NASCAR, Wood Brothers Revisit Their Roots With 2025 Clash

To say NASCAR and the Wood Brothers Racing team have history at Bowman Gray Stadium, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series season-opening Cookout Clash, would be an understatement.

The first NASCAR sanctioned event, won by Fonty Flock, came in May of 1949, promoted by NASCAR co-founders Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins. The first Grand National event, now NASCAR Cup Series, was won by Bob Welborn in 1958. Other winners throughout the years include Richard Petty, who won his 100th race at the track, as well as David Pearson, Marvin Panch, Rex White, Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson and Glen Wood.

Founded in 1950, the Wood Brothers Racing team has four wins at the venerable old football stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that was built in 1937 as part of a public works program to provide jobs during the Great Depression - all of them by team co-founder and NASCAR Hall of Famer Glen Wood.

This weekend, NASCAR’s oldest and longest-running weekly race track will play host to the Cup Series for the first time since August, 1971.

Eddie Wood (Photo courtesy of Wood Brothers Racing)

Just a young boy at the time, Eddie Wood, now the Chief Executive Officer of Wood Brothers Racing, recalls when his dad was winning races at Bowman Gray.

“I would have been eight years old when my dad raced there. In 1960 he won a championship there in that ‘37 flatback coach, which we referred to it as the backseater, which is what the paint scheme this weekend kind of represents. 

“We sat in the same place. I watched the program (this week) on Fox and I think it was Chocolate and Burt Myers were talking about where their family sat. We were the same way. There were probably a dozen people that went every Saturday night and you sat at the same place. You’d go get french fries with vinegar on them. We couldn’t have peanuts. I wanted some, but they wouldn’t let you because of the peanut thing. 

“Bowman Gray is really special to me. When I first heard they were even thinking about going to the stadium to race the Clash I thought, ‘Man, that’s the coolest thing ever.’ I’m really into the stadium. I keep up with it weekly during the summer with the Myers boys. 

“There’s something about Bowman Gray that brings out the worst in people, or the best. You can say it either way you want it, but I think everybody is really amped up about doing well there. I know we are and everyone I’ve talked to and been around is really looking forward to it. I have nothing but good memories about Bowman Gray Stadium.”

Back in the day, a young Richard Childress fell in love with racing at Bowman Gray, hawking peanuts in the stands before taking the wheel himself on his journey to becoming a legendary NASCAR team owner. Wood suspects he and his younger brother Len may have purchased something from Childress.

“We probably did because he was selling peanuts and popcorn in the timeframe that my dad was there in the early sixties – late fifties too. We probably did. I mean, I didn’t know Richard until later. He raced Grand National/Cup cars. I’ve known him for a long, long time, but that’s really cool that he started there. 

“You just look at the people that have gone through Bowman Gray Stadium and there are so many Hall of Famers and if you just go beyond the drivers, you look at the France family and the Hawkins family and how important it was then. In the sixties it was almost the center of what was going on in NASCAR.”

As most longtime fans know, peanuts were considered bad luck in racing, along with the number 13 and the color green. As such, the young Wood Brothers were never allowed to buy peanuts and still don’t eat them at a race track to this day, according to Wood.

“Peanuts were, I mean, I wouldn’t eat a peanut now at a race track. They were bad luck. Why they were bad luck? I don’t know the correct answer. The only answer I’ve ever really heard anybody, my dad or (uncle) Leonard, the answer would have been that somebody crashed somewhere – it wasn’t Bowman Gray – but it was somewhere, and the car was turned over and in the roof there was peanut shells. Somebody had been eating peanuts with the shell in the car and from that day on it was considered bad luck, just as the number 13 was, but that’s kind of gone away, and green. Green was really bad. 

“In our family, $50 bills were bad,” Wood continued. “It’s just that everybody has their thing, but the peanut thing seems to be pretty consistent. You could ask Chocolate or Burt or any of those guys that raced and their family raced there when you were kids. It was just a no-no, but I remember the little bags. They still sell them like that. The guys over at the Peanut House in Winston-Salem. I think they’ve sold peanuts over there at the stadium for years and they have these little bags and you want one so bad, but you couldn’t get it. They wouldn’t let you have it.”

Jon Wood (Photo courtesy of Wood Brothers Racing)

How does the family feel about the Clash coming to a track that holds so much history for them? Jon Wood, the team’s president and leader of the family’s third generation of racers, thinks the three years the Clash ran at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and now Bowman Gray Stadium, is a welcome change.

