Editor’s Note: This marks the second story in a three-part series as Spire Motorsports allows NASCAR Digital Media to cover its preparation for the 2025 Daytona 500.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Rodney Childers walks the shop floor at Spire Motorsports feeling invigorated. There’s a rekindled spark in his eye.
The hallways he strolls today are starkly different than those he patrolled 12 weeks ago at Stewart-Haas Racing. When he walked into SHR in the fall of 2013, the organization had already won 20 NASCAR Cup Series races, among them a Brickyard 400 and a Cup championship.
Pacing the pristine white floors of Spire, Childers joins a team that has just one Cup victory to its name, courtesy of Justin Haley in 2019. And yet, to Childers, the echoes of those SHR memories aren’t quite so distant. There’s a striking familiarity, in fact, that he could be building his next title contender in Mooresville, some 18 miles north of the Kannapolis shop in which he forged himself into a Hall-of-Fame-caliber crew chief. He joins Haley and the No. 7 Chevrolet team at Spire for the 2025 Cup campaign.
“It feels more like SHR in the beginning, honestly, not the end — which is a good thing,” Childers said Wednesday.
Coming from the guy who led Harvick to a Cup Series championship in their first year together at SHR, perhaps the series should enter on high alert.
At his previous place of employment, Rodney Childers built a championship-winning team from the ground up as a crew chief. With a legendary driver behind the wheel in Kevin Harvick, Childers established himself as Hall-worthy with an astounding 37 wins at Stewart-Haas Racing over a record-setting decade in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Those were the good days — the great days — that became the standard for his way of operating. Today, Childers stands before the 2025 season winless across the past two seasons, dating back to Harvick’s final celebration in August 2022. An internal downturn and eventual closing of the doors at Stewart-Haas Racing dimmed both the success and the fun from Childers’ run in the sun until the doors shut in November.
That’s where the people at Spire have made their impact already. Childers is surrounded by a group of racers with optimism and experience, all looking forward at what opportunities lie ahead as part of what could be a bright future.
“You can stand here on a 7 o’clock meeting in the mornings and you look around the room, and it’s all A-plus people,” Childers said. “There’s not C people standing around, and that’s really hard to come across right now. It’s hard to find good help. It’s hard to find good engineers and good mechanics in every single position. And here, I haven’t come across anybody that’s not an A-plus guy or A-plus woman.”
Sitting on a grand stage centered along the wall in Spire Motorsports’ lobby as the team hosts a well-attended media day event, Childers estimates 18 people from Stewart-Haas made the pilgrimage to Spire for the 2025 season. Of those 18, one of the most important was Robert “Cheddar” Smith, who follows Childers as his car chief after 11 years serving the same role on the SHR No. 4 car. Former lead engineer Dax Gerringer now serves as Spire’s technical director. But the new journey isn’t about Spire becoming SHR Lite — though with just one win to its name, Spire would love to chip into SHR’s 70-win total. It’s about utilizing everyone’s strength at an organization that took tangible steps forward in 2024.
“How do we become better teammates with each other? How do we work together better?” Childers said. “There’s just so many sides of it. And right now, we’re extremely fortunate for what we have. I can’t wait to go racing.”
NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON
Championship experience is not something deeply engrained in Spire Motorsports’ pre-existing fiber. That is no slight on a still-blooming organization and instead the reality of the runway that remains ahead of it.
Childers, on the other hand, carries that pedigree with him wherever he goes. His expectation to win is part of what separates him from those who merely want to.
The level of preparation that comes with that is new for Haley, who returns to the No. 7 Chevrolet in 2025 after a reacquainting appetizer of seven races in 2024.
“I’ve quickly realized what Cup racing is through Rodney and Cheddar, and nothing is ever good enough for them,” Haley said Wednesday. “And that’s been refreshing to me, that there’s nothing overlooked, no stone unturned. If you need something done, it is done five minutes ago. It’s truly been incredible to go through the process of the offseason with the two of them, and then Matt McCall, Ryan Sparks, and obviously (Michael) McDowell and Travis (Peterson) as well.
“I guess I didn’t quite understand what level they were racing on. I feel like I was living on a different planet, honestly. And that’s nothing against where I’ve been. It’s just to compete at a high level and win races like Rodney, Cheddar, all those people have done, it requires something else.”
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media
For example, Haley’s seat position in prior Cup cars was set in such a way that his core and spine were negatively impacted, leaving his tailbone incredibly uncomfortable after races. Childers prioritized recalibrating that position so that Haley sits as comfortably as possible moving forward and can simply focus on driving.
What comes with someone with Childers’ caliber is the desire of others to be a part of what he builds. Mechanics, engineers and other crewmen know the expectation that pairs with working for Childers. They want to be part of that journey.
“It’s the people that Rodney brought with him too and the people that were already here that have been here since the inception of Spire Motorsports that have lived every moment of it,” Haley told NASCAR.com. “So yeah, Rodney obviously is a huge plus to us — having him and having that confidence, knowing that he’s going to take care of it. I think that’s what’s given me a lot of confidence, too, is there’s nothing that I can ask that’s too much for them that they aren’t going to take care of. It’s just been refreshing it’s honestly. Just been a whole change of lifestyle.”
