday night, but first, pull up to the counter for a hot dog, a history lesson and the whole story of why it's called the Madhouse.
A hub for racing history
Before there was the Madhouse, there were the mad dancers of the jitterbug. The Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel -- morning and afternoon newspaper counterparts -- made the dance contest front-page news in 1939, a year after Bowman Gray Stadium was built. The jitterbug diversion provided a lighthearted contrast to the international headlines that foreshadowed World War II.
"The speed marvels of this dancing age," the Journal cooed, reporting on the sharp-dressed rug-cutters who whirled, twirled and jived on a stage to "Little Brown Jug," "Knock-Kneed Sal" and other swing hits. A crowd estimated at 15,000 crammed into the new venue south of downtown, creating what news writers called the worst traffic jam in the city's history. The contest's first prize was $10.
On its diverse calendar of events were a series of music concerts, boxing matches (Joe Louis once fought there in an exhibition bout) and yes, football. Duke defeated Wake Forest 7-0 in the stadium's pigskin premiere on Oct. 22, 1938, on the way to a rare Rose Bowl appearance.
Attendees and the visiting press marveled at the new facility after its groundbreaking, much in the same way that locals had hung on every documented detail of its building. The Works Progress Administration -- a New Deal-era program meant to create American jobs -- fronted half of the funds for the stadium's construction.
A sizable chunk of the rest came as a gift from Natalie Lyons Gray, dedicated to the memory of her husband and former president and chairman of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Bowman Gray.
After attending the stadium's football grand opening, Charlotte Observer sports editor Jake Wade offered "a salute to Winston-Salem, which now boasts what surely must be one of the most beautiful and best-equipped stadiums in the country."
He added that "the Bowman Gray Memorial Stadium is sure to furnish happiness to thousands in the years to come," words that feel prophetic nearly 87 years later.
"It was clearly a sign that this was not a venue that was being built merely to pass muster, but was being built as something that the city was going to be proud of, and by all accounts, that occurred," says Wakeford, who is also part of the history and humanities faculty for the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. "Obviously, it's an aging place (now), but it still occupies a really revered status in the community."
Black-and-white photos of the construction efforts that looked northward beyond the stadium's fieldhouse show smokestacks dotting the bustling skyline of Winston-Salem during the city's boom years.
The Camel brand of cigarettes had placed R.J. Reynolds on the national map, and Winston-Salem had grown to become the largest city in the state until Charlotte's population spiked in the 1930 census.
But the Twin City also provided a ripe market for moonshining tradesmen, who made regular deliveries to the piedmont area from Wilkes County and other hooch hotbeds in the state's western mountains and foothills.
Those stories are well-entrenched in stock-car mythology, but outlaw whiskey-trippers with souped-up cars became some of the sport's first thrill-seekers.
Still, racing in Winston-Salem wasn't a sure thing. A half-mile dirt track in the city's Peace Haven neighborhood did not survive past the 1957 season, and midget-car races on Bowman Gray's early cinder layout failed to take hold until the place was paved.
A partnership forged by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and the Hawkins family -- Alvin and Eloise -- from Spartanburg set stock-car shows in motion at Bowman Gray in the spring and summer of 1949, with weekly races helping the promotion gain momentum.
"I don't think it's ever been recognized 100% for what it did for the community," says Will Spencer, a fourth-generation Winston-Salem native who ran a history museum dedicated to NASCAR's Winston Cup era in downtown. The site was once a car dealership, and it's getting new life and a rebrand as The Nash Museum & Event Center at Spencer's direction.
"The history, everything has to have somewhere to start," Spencer added. "Our seed was planted, and I would say that with Miss Hawkins and Bill France Sr., with them together, they created something that grew in the South and then grew West. I mean, everything has to start somewhere."
It's kept going ever since, with Saturday night racing traditionally running from the end of April to the third weekend in August each year, before neighboring Winston-Salem State University uses the municipal stadium as its home football field.
There are fewer active smokestacks on the Winston-Salem skyline these days, and the downtown factory spaces have given way to restaurants, shops, breweries and loft apartments. The town's complexion may have changed, but for multiple generations on the city's south side, Bowman Gray Stadium has remained a fixture -- one that's now getting a refurbished once-over as NASCAR's big leagues return.
"Winston-Salem, like so many industrial or post-industrial cities, has a really, really strong connection and pride attached to all that it has achieved over the past, all that it has been and all that it has represented over the past century and a half," Wakeford says. "But like so many other cities, too, it's also aware of ways that it has changed, and ways that it is seeking to sort of find its future.
"So I think there's an excitement here about this, both as a kind of nostalgic return to a golden age of racing here, but also excitement because it provides kind of a tantalizing vision of perhaps what could be again in Winston-Salem."