“Speedway racing seems to be the best when there’s a full field and rarely did we see more than half the field for the Clash and most races historically seemed to be a little bit maybe less interesting. So, taking it to the shortest of short tracks and experimenting with the L.A. Coliseum, I think it showed that garnered more interest than what had been happening, ratcheting it up one more notch and bringing it to Bowman Gray. 

“I actually think that was an experiment. Looking back on it, I think they experimented with the Clash at the Coliseum hoping to bring it to Bowman Gray. I don’t know that anybody would ever admit that. I don’t know that Jim (France, NASCAR CEO) would ever admit that, but it seems to be that that’s how it evolved and I feel like there’s no reason it wouldn’t be one of the best exhibition Clash races that’s ever been.”

Len Wood (Photo courtesy of Wood Brothers Racing)

Eddie’s younger brother, Len Wood, the CEO of Wood Brothers Racing, agrees.

“I would say back in the days of Daytona they were 20 laps and you were talking about being over in like 16 or 17 minutes. That was a short show. What they did at the Clash 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.”

“I agree with that,” Eddie Wood added. “If you go way back to when the Clash started, one of those years I think there were eight cars – maybe one of the years Cale Yarborough or Baker won the thing – but they all just kind of got in line and ran their 20 laps and it was over. 

“At the time, it was a big deal. It was a big honor to be in it. In those days, you had to sit on a pole the previous year, but the way they’re doing it now instead of a race it’s an event to me. You’ve got so many things going on with it, back to the modifieds, those are the guys that have raced their weekly and I just think it’s good for Winston-Salem. 

“I’ve been down there in the middle of the summer and been there opening night for the weekly series and it’s packed. I’ve seen 18,000-20,000 people there. I tell you what I’m interested in seeing is the back wall above the grandstand. I’ve seen that thing with people that are six deep, so I’m interested to see how that shakes out, but I like what they’re doing.”

Over the years, Bowman Gray Stadium became known as the “Madhouse” for its rough and tumble on-track action as well as post race activity. Josh Berry, who has never raced at Bowman Gray, expects tight quarter racing at the quarter-mile bull ring as he makes his driving debut in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

(Photo courtesy of Wood Brothers Racing)

“It’s a short track and it’s a very small short track at that, so I think the product will look a lot like the Clash. I don’t know about the fighting and everything that entails what we see during the summer there, but it’ll be intense. We’ll be beating and banging I’m sure, but ultimately all of us are going into this wanting to win this race just like anybody else. I think we treat it, no matter where we go, the same and we’re gonna go try to prepare and win and do the best we can.

“I remember going there one time and watching the modified race,” Berry recalled. “They were like the twin 125s or something like that. This has probably been 10-12 years ago and it was entertaining. It definitely lived up to its name as The Madhouse, but I’m excited to get there. I think it’s cool. I think it’s obviously close to home. There are a lot of race fans in that area and Bowman Gray is really popular in the state of North Carolina. They’ve put on a lot of great racing for a long time, so for us hopefully, the Cup Series can live up to that hype.”

Eddie Wood likes that Berry is willing to mix it up if need be.

“I like what Josh said. ‘If somebody runs into me, I’m gonna run into them.’ I like that. That fits Bowman Gray Stadium. This race in particular is gonna be short and things are gonna be tight and stuff like that, but everywhere we race every week they’re so competitive that you just about have to run as hard as you can run all day long and the days of planning strategy and waiting three quarters of the way through the race, you can’t do that now. If you don’t run as hard as you can run, they’ll be lapping you quick. If you don’t have a good qualifying spot, they’ll get to you anyway because somebody always gets out front and goes, so I’m leaving it up to Josh. Anything he does I’m good with it.”

(Photo by Richard Miller, courtesy of Bowman Gray Stadium)

When NASCAR announced last fall that it was moving the Clash to Bowman Gray Stadium, it brought back a lot of memories for Eddie Wood.

“Yes, just having it being back over there takes me back to when you were a kid. It’s like when you remember going to elementary school that was good. You don’t necessarily miss it, but when it gets brought up again you’re reminded of it and how good it was and that’s kind of the way I am with Bowman Gray. 

“I don’t have to go sit down and watch, just being in the area. Every time I go down 52 going to Charlotte, Bowman Gray is on the left and I look over there and I think about it. I always try to look at the lights because the lights, those are the first lights I ever saw or remember at the racetrack. 

“I’m all about it.”

Len Wood concurred.

“It brings back the history of everything that our family did, what daddy did in particular. The oldest dated trophy we have is 1952 at Bowman Gray Stadium and daddy won 29 races there. He won in modifieds, sportsman, convertibles and grand national, which we now know as Cup. We’ve got a long history there.”