Jeff Dickerson, co-owner of Spire, has seen that injection of life from Childers, McCall, McDowell and Peterson firsthand — but in a way that has been complementary rather than earth-shattering.
“I think it’s been more additive,” Dickerson said. “What I really appreciate about those guys is that when they got here, they didn’t look at us as a problem that needed to be solved. They weren’t coming in being like, ‘Look at these idiots. We gotta fix this and fix that.’ They’ve really just come in with an additive kind of tone where it’s like, ‘Hey, you guys are already have done this. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here. How do I just take you to another step?’
“Certainly, when somebody like Rodney Childers talks, he has the legitimacy of all those wins and championships that you listen, right? So I mean, he carries a lot of weight.”
SEEKING DAYTONA GLORY
Childers has accomplished plenty in his career — two Brickyard 400 victories at Indianapolis, two Southern 500s at Darlington, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte among them.
Notably absent from that list of crown jewels, though, is the Daytona 500.
“It just kind of hangs over my head every year,” Childers told NASCAR.com.
Many of the sport’s greats never get to experience Daytona’s most glorious victory. Mark Martin’s decades of unsatisfied journeys remain prominent in Childers’ mind, as does Dale Earnhardt’s 20-year wait.
“We’ve always been in contention,” Childers said. “We’ve been leading on the last maybe two laps or last lap. I mean, counting all the speedways, it’s 10 times we’ve been leading on the last lap. And then it just doesn’t work out.”
There is a budding optimism for Daytona that runs parallel to his season-long hopes. Childers felt the No. 4 car he prepared for Josh Berry in the August 2024 Daytona race was the best vehicle in show until it crashed from the lead late. This year, he also brings on lead engineer Jonathan Branzelle, who previously served as McCall’s engineer on the No. 6 RFK Racing entry with Brad Keselowski — another superspeedway powerhouse.
“I think we have a lot going for us,” Childers said. “In reality, I think Justin might be the best speedway racer we’ve ever went to a speedway race with. So I think that’ll be key for all of us to go down there and perform well.”
Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media
On Jan. 29, just two weeks before cars will unload at Daytona for a 10 a.m. ET practice session, the shell of the No. 7 Chevrolet that Haley will pilot sits unwrapped on jack stands. This is an improvement, however, from the last check-in, when Daytona cars were yet to be clipped together. The chassis are built, body panels installed, but no engines yet in place.
Still, there remains no anxiety of running behind schedule. All is on track for the three-car operation, and Childers has no worries.
“To be honest, I felt like at Stewart-Haas, we pushed that too far out all the time,” Childers said. “They wanted to start building the Daytona cars two months before and then they would just sit around. It was different over there too because we had like a speedway guy that, kind of like (Jimmy) Fennig does at Roush is like, you know, if you had somebody to sit there and just baby them to death, then yeah, maybe start building them earlier. But right now, we don’t really have that person.
“But, yeah, they’re in good shape. I feel like they’re coming together well. They look nice, down to just the detail stuff. If you were to open the hood on one of them six months ago compared to now, it looks way nicer. So everybody’s doing a really good job with all of it and feel good about it.”
What’s next is performing immediately when the car rolls onto the race track.
“Going to the Daytona 500 is really what matters,” Childers said. “We want to go down there and qualify well. We want to race well in the duels and then have a shot at it in the 500.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A perfect depiction of how far Ford’s ingenuity and innovation stretches can be seen in its car lineup at Ford Performance’s 2025 season launch party in Charlotte.
An array of race-worn vehicles — and a few stock — that have competed in vast motorsports disciplines across the globe sit on opposite sides of the event hall. From the Mustang GT3 right off the heels of winning the GTD Pro class in this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona to the hulking Broncos and Raptors built for podiums in off-road racing. It was a sturdy stable of decorated Blue Ovals all gathered for one night only.
Last year, Ford competed in 28 countries using 16 unique vehicles, winning 81 races. Proving NASCAR isn’t the only racing series where Ford is setting its sights high in 2025, Ford Performance’s DNA runs deep in every motorsports facet. From drag racing, drifting and off-road challenges to making its return as an engine supplier with Red Bull’s Formula One team, Ford continues to expand its international brand. NASCAR, however, remains one of its flagships, with a collection of historic, title-winning teams under the manufacturer’s banner.
Ford’s rich NASCAR legacy, spanning from the early days with Wood Brothers Racing to its modern-era dominance with Team Penske, was vividly showcased at the event, with the Bill France Cup and Craftsman Truck Series trophies proudly welcoming guests.
While Chevrolet has had a stronghold on the manufacturers’ championships the last four seasons, Team Penske’s Fords have come up clutch and wheeled in the Cup crown the last three campaigns. Ford Performance isn’t just diversifying into different motorsports for the thrill — it’s fully committed to the pursuit of victory and championships wherever the green flag waves.