Hot dogs and hot rods
Walk into J.S. Pulliam Barbeque's small, square main room just north of Winston's Smith Reynolds Airport and you're greeted with racing memorabilia covering almost all of the green-painted surfaces from wall to ceiling.
Barbeque is at the top of the menu board above Pulliam's cozy counter, but the draw for restaurant-goers from all corners is the southern-style hot dogs, glowing red and nestled in a decadently toasted bun. On a chilly, winter Thursday, the lunch rush is a mixture of construction crews in coveralls and business types dressed like church aldermen -- all crammed in and sharing tabletop space for a taste of workingman's ambrosia. Once springtime arrives, Pulliam's quaint side yard has a collection of tree stumps where folks can sit a spell and dine.
"Pulliam's is one of the greatest places; you've got to go there," says NASCAR team owner Richard Childress, a Winston-Salem native who famously hawked peanuts and popcorn in Bowman Gray's grandstands. Childress slings chardonnay and sauvignon blanc at his sprawling vineyard villa just south of town now, but his enthusiasm for Pulliam's blue-collar delicacy hasn't faded. "It's just a lot of history up there. I still go up there sometimes just to see those guys."
One might not think it, but the history that Childress hints at is an important one. Pulliam's has long been a favorite of NASCAR's founding fathers, and Bill France Sr. and Jr. were known to have their planes land at Smith Reynolds so that they could make the short drive from the taxiways to Pulliam's front door. Flynt motions toward the corner where the drink coolers now sit, noting how France family members often drew up competition rules and forged business partnerships within these crowded walls.
Pulliam's has gained national recognition and awards from Rachael Ray, Food & Wine magazine and The Washington Post in recent years for serving up the state's best hot dog. A devoted fanbase of the NASCAR brass from Daytona Beach pre-dates those accolades.
"This old building back in the day, this was the meeting place for them when they came to town," says Flynt, taking a quick break from writing down customers' orders on a white legal pad. "A lot of the times, it was up here that they'd eat hot dogs, with Reynolds executives on the racing side and the France family to discuss things. Of course, this was Bill France Jr.'s favorite. That whole family, they're just great people."
Bowman Gray Stadium rests neatly amidst what is fertile ground for frankfurter fancy, with Pulliam's to the north and Kermit's Hot Dog House to the nearby south -- forming what could rightly be Winston-Salem's Tigris and Euphrates region for hot dogs served up with homemade Carolina slaw.
Kermit's has kept drive-in tradition going long past the time when curbside service was customary. On spring and summer Saturdays, the parking spots often fill up with Bowman Gray fans making a stop before a night at the races. It wasn't unusual to see veteran Modified driver James Call occupying a booth inside, puffing a Winston cigarette and enjoying a pre-race meal on most weekends.
"Don't most people?" his sister, Dianne, says with a laugh. "It was a tradition. He just loved their hot dogs."
When NASCAR's top series draws fans back home to those Winston-Salem roots, these two institutions will be there to feed them. Kermit's will celebrate its 60th anniversary next January. Pulliam's just turned 115. Hot dogs remain a common language between the two establishments, but racing is often spoken fluently at both.
"It's always been a thing of passion for people, a passionate thing for people that love racing to go over there and see where the old-timers ran," Flynt says. "See some of the photographs. Unfortunately, a lot of our old guys are gone, but we've still got some left. We've still got a few left, but the passion is always there."
James Call, sadly, is among the first group that Flynt mentions. He died in 1998, but he's immortalized in photos on Pulliam's green-colored walls. Call is presenting an award with a handshake in one picture. In another, he's flanked by his crew as he rests his foot on the right-front tire of his red No. 21 modified.
Kermit's might've been a tradition for him, but Call was an equal-opportunity hot-dog purveyor with a soft spot for Pulliam's, too.
"He tried not to show partiality with anybody," Diane Call says. "He tried to be friends with everyone he came in contact with."
Making the Madhouse
Bowman Gray Stadium has had plenty of nicknames in its day, with "Home of the Hot Modifieds" and "Still the Most Exciting of Them All" used almost interchangeably in early promotional materials. The one that's jumped out most recently also has deep roots -- "Madhouse."
The track's antics in recent years have become a meme's meme, the sort of bare-knuckle stuff that would make the Kenseth vs. Logano episode at Martinsville a few years back look like bumper boats at the amusement park. Social media and ubiquitous cell phones that make almost every fan a videographer have amplified that trend, but the roughhouse nature of racing at the stadium dates back to the analog era.
"You have a rivalry in just about every division, and I think it stems from guys growing up racing that same track their whole lives," Burt Myers says. "And when you compound that with racing around a football field, that's what you're going to get. I think that's what keeps not just the fans coming back, but that's what keeps the drivers and the teams coming back."
