Cook Out Clash postponed to Monday due to winter weather

The Cook Out Clash has been postponed to Monday at 6 p.m. ET (FOX) due to the lingering effects of winter weather in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, NASCAR announced Saturday. Snow covered the Piedmont region of the state Saturday, creating difficult travel conditions throughout the area. The postponement comes out of an abundance of caution for race fans scheduled to visit Bowman Gray Stadium, the Winston-Salem community and the North Carolina region. MORE: Clash format NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying are set for Monday at 11 a.m. ET with live coverage on FS2. The 20 fastest drivers in qualifying will advance to the main event. The remaining 18 drivers will fight for two transfer spots in the Last Chance Qualifier, which will run at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The top two finishers will advance to the main event, with a provisional spot reserved for the driver who finished highest in 2025 driver points that did not otherwise advance. Twenty-three drivers will take the starting grid for the Cook Out Clash, the 200-lap feature set for 6 p.m. ET on FOX. The weekend schedule had already been altered by Thursday, when officials deemed the forecast too stark to permit any on-track activity on Saturday. Officials remain in close contact with the City of Winston-Salem as well as North Carolina officials to determine the impacts of the weather and ensure conditions permit hosting a safe event. RELATED: Paint schemes for The Clash Justin Swilling, NASCAR's senior director of marketing services and overseer of The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, met with media members Saturday via teleconference from the track's fieldhouse, explaining what led to Saturday's postponement of Sunday's events. "The number one concern is always the safety of our competitors and our fans getting to and from the track," Swilling said. "And in consulting with the North Carolina Department of Transportation this morning and the City of Winston-Salem, we didn't feel that that a Sunday schedule was best suited anymore, just given what the storm had developed thus far this morning, which is the reason for our decision. And we wanted to do our best to try to keep people off the road and let them know sooner rather than later." Work had already begun to clear snow from the surface of both the track and the infield grass before noon on Saturday as snow continued to fall at Bowman Gray -- all with a goal of expediting the process of creating a safe racing surface for what is now scheduled for Monday. "We have a tremendous amount of equipment here," Swilling said, "and we have already started to mobilize that to see how we can best clear the property as soon as the winter weather dissipates, hopefully later this afternoon or into the evening. And as soon as that happens, we are going to go to work. And we have an incredible staff here that's helping to manage all the equipment and helping to prioritize what needs to be taken care of first versus second versus third. And I feel very confident in our game plan." NASCAR has been meeting daily with leaders from the 0.25-mile track, competition officials, and city officials since Jan. 26, following another winter storm that left Winston-Salem with icy conditions. "I feel very confident telling you if you spoke with any city official, they would feel very good about how we've continued to communicate and align and collaborate as best we can," Swilling said. "And I feel really good about the decisions we've made. And they're supportive of us getting this event in in the best way, shape or form possible. I think one thing we always have to keep in mind too is we've just got a venue to look after, right? They've got an entire community, and a community that's reeling still in some ways from this past weekend's storm and the current storm that we're facing here. So we always want to be very responsible and prudent." MORE: Insight on track preparations on new 'Hauler Talk' Because Bowman Gray Stadium sits in a more suburban area within Winston-Salem than most other tracks in their locales, the track team is more tightly confined to find appropriate lots of land to accommodate any necessary changes in cases of piled snow, ice or standing water. "When you have storms roll up like this, it actually makes it more difficult than maybe other venues that we may visit," Swilling said. "Primarily because if a parking lot here is snowed out or iced out or flooded or anything like that, at any other venue, we may just be able to shift efforts from one side of the property the other. Here, we don't have that luxury, and we've got to get very, very creative, and we've really got to prioritize the real estate that we have in terms of the essential elements of the property. We always try to do that with the fan in mind. We always try to do that with the competitor and our broadcast partners in mind. But it certainly does make it more challenging, probably more challenging than any other other venue that I can think of." Parking lots for the Cook Out Clash will open Monday at 9 a.m. ET with off-site shuttle services beginning at 9:30 a.m. Gates will open at 10 a.m. Race fans with tickets can get more information at www.nascarclash.com/weather or by calling 855-525-7223.