Another highlight was the honor bestowed upon the Wood Brothers Racing team as they gear up for its 75th season in Cup. Wood Brothers have been synonymous with Ford since the very beginning of its journey, marking an extraordinary partnership that has yielded 100 victories. The team’s dedication to Ford, spanning multiple generations, underscores the deep bond between the brand and one of the sport’s most respected teams.
Tucked to the side in one row, you could see the striking evolution of how far Ford has grown in the Cup Series with David Pearson’s 1972 Mercury Cyclone sitting next to a freshly wrapped version of Chris Buescher’s 2025 Mustang Dark Horse. The cutting-edge design of the Dark Horse contrasted sharply with the classic charm of Pearson’s Cyclone, offering a visual narrative of Ford’s progress and commitment to success in NASCAR, past, present and future.
The 2025 launch event wasn’t just a celebration of Ford’s past accomplishments but a clear signal of the brand’s ambitious plans for the future — including an LMDh entry to compete in the 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship and fight for the overall win in the 24 hours of Le Mans. As technology evolves and new challenges emerge, Ford is setting the bar even higher for the entire motorsports industry. Whether it’s the relentless pursuit of speed in NASCAR or expanding its global footprint in Formula One and beyond, Ford Performance is poised to continue its legacy.
As the 2025 NASCAR season kicks off, Ford’s commitment to performance and tradition remains unwavering, and the Blue Oval is more entrenched than ever in the sport’s fabric, supporting some of the most competitive and successful teams on the grid.
NASCAR’s new seven-year media rights agreement for the NASCAR Cup Series begins in 2025 with four best-in-class distribution partners — FOX Sports, NBC Sports, Amazon’s Prime Video and TNT Sports, a division of Warner Bros. Discovery. Those four broadcast partners will deliver live coverage of all 38 NASCAR Cup Series races.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how to watch NASCAR in 2025, with more information on each broadcast partner below.
FOX Sports will carry 14 Cup Series races, starting with the Cook Out Clash (Feb. 2) and running through the NASCAR All-Star Race (May 18). Five of those races will air on FOX — the Cook Out Clash, Daytona 500, Atlanta, Circuit of The Americas and Talladega. The remaining races during this portion will air on FS1.
Additionally, practice and qualifying for the Cook Out Clash, the Daytona 500 and the All-Star Race events will air on the FOX network.
FOX Sports also will carry the entire NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season.
Prime Video will exclusively stream five NASCAR Cup Series races as part of the streaming service’s first foray into live motorsports, picking up after the FOX portion of the broadcast season concludes. The five races streaming on Prime Video are the Coca-Cola 600, Nashville, Michigan, the first Cup Series race at Mexico City and Pocono (June 22).
Prime Video will also offer exclusive coverage of practice and qualifying for the first half of the NASCAR Cup Series season through Pocono (excluding The Clash, Daytona 500 and All-Star races, which air on FOX Sports).
TNT Sports will offer Cup Series content across multiple platforms. The network will air five Cup Series races, following Prime Video’s portion of the Cup Series schedule. The five races are Atlanta, Chicago Street Race, Sonoma, Dover and Indianapolis (July 27). Races on TNT Sports also will stream live on the B/R Sports Add-On on Max.
All second-half practice and qualifying events will be simulcast on Max and truTV, beginning with Atlanta (June 28).
Additionally, Max will be the exclusive home of NASCAR Driver Cam, which is live in-car cameras across the Cup Series field.
NBC Sports will air the final 14 races of the season, starting with Iowa and culminating with the Cup Series championship race at Phoenix (Nov. 2). This multi-platform agreement will feature a mix of races and content on NBC, USA Network and Peacock.
Four races air on NBC and will be simulcast on Peacock — the Daytona summer race, and the final three races of the year at Talladega, Martinsville and Phoenix. The remaining races during this portion will air on USA Network.
The CW Network is the exclusive home to the NASCAR Xfinity Series beginning in 2025 and extending through the 2031 season with 33 live races, along with practice and qualifying events each weekend. All Xfinity Series races and ancillary content will be fully produced by NASCAR Productions in close collaboration with The CW Network.
Xfinity Series races air live on The CW on broadcast only, with streaming replays available the next day on The CW App. While you watch the race on broadcast, though, keep your phone or preferred device close — The CW App will stream live in-car cameras during races.
Live practice and qualifying sessions are available in The CW App exclusively.
That might seem hard to conceive now for an event that has crisscrossed the country twice in the past three years while mushrooming into a preseason extravaganza, bringing NASCAR to fresh, untapped and occasionally under-appreciated markets.
But during the exhibition race’s 33-year run at Daytona International Speedway, multi-colored jackets were a major perk that signified your car had made the invite-only club for Cup Series pole winners.
“There was a couple of times in those races that was the highlight,” Wood Brothers Racing co-owner Len Wood said with a chuckle. “They gave them to all the team members. That would have been the highlight of the week.”
