Bowman Gray Stadium

Bowman Gray Stadium is a NASCAR sanctioned 1/4mi asphalt flat oval short track and longstanding football stadium located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is one of stock car racing's most legendary venues, and is referred to as "NASCAR's longest-running weekly race track". 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 was also the home of the Wake Forest University football team from 1956 until Groves Stadium (later BB&T Field) opened in 1968. Bowman Gray Stadium was a popular venue for high school football in the 1970s and 1980s. Parkland and R.J. 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.HistoryThe stadium was built in 1937 as a public works project to provide jobs during the Great Depression. In the beginning, the stadium’s sole use was for collegiate football until Later when trotter horse racing was added on the.250-mile dirt oval. The first auto racing at Bowman Gray was a type of midget auto racing on the dirt quarter mile track from 1939-1949. Stock Car Racing at Bowman Gray Stadium was started by Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins, two men who were founding fathers of NASCAR itself, in 1949. the track was NASCAR's very first weekly track. The track would run weekly NASCAR sanctioned event's during the summer months.