NASCAR Acquires Lease to Historic Bowman Gray Stadium

• Built in 1937, NASCAR founders Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins brought motorsports to the quarter-mile facility in 1949.

• Bowman Gray was the first weekly race track and first paved track where NASCAR-sanctioned an event.

• Richard Petty recorded his 100th career victory in the 1969 Myers Brothers 250 at Bowman Gray.

Bowman Gray Stadium, the subject of the 2010 History Channel TV series MadHouse and the longest-running weekly race track in NASCAR, will now have its races overseen directly by the sanctioning body.

NASCAR announced Thursday it had acquired Winston-Salem Speedway Inc., the lessee of the historic facility, and would manage racing operations under the lease with the City of Winston-Salem through December 2050.

Built in 1937, NASCAR founders Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins brought motorsports to the quarter-mile facility in 1949, making it the first weekly race track and first paved track where NASCAR-sanctioned an event. The Hawkins family’s management of the weekly races at the facility has been multi-generational.

Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s vice president of racing development and strategy, said NASCAR began talking to Gray Garrison who held the racing season lease on Bowman Gray Stadium a little more than two years ago.

“We started having a few conversations and kind of over time, one thing led to another and here we are announcing that we’ll be the lease holder of Bowman Gray Stadium for the summer months,” Kennedy told Speedway host Dave Moody on SIRIUS XM NASCAR Radio Thursday afternoon. “We know this comes with a great deal of responsibility. There’s a lot of things that make Bowman Gray really unique. We want to continue to celebrate that history, continue to protect what makes it really tick at the end of the day.”

Kennedy admitted there had been discussions about having either a non-points or a points race for its other series at Bowman Gray, but that wasn’t its current focus. However, the possibility always exists for the track to host a national racing series feature.

“It’s something that we’ll talk about internally if there’s something that might make sense there,” Kennedy says.

Kennedy says NASCAR’s goal is to keep racing as is on Saturday nights.

“I’d say a big reason that we’ve asked to keep Gray and the family involved over the next couple of years is they know the ins-and-outs of that facility, how it operates and relationships that they’ve had in that market for decades,” Kennedy told Moody. “Those are a lot of things that are invaluable, and we’ve got to make sure that we’re just stewards of that track as we take it on.”