Heading into its 47th running, the ancillary benefits and earth-shattering buzz have far outgrown those exclusive fashion statements of The Clash, which will be held outside Daytona for the fourth consecutive year this weekend as an annual preseason party with an all-inclusive ambiance.
Bowman Gray Stadium, a NASCAR mainstay for seven decades in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will take the baton from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, an iconic arena primarily known for the Olympics and football that spotlighted stock-car racing on a temporary asphalt oval in the middle of the concrete jungle.
The last few seasons have stirred omnipresent chatter about the merits of rotating the Cup championship finale, but The Clash is offering a real-time template of how that vision could resonate in both attracting new fans and placating the old guard.
“I think it’s great that the location is changing, and I think it should change every year,” Alex Bowman said. “Obviously we have the capability of doing it. We’re going to tiny race tracks with it now. So continuing to evolve it and do different things is kind of what NASCAR has become all about. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds.”
Though it’s likely The Clash (which sold out two months early) will have an engagement with Bowman Gray Stadium beyond 2025, three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano said the event should head to new destinations.
“It always draws up a little bit more excitement, and people talk about it more when it’s something new,” said Logano, who won the inaugural Clash at the Coliseum. “When we went to LA the first time, remember all the talk of what that race was going to be like and no one had a clue?
“It draws up a lot of hype, which is good, and you’re also bringing it to the race fan. When you look at what Winston-Salem is to our sport, and that whole region, there are a ton of NASCAR fans there, but it’s also cool that we’re giving race fans that might not have been able to go to other races an opportunity to see a race. Whether that’s in Winston-Salem or in LA or name a city, I think moving it around is cool because it gives people opportunity.”
Erick Messer | Messer Media for Bowman Gray Stadium
Citing new Cup races in Mexico City, the outskirts of Nashville and downtown Chicago as other examples of bringing NASCAR’s product to the people, Christopher Bell sees The Clash’s recent history as a blueprint for the future.
“I love that concept, and I love the diversification of the NASCAR schedule,” Bell said. “I would love to get to a point in NASCAR where we’re going to every venue once a year. And I think that just helps create excitement and helps make every race feel like an event. … I would love to see more new tracks on the schedule every year. I think that’s super important.”
Evolving from the Daytona oval
From 1979-2021, The Clash was a fixture (albeit under various sponsor-driven monikers) at Daytona International Speedway. It’s a little dizzying to reflect on how the willingness to take the show on the road was accepted virtually overnight as a stroke of scheduling genius.
The vibe shift started with the baby steps of moving the event from the Daytona oval to the track’s road course in 2021. Then came the quantum leap of spending millions to construct a temporary short track inside the LA Coliseum, which drew a debut crowd of 50,000 with at least 70 percent first-time ticket buyers (per NASCAR data).
“I thought what we did in LA, especially the first year with how many new fans, was one of the largest wins our sport has ever seen that I’ve been a part of,” Logano said. “Going to a whole new market and racing downtown basically. I thought that was huge.”
Now it’s back to the future at Bowman Gray, a rough-and-tumble quarter-mile that has held more than 1,000 NASCAR-sanctioned races since 1949 but primarily is famous for its weekly modified series since its most recent Cup race was held in 1971.
In moving from the second-largest metropolitan area in the country to the fifth-largest city in North Carolina, there is a common thread.
Once a private society of pole winners meeting for a match race at Daytona (its inaugural field had nine cars racing for 20 laps), The Clash was repositioned in LA as a carnival with “halftime” concerts and heat races.
The same atmosphere will be celebrated in Winston-Salem, where The Clash will be held over two days with several hours of practice, qualifying and racing sandwiched around fan festivals. With a nod to the track fondly known as “The Madhouse” for bare-knuckle racing, there also will be a modified race on Saturday.
For the co-owners of Wood Brothers Racing, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, untethering The Clash from Daytona’s pure focus on racing was the right call for turning it into a traveling show.
“Back in the early days of Daytona, you were talking about being over in 16 or 17 minutes,” Len Wood said. “That was a short show. What they did (in Los Angeles) with the heat races and the concerts like Ice Cube, they made a whole day of it, and I think that went over much better than a 17-minute show.”
While Eddie Wood recalls it was “a big honor” to make The Clash at Daytona, he is giddy when explaining what the event will mean for Bowman Gray Stadium, a racing hotbed where he has attended races since it “was almost the center of NASCAR” in the 1960s.
Susan Wong | NASCAR
“The way they’re doing it now, instead of a race, it’s an event to me,” Wood said. “You’ve got so many things going on, and I just think it’s good for Winston-Salem. I’ve been there in the middle of the summer and for opening night for the weekly series, and it’s packed. I’ve seen 18,000 to 20,000 people there. I’m interested in seeing the back wall above the grandstand. I’ve seen that with people six deep, so I’m interested to see how that shakes out. I like what they’re doing.”
Having raced Modifieds four times at Bowman Gray Stadium, Ryan Preece believes Winston-Salem deservedly has been rewarded with a major-league exhibition after its long absence from Cup.
