Inside The Madhouse: Bowman Gray Racing Heads to the Beach

SWANSBORO, N.C. — Every year, drivers and fans from Bowman Gray Stadium make their way east to Carteret County Speedway for one of the most unique nights on our racing schedule. You may recognize some of the names, you may have heard it called “The Madhouse,” and you may know that Bowman Gray racing has a reputation all its own.

But if you’ve never been to Winston-Salem or watched a race at Bowman Gray Stadium, you may be wondering what exactly makes this place so famous.

For starters, they race around a football field.

Bowman Gray Stadium is one of the most unusual venues in American motorsports. Built in 1937 as a football stadium, the facility began hosting NASCAR-sanctioned weekly racing in 1949 after NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and promoter Alvin Hawkins established competition on the flat quarter-mile oval surrounding the gridiron.

Bowman Gray became NASCAR’s first weekly sanctioned race track and remains its longest-running weekly racing facility. The stadium still serves a dual purpose today. In the fall, Winston-Salem State University plays football on the field. During racing season, stock cars and Modifieds circle the yard lines and goalposts with grandstands packed around them.

Why Do They Call It “The Madhouse?”

One look at Bowman Gray’s racing surface explains a lot. The oval is just one-quarter mile, narrow and almost completely flat — about as flat as your kitchen table. Put a full field of race cars on it and there simply isn’t a lot of real estate to work with.

Drivers race inches apart, and clean, wide-open passing opportunities can be hard to find. That has helped make the bump-and-run one of the most recognizable parts of Bowman Gray racing. Get to the rear bumper, give the car ahead a little nudge, open the bottom lane and make the pass. Of course, the driver who just got moved might not appreciate the technique quite as much.

That close-quarters style has created generations of hard racing, torn-up race cars, heated tempers and rivalries that can last for years. At Bowman Gray, what happens one Saturday night can very easily become part of the storyline the following week — or the following season.

That combination of tight racing and big personalities earned the stadium its famous nickname: The Madhouse.

The Fans Are Part of the Experience

Bowman Gray is also known for its fans, and they are anything but quiet. The grandstands surround the tiny racing surface, putting thousands of spectators remarkably close to the action. Fans can hear the engines, smell the racing fuel and see every bump and battle unfold just feet away. They also tend to have very strong opinions about who they want to win — and who they absolutely do not.

Drivers become heroes and villains, family names develop loyal followings and rivalries extend well beyond the competitors behind the wheel. For generations of families in the Winston-Salem area, Saturday nights at Bowman Gray have become a tradition.

When The Madhouse Went to Television

If the name Bowman Gray sounds familiar even though you’ve never been there, television may be the reason. In 2010, the History Channel premiered “MadHouse,” a 13-episode reality series centered around competitors in Bowman Gray’s Modified division. The show took viewers behind the scenes and introduced a national audience to the racing, personalities, family dynamics and rivalries that had long been part of life at the stadium.

Drivers including Burt Myers, Jason Myers, Chris Fleming, Tim Brown and Junior Miller became known to race fans far beyond Winston-Salem.

Some of the familiar personalities from that era are still racing today, including Burt Myers, Jason Myers and Chris “The Showstopper” Fleming, while names such as Jonathan “Jon Boy” Brown have also become closely associated with the modern Madhouse scene.

The television cameras may have brought Bowman Gray to a national audience, but they didn’t create the drama. They simply showed everyone else what Bowman Gray fans already knew.

NASCAR Legends Raced There, Too

Bowman Gray’s history reaches much further back than reality television. Between 1958 and 1971, the stadium hosted 29 races in NASCAR’s premier division. Some of the greatest names in the history of stock car racing competed around that football field, including Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson and Glen Wood.

One of NASCAR’s most significant career milestones happened there as well. On August 22, 1969, Richard Petty captured his 100th NASCAR Cup Series victory at Bowman Gray Stadium. The King reached the century mark not at one of NASCAR’s massive superspeedways, but on a tight quarter-mile track wrapped around a football field in Winston-Salem.

The Madhouse Returns to Carteret

That brings us back to Swansboro.

Bowman Gray competitors have made the trip to Carteret County Speedway an annual tradition, giving our fans an opportunity to see some of the drivers and personalities from one of NASCAR’s most historic weekly tracks without making the trip across the state.

This year, they return on Saturday, September 5, for the Carteret Clash: Madhouse at the Beach. The night will feature Bowman Gray Sportsman and Bowman Gray Street Stocks, along with a stacked racing program that includes the SMART Modified Tour, Carolina Crate Modifieds, VRL Vintage Lites, Mini Stocks and Champ Karts.

The SMART Modified field brings even more familiar names to the weekend, including Burt Myers, Jason Myers, Ryan Newman, Bobby Labonte, Danny Bohn, Brandon Ward, Carson Loftin, Joey Coulter, Luke Baldwin, Jack Baldwin and more.

So if you’ve seen us talking about The Madhouse and weren’t quite sure what all the fuss was about, now you know.

It is more than a nickname. Bowman Gray Stadium has been producing champions, rivalries, unforgettable personalities and some of the wildest short-track racing in the country for more than 75 years.

And once a year, some of that Madhouse makes its way to the Crystal Coast.

Welcome back to the beach.

Article Credit: Chris Carter & Tracie Wade-Cronkhite