Over the last few years, as NASCAR has gotten more and more diverse with its schedule, fans have speculated about tracks that would either return to the Cup Series schedule or have a chance of hosting a Cup Series race for the first time.
First, it was North Wilkesboro Speedway, which beat the odds, got the facelift it needed and returned to the NASCAR schedule in 2023, hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race and a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. It will return to host both events again for 2024, and rumors have swirled that it’s on its way to hosting a points-paying Cup race for the first time since 1996.
Aside from North Wilkesboro, there’s the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, which has been fighting a litany of protesters just to remain open, let alone host a NASCAR race. NASCAR already has a presence in the city, running at Nashville Superspeedway in nearby Lebanon, so its not too far-fetched to say the Superspeedway is a holdover until the Fairgrounds are ready — if that day comes.
Then there’s been hope that Rockingham Speedway would return to the schedule after the track received financial backing to get a facelift similar to, but not quite as extreme as North Wilkesboro. Meanwhile, Iowa Speedway finally got the Cup date it had yearned for over the last decade, while the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was rumored to join Iowa on the 2024 schedule before that ultimately fell through — though the option is still on the table for 2025.
But in the midst of all these hopes of tracks coming back, one track that sits fairly close to NASCAR’s home base of Charlotte has largely been overlooked for a return to the schedule.
On Thursday, March 21, it was announced that NASCAR had acquired Winston-Salem Speedway Inc., and with it, the rights to manage the racing operations at the historic Bowman Gray Stadium. The deal runs through 2050 (boy that’s a long time).
Bowman Gray is a quarter-mile bullring that surrounds the football field of Winston-Salem State University. In essence, if you’ve ever looked at your high school or college track-and-field track and thought that an auto race could be held on it, you’ve described Bowman Gray to a ‘T.’
The track was a mainstay on the NASCAR schedule in its…
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