“That’s a city that gets behind racing (and) Bowman Gray Stadium,” he said. “For anybody that’s never been to that race track on their typical weekly show, the place is jammed. It’s a community that loves racing and supports the race track.”
The future of The Clash
Which community might get the next crack at The Clash?
Cup drivers have myriad ideas but also have realistic expectations for an event that naturally must take place during the winter.
“It’s really tough because there are different little pockets in the United States that are really passionate about racing,” Preece said. “The challenge is it’s February.”
The Roush Fenway Keselowski driver suggested trying The Clash at New Smyrna Speedway, just south of Daytona.
A Southwest locale also would make sense. NASCAR once ran a winter heat series in Tucson, Arizona (which happens to be Bowman’s hometown).
“If we’re going to do it in stadiums, there’s obviously all kinds of places we can go,” Bowman said. “If we’re going to go to different race tracks that Cup just doesn’t go to, I think there are a lot of great race tracks throughout the country that can put on a good show. It just is tough being in February or January. But there’s all kinds of places to go. There’s probably not one that’s fair to pick. I feel like we can kind of put it anywhere, and they’ve continued to show that.”
Logano leans toward another major metro area.
“I would love to see our sport continue to do things like that because it just feels big,” he said. “The Coliseum felt like a big event. I’m not saying Bowman Gray doesn’t feel big, but it feels like we’re going to our grassroots, which is also cool in its own way but different. So, personally, I’d like to see us race in the cities.
“That’s where our sport has a little bit more of a challenge because it’s hard to put a 1-mile or 2-mile race track in a city. So if we have the opportunity to be like a baseball, basketball, hockey and NFL team, where their stadiums are where the people are and where people can walk to it, you get a whole new demographic.”
For at least another year, though, it’s expected those Clash fans will be flocking to Bowman Gray Stadium.
“I just think that people are going to be really excited for it,” Chase Elliott said. “I think that that’s going to last more than a year. Hopefully, it just carries the energy a little further before they have to switch it up again.”
Said Preece: “The energy that they’re going see from that community, even though it’s probably going to be 42 degrees or whatever, it’s going to be awesome.”
And maybe just the right temperature for a vintage Clash coat.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is the host of the NASCAR on NBC Podcast and also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
CONCORD, N.C. — Overheard conversation in the NASCAR Cup Series garage: “Kind of weird, isn’t it? It’s like a test session without a test.”
And so it was Thursday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which hosted pre-race inspection for a race it’s not hosting.
NASCAR competition officials scrutineered and approved the 39 entries for the season-opening Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, conducting their tests and checks at the 1.5-mile Charlotte track’s garage. The speedway was chosen as a convenient alternate site for inspection, given the small footprint of the garage area at the stadium, which will be host of Sunday’s preseason exhibition (8 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) for the first time.
While the two-track, two-stage start to the race weekend was unusual, it’s not a drastic departure from how flexible teams and officials have had to be in recent years. Garage setups and inspection stations have been placed on major metropolitan thoroughfares (Chicago Street Race) and in tailgate lots and side streets (during the Clash’s three-year run at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum).
“I think in this day and age, you’ve got to expect about anything,” said Paul Wolfe, crew chief for the Team Penske No. 22 Ford of defending Cup champ Joey Logano. “That’s what I’ve come to realize, that nothing will really surprise you anymore — and I say that in a good way, right? I mean, this made a lot of sense for the constraints we have up there, as far as space and whatnot. …
“We’ve done so many things in the last handful of years that I don’t think anyone would ever have thought, and we make it work. A lot of times, we learn a lot from it, and we continue to evolve as a sport. I think that’s the biggest thing, is staying open-minded, and I think the last few years has really taught all of us that we’ve got to work together. There’s a lot of people with great ideas.”
As the reigning championship-winning team, Wolfe’s No. 22 Ford was the first car through Thursday. Officials made use of the cover of the Cup Series garage for templates, scales and the optical scanning station, and each organization loaded primary cars from two teams into a single hauler once inspection was complete.
Officials placed tamper-proof seals on the hood, rear deck and hauler doors to secure their work. The haulers were to stay overnight at the Charlotte track before making their way to Winston-Salem for Friday’s load-in, all ahead of Saturday’s on-track sessions.
Cup Series director Brad Moran said Thursday afternoon that operations had gone smoothly, thanking the officials at track owners Speedway Motorsports for the use of their facilities.
“This really made it convenient for the teams,” Moran said as the inspection rounds were nearing completion. “… We’ll get them parked tomorrow, and we’ll be ready to go on Saturday. So real good, and it was welcome from the teams. They appreciate it, and we’re getting through them pretty good, so we should be out of here on time, and everybody’s looking forward to a great weekend at Bowman Gray.”
Inspection indeed was completed without issue, and officials reported there were no multiple failures. It was a relatively quiet procedure — pierced only by Ford Performance vehicles making demonstration runs for the manufacturer’s preseason splash — before load-in begins at the quarter-mile track known as “The Madhouse.”