Myers' grandfather, Billy, had a hand in indirectly coining the phrase. Billy -- along with his brother, Bobby -- became one of the stadium's first stars in the 1950s, and his early success led writers to call him "Master of the Madhouse" in doting newsprint. Several years later, race organizers borrowed the name when unveiling a new system for shuffling starting lineups. The "Madhouse Scramble" inversion format is still used at the stadium today.
The more common "Madhouse" lore, however, stems from the cutthroat racing and its tendency to spark tempers. Hall of Famers Bobby Allison and Curtis Turner participated in what local reporters called "the nastiest car-ramming melee you have ever seen" during a 1966 feature, disabling both of their vehicles in an infield hail of bent metal. Allison was barely a rookie at that point, and he said later that he needed to demonstrate that he wouldn't stand for being pushed around. The veteran Turner buzzed the track with his personal plane on the way out of town.
In 1987, Donald "Satch" Worley lost what seemed like a sure Modified championship when Bobby Coble purposely stuffed his No. 07 racer into the Turn 3 rail. Worley, a popular two-time champ, told writers later that Coble had signaled his intent to anyone in the grandstands who would listen before the race. "I'll never go back there," he vowed. Worley stuck to his word and never raced there again.
So the phenomenon is not new. Burt Myers has been a part of the more recent "Madhouse" rumbles in his sometimes-testy rivalries with other drivers, but especially with his closest competition: Tim Brown. The two Bowman Gray aces are neck-and-neck in track championships -- Brown has 12 to Myers' 11 -- and feature wins -- Brown at 101, and Myers at 97.
"That's a Duke and Carolina," Myers says, drawing a straight line to the ongoing power struggle of college basketball bluebloods. So it's natural that such a closely contested back-and-forth, one that's been fought at the front of the pack for 30-plus years, would have moments that boil over.
Both local legends will have Cup Series rides for the inaugural Clash at Bowman Gray, where it's possible some of the traditional Saturday night spectacle rears up.
"I don't know anybody that I've ever heard that went to Bowman Gray for the first time that didn't think it was the greatest thing they'd ever been to. They love it," says Spencer, The Nash Museum founder. "... We used to watch wrestling over on High Point's Channel 8. It was fake, we were kids, but we loved it. So it's the dramatics, the personalities. It's so different that it's not sterilized, and hopefully with the Clash, I know it won't be sterilized because if somebody wants to win that first race, it's that first race that's run there since 1971, so I think it's going to be a hell of a race."
It's part of the reason why the Cup Series' return to Bowman Gray has been sold out for weeks, and why the stadium fills nearly to its capacity on any given Saturday during the season. Brown says he's met curious fans from all corners of the country, but he's also relied on finding familiar faces in the stands -- folks who sit in the same place each week from Winston, Kernersville, Lexington and other nearby haunts.
"When you're driving a modified there, the thing is turning 8,500 RPMs and it's really loud, but you can hear the fans cheering you or booing you when you're actually racing," Brown says, "and I don’t know that there's any Cup track that you could hear that, so it's definitely different. The fans there are super-passionate. Just the history of the place."
The blend of history and the fans' fervor is what has kept the Myers family racing there from the stadium's start. Myers says he had picked up a ride in the northern-based Whelen Modified Tour several years ago, and a quick start to the season had vaulted him to third place in the standings. He says folks reacted with disbelief when he abruptly stopped venturing north for tour races. Bowman Gray's season was about to start, and he couldn't stay away.
Myers' father, Gary, had told him long ago not to take the place for granted. He hasn't, even when the Madhouse gets its maddest.
"There been a lot of nights at Bowman Gray Stadium where things didn't go your way, and when you get out of that car and you get everything loaded and you just think about how bad a night you had, the last thing you want to do is stand there and sign autographs and meet fans. You want to go home," Myers says. "But when you do stand there and the fans come up and they start supporting you, and they start telling you how proud they are and how, 'Hey man, you'll get 'em next week,' and kids come up and want their picture taken with you and buy shirts and the hats and the merchandise and the hero cards, and the same fans that come every single week, it makes you forget about the bad things that happened that night, and it helps you put in perspective that you know what, you're blessed to be able to do this, and you're blessed to have fans and supporters that we have that motivate us to want to come back and keep doing it.
"When we go to other tracks, and you try to compare that to what we get to experience on Saturday nights during the summer at Bowman Gray Stadium, it puts it in perspective. Just the crowd, the fan count, the car counts, the electricity. I guess a good word is how intimate it is with the fans and the drivers and the teams and the cars. It's just a special place. There's no other place like it that I've ever been to anyway."