![]() ![]() Tim Flock won the track championship with a season that included four wins.Īs the racing had become extremely popular at the track, an additional 7,000 seats were added in 1953, raising the seating capacity from 10,000 to 17,000. By the end of the inaugural Bowman Gray season 11 races had been run and five more were rained out. and Alvin Hawkins, and remains operated by members of the Hawkins family to this day. The track was opened by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. The first NASCAR-sanctioned event took place on May 18, 1949, and was won by Fonty Flock. The track would run weekly NASCAR sanctioned events during the summer months. The track was NASCAR's very first weekly track and the very first paved track that NASCAR raced on. and Alvin Hawkins, two men who were founding fathers of NASCAR. Stock car racing at Bowman Gray Stadium was started by Bill France Sr. However, after the track was paved the promoter fled before any payments were made to the city. The track was paved in 1947, after a promoter got the City of Winston-Salem to agree to pay to have the track paved in exchange for restitution of payments through a percentage of future income from races. The first auto racing at Bowman Gray was a type of midget car racing on the dirt quarter mile track from 1939 through 1949. In the beginning, the stadium's sole use was for collegiate football until trotter horse racing was added on the 0.250-mile dirt oval. The first event at the new stadium was a football game in the fall of 1938 between Wake Forest College and Duke University. The stadium was built in 1937 as a public works project to provide jobs during the Great Depression. Reynolds High Schools shared Bowman Gray Stadium as their home field for high school football until the two schools built their own facility (Deaton-Thompson Stadium) in 1994. Bowman Gray Stadium was a popular venue for high school football in the 1970s and 1980s. It was also the home of the Wake Forest University football team from 1956 until Groves Stadium (now Truist Field at Wake Forest) opened in 1968. Bowman Gray Stadium is part of the Winston-Salem Sports and Entertainment Complex and is home of the Winston-Salem State University Rams football team. It is one of stock car racing's most legendary venues, and is referred to as "NASCAR's longest-running weekly race track". Wake Forest Demon Deacons ( NCAA) (1956-1967)īowman Gray Stadium is a NASCAR sanctioned quarter-mile asphalt flat oval short track and longstanding football stadium located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Winston-Salem State Rams ( NCAA) (1956-present) ![]()
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