“It was uniquely calm today. I think it’s great,” said Phil Surgen, crew chief of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet for Ross Chastain. “You know, all the shops are five minutes down the road, our houses are 15 minutes down the street, so this works out really well for all the team guys, and NASCAR accomplished everything they wanted to get done today, too. So, yeah, I welcome this.”
TNT Sports announced the launch of a brand-new NASCAR Driver Cam experience — exclusive to Max — that will offer motorsports fans the ultimate all-access pass to every driver for every race throughout the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule.
Launching with the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 2 (8 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), NASCAR Driver Cam on Max will offer users the most comprehensive access inside each driver’s car — up to 40 drivers each race — including a layered audio mix of scanner team radios and ambient car noise, all synced up with a 1080p Driver Cam feed on supported devices.
At launch, fans will be able to choose between individual Driver Cams or two pre-set Multiview stream options featuring four drivers each, chosen based on the most compelling matchups and storylines each week. B/R Racing’s X and Instagram platforms will also run a weekly poll to enable fans to vote on which four drivers will be featured on a special “Fan Selected” Multiview stream on Max.
TNT Sports
Each individual driver stream will have integrated live stats — stage, lap number, position and race status — along with telemetry data including speed, RPM, gear and more. Users will be able to pause, rewind and fast forward live video as well, and a replay of each individual driver stream will be available following each race.
On race days, the NASCAR Driver Cams along with the featured and fan-selected Multiviews will all be available to stream within the B/R Sports section on Max. Users can find all NASCAR Driver Cam on Max live content on the upcoming schedule at https://play.max.com/live-sports-schedule
NASCAR Driver Cam on Max will be available for all drivers across all 38 race weekends of the Cup Series schedule, including the Daytona 500, all seeding races for and each race of the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Tournament and the Cup Series Playoffs.
TNT Sports’ networks will exclusively present the inaugural in-season tournament, starting with Atlanta’s night race on Saturday, June 28, followed by four consecutive Sundays of adrenaline-pumping race action: July 6 in Chicago, July 13 in Sonoma, July 20 in Dover and July 27 in Indianapolis. All races will also simulcast on Max.
TNT Sports and NASCAR are entering the inaugural campaign of a new seven-year multimedia rights agreement for distribution in the U.S. that will see some of the biggest moments in the NASCAR season returning to TNT Sports’ linear and streaming platforms. Additionally, truTV and Max will exclusively present the second half of the Cup Series practices and qualifying sessions each season.
The new agreement also includes expansive highlight rights for Bleacher Report’s digital and social platforms, including B/R Racing as a dedicated content destination for NASCAR fans.
This marks the continuation of TNT Sports’ 32-year relationship with NASCAR, a collaboration that began in 1983 and one that has been centered on innovation and creativity that was instrumental to the growth of the sport.
Growing up, Riley Neal cherished trips to Truist Stadium with his family to cheer for the local minor league baseball team in the Winston-Salem Dash.
He never imagined the Dash would one day be on his car for a Modified race at Bowman Gray Stadium.
The arrival of the NASCAR Cup Series to Winston-Salem for the Cook Out Clash on Sunday evening presented a perfect opportunity for Neal to partner with the Dash for the accompanying Madhouse Classic on Saturday. Neal’s Modified and firesuit will feature the Dash’s familiar white and purple pinstripe colors as he chases a checkered flag in the Modified race.
Neal’s commitment to supporting the Dash has persisted into his teenage years, which is why he is determined to deliver the team a strong showing for one of the most prestigious events in recent Bowman Gray history.
“During race season, I work [for the Winston-Salem Dash] from Monday-Friday and also on Sundays, too,” Neal said. “I know just about everyone there, [so it’s really cool] to say that they sponsored me. I always loved Bolt [the mascot] as a kid, so being able to have [the team] on my race car is something that’s really special to me.”
Sponsorship from the Dash is not the only aspect of the upcoming weekend over which Neal finds himself in disbelief.
The idea of any major NASCAR touring event at Bowman Gray, let alone a Cup Series race, was one Neal and his family always considered to be far-fetched. Prior to the announcement of the Clash being moved to Bowman Gray, the last Cup Series event at the historic track was in 1971, a race won by Hall-of-Famer Bobby Allison.
Since then, Bowman Gray has become a cornerstone of short-track racing in the southeast, renowned for its vibrant crowds and heated on-track action. Neal’s family has enjoyed plenty of success at Bowman Gray during that period, with his grandfather Tommy being a multi-time champion in the Sportsman and Stadium Stock classes.
Now with the Cup Series back at Bowman Gray for the first time in five decades, Neal anticipates a chaotic-but-enthralling environment for competitors and fans all weekend. He is trying to not let the gravity of the occasion distract him while preparing for Saturday’s 125-lap Modified feature.
“We don’t realize right now how big of an event this is going to be,” Neal said. “It’s all going to set in on Saturday morning at about 7:45 when I pull in the gate and I see all the Cup haulers. We’re going to be working right across from those guys. I don’t want to think about it too much, because I want to focus on ourselves and do our own thing.
“Then on Sunday, I can go watch and understand how cool this is.”
Riley Neal looks forward to sharing the pit area with NASCAR Cup Series drivers while preparing to chase a checkered flag of his own. (Photo: Erick Messer)
When Brian DeAngelis joined the Dash as both the president and general manager back in 2021, he quickly took notice of how much the locals loved racing. He enjoys every chance to honor Bowman Gray’s rich culture, which includes a racing-themed night each year at Truist Stadium that includes activities for fans such as changing tires and fueling cars.
This weekend will be the first time the Dash have sponsored any car for an event at Bowman Gray, but DeAngelis knew Neal would be the perfect choice for the venture with his status as an employee along with his dedicated work ethic.
“It starts and ends with Riley,” DeAngelis said. “He’s a great kid and somebody you want on your staff. We knew the Clash was coming and Riley was looking for sponsors, so who else would we put our support behind? For someone who has given so much time and is a great employee, it made too much sense for us to do this.”
DeAngelis was one of the last within the Dash organization to discover that Neal himself was a full-time Bowman Gray competitor. Once he found out, DeAngelis attended his first Bowman Gray race to support Neal, where he got a formal introduction to the electric atmosphere and how committed drivers are to winning.
Finding success at the Madhouse is an arduous process with which Neal is all too familiar. The triumphs Neal amassed in Bowman Gray’s Sportsman class included becoming the youngest winner in track history at 14, but he has not visited Victory Lane since moving up to the Modified division.
Neal does not see the task of a Modified victory being any easier with the Madhouse Classic. Since all of Bowman Gray’s weekly events are held during the summer, Saturday’s event presents plenty of unknowns for both veterans and rookies alike as they acclimate to the cooler track conditions.
The Madhouse Classic will also be held in the daytime as opposed to evening or nighttime conditions. An unorthodox setting for such a prestigious event is keeping Neal vigilant when it comes to qualifying, as he knows how important track position is to performance at Bowman Gray.
“Nobody has qualified over there in February with the track being as green and cold as it is,” Neal said. “We’ve never experienced this before. When we pull off the track after practice, everyone is trying to keep their cars as cool as possible. You’re going to have to keep heat in them [on Saturday]. I’m taking a bunch of propane heaters to keep the car warm.
“Whoever keeps the most heat in the car and gets the most heat in the tires is going to be your polesitter.”
Having spent the offseason refining his Modified, Riley Neal is ready to contend for victories at Bowman Gray Stadium during his sophomore year. (Photo: Susan Wong/NASCAR)
If he does not earn the pole, Neal hopes his starting position is somewhere on the inside line. He said no rubber on the track due to months of inactivity, combined with the cooler weather conditions, will make it impossible for an outside line to be viable, forcing everyone to fight for the bottom.
A long offseason of diligent work has Neal confident he can put himself in the best position possible to excel not only on Saturday, but the rest of the 2025 season. For now, Neal’s focus is on the Madhouse Classic, where he is taking pride in blending his motorsports career alongside his job with the Dash.
DeAngelis is thrilled with how everything came together for the Dash to sponsor Neal, from the publicity the team has gotten to the hype surrounding the event. Nothing would thrill DeAngelis more than seeing Neal take the Dash to Victory Lane, but he will consider the weekend a success regardless of how the race unfolds.
“We’ve already gotten more than what we wanted out of this partnership,” DeAngelis said. “If [Riley] won, we’d probably have him come out and throw the first pitch on opening day. He might even become a local legend in the baseball world, but we hope it’s a good race and Riley does what he sets out to do.
“It’d be so great to be out on the track with him. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”
Neal has no idea when the Cup Series will visit Bowman Gray again, which only adds to the motivation of opening his sophomore Modified campaign with his first win. Reaching that milestone on such a big stage would carry plenty of catharsis for Neal, knowing he added to his family’s esteemed Madhouse legacy with his favorite baseball team on the car.
“It would mean so much to me,” Neal said. “That would be my first win in a Modified at the stadium. If [everything] is correct, then I would become the youngest Modified winner, too. I want to do this for my team more than anything. We all worked so hard last year to learn this race car and different things about it, so I hope it can all pay off for us.”
With so many eyes on him and the rest of the Modified competitors this weekend, Neal is ready to step up to the plate and hit a home run at Bowman Gray with the Winston-Salem Dash by his side.
After months of waiting for the dawn of a new season, the NASCAR Cup Series will fire up its engines for Sunday’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (8 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM). No, the race doesn’t pay any official points, and it features a unique format at a unique track, but it will give us a first look at some of this season’s new faces in new places for 2025.
Furthermore, it could also provide some valuable early clues about how this year’s teams and drivers will end up running during the season — especially at short tracks.
Bowman Gray is a special venue, with a rich history going back to the late 1930s as both a football stadium and a race track. Every week throughout the spring and summer, it hosts races across multiple divisions, from Stadium Stock to Modifieds, and it even held points-paying Cup Series races up until the early 1970s. Modern Cup cars have not raced here since then, however, leaving us with little direct precedent for how today’s field might fare on its tight, quarter-mile layout.
Still, let’s dig into a few numbers that might give us a bit of insight. We’ll begin by looking at the best short-track drivers in Sunday’s field, according to both traditional Driver Rating and my Adjusted Points+ index (which scales every driver’s finishes relative to a field average of 100) during the Next Gen era:
Unsurprisingly, Kyle Larson is the best statistical short-track driver in the series over the previous three seasons, followed by Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott. Those guys are all among the championship favorites as well, so at the very least, the Clash will give us an early chance to see some bumping and banging between rivals who’ll be jockeying for position with each other all season long.
But we have to remember Bowman Gray isn’t a normal short track. At 0.25 miles, it’s shorter than any other track on the Cup Series calendar by a factor of at least double, if not triple in the case of Richmond Raceway. The closest examples from official points races are Martinsville (0.526 miles) and Bristol (0.533), which are the shortest of the regular short tracks. So when trying to see who might be best suited to the cramped conditions of the Clash, it’s interesting to look at which drivers saw their performance change the most at very short tracks versus all short tracks during the Next Gen era:
By that standard, yes, we see Larson show up once again among the masters of the shortest short tracks. But we also get a few other interesting names at the top rightmost side of the chart, who improved their performance the most: Chase Briscoe, now of Joe Gibbs Racing; Cole Custer of Haas Factory Team (formerly Stewart-Haas Racing); Ryan Preece, now of RFK Racing; and John Hunter Nemechek of Legacy Motor Club, with 2023 Cup Series champ Ryan Blaney also in that mix.
Some of this may tell us that the old SHR team ran especially well at Martinsville and Bristol in the Next Gen era, so it remains to be seen whether their former drivers like Briscoe and Preece can carry that over to new teams — but if we believe driver skill also matters to these metrics, they at least have experience beating expectations under tight conditions.
(And maybe this also tells us that Josh Berry isn’t primed for a big run.)
Of course, both Martinsville and Bristol are imperfect comparisons for Bowman Gray, even though they are the closest thing we’ve got to such a short track on the main schedule. One other relevant point of comparison more in line with the quarter-mile length of the new Clash? The old one, previously held on a 0.25-mile temporary track at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
We don’t have loop data for those races, so we can’t say what the top Driver Ratings were in the Clash’s Coliseum era. But we can still calculate Adjusted Points+ index at the Clash across the previous three seasons — here are those leaders:
This accounting gives us some interesting names at the top who didn’t show up well in our previous short-track chart: Kyle Busch and 2022 Clash winner Joey Logano. At the other end of the spectrum, Chase Elliott hasn’t fared as well at the Clash as we might expect from his short-track resume overall. And then there is Larson – along with Custer – near the top again, as we saw in our other data.
A couple of drivers in the field that we don’t have data on from any of these samples? Burt Myers and Tim Brown, who have combined to win a staggering 23 track championships at Bowman Gray under the modified classification in their careers. We have no idea how they’ll fare against Cup competition, but anyone who has won that often at a track is worth watching.
But perhaps the most important finding in all this number-crunching is that the Clash actually does matter to the regular season, despite not contributing any points in the standings.
Based on the data above from the Coliseum, we found that drivers who do better at the Clash perform better at short tracks during the subsequent season, even after controlling for their previous level of performance at short tracks. For instance, a driver who posts an Adjusted Points+ index 10% higher at the Clash can expect to do 1.2% better at short tracks overall that season – and 1.6% better at half-mile tracks specifically. This effect gets amplified the better you do: for example, a 30% increase in performance at the Clash predicts a 3.5% improvement at all short tracks and a 4.7% improvement at very short tracks.
So Sunday’s race could end up telling us something important about the season to come, even if the effect is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. In part, that’s because it’s a brand-new season – and every little bit of information we gain can carries more weight than we might think at first.
Tommy Baldwin Racing announced today that Luke Baldwin will pilot the historic No. 7NY to compete for Rookie of the Year honors on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour in 2025. Baldwin will compete in at least 12 of the 16 events on the circuit, beginning with the season opener at New Smyrna Speedway’s World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing on February 8.
Baldwin will also run the events at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (March 30, August 6, October 12), Monadnock Speedway (May 3 & July 19), North Wilkesboro Speedway (May 18), Seekonk Speedway (May 31), Riverhead Raceway (June 14), Lancaster Motorplex (July 12), Richmond Raceway (August 14) and Martinsville Speedway (October 23). Additional events are possible and would be announced at a later date.
“Working with my dad is always pretty special, so it means a lot to be able to do so for most of the 2025 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season,” Luke Baldwin said. “I’m excited for the challenge of trying to win the Rookie of the Year.”
Tommy Baldwin Racing will compete in the full NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule, with additional announcements to come.
“Putting Luke up against the best of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is important to us,” team owner Tommy Baldwin Jr. said. “He’s going to have a busy year but we’re excited to see him run for the Rookie of the Year and also excited to chase the owner championship again with the 7NY.”
