2009 Bowman Gray Crowd Shot
Bowman Gray Stadium

History of stock car racing in football stadiums includes East and West Series competition

www.arcaracing.com February 1, 2022

The idea of a full-bodied stock car race inside a football stadium seems, to some, to be a new one. But when the NASCAR Cup Series takes to a specially built quarter-mile oval inside the L.A. Coliseum this weekend, it won’t be the first time stock cars have raced in a football stadium.

It won’t even be the first time stock cars have raced in a football stadium in southern California.

Orange Show Speedway, located in San Bernardino, closed as a football stadium in 1979 and was converted to a full-time race track. It has hosted the ARCA Menards Series West a total of 13 times, most recently in 2018. The first race at the tight quarter-mile was in 1966 with Marvin Porter the winner. Other winners include Cliff Garner, Don Noel, Jack McCoy, Johnny Anderson, Hershel McGriff and Jimmy Insolo. McCoy is a four-time winner.

From 1979 through 2015, the series took a hiatus from Orange Show, but it returned in 2016 with Chris Eggleston winning. He won again in 2017, with Ryan Partridge taking the checkered in 2018.

The tight confines of Orange Show Speedway also gave a start to a career in racing for two-time Daytona 500 winning crew chief and former NASCAR Cup Series director Gary Nelson, who began his career at the track working for California legend Ivan Baldwin. Nelson scored Daytona 500 wins with Bobby Allison in 1982 and Geoff Bodine in 1986 before moving to serve as series director in the 1990s.

The West Series will race two times in southern California in 2022, both at Irwindale Speedway, located just 29 miles from the Coliseum. Based on the 150-lap race distance, the drive from the Coliseum to Irwindale is just eight miles shorter than the Clash’s 37-mile scheduled race length.

Another venue that hosts both stock car racing and football, Bowman Gray Stadium rose to national prominence via the television show “The Madhouse.” The program highlighted the rough-and-tumble nature of racing at Bowman Gray, which often concluded with local law enforcement either separating the drivers in the pit area or escorting one of them off the property.

Bowman Gray is the home field for the Winston-Salem State University Rams football team, which cuts short the racing schedule at the quarter-mile oval each season. Still, even with a short season, Bowman Gray is known as NASCAR’s longest-running weekly race track. The facility hosted 29 Cup Series races from 1958-71, and from 2011-15, there were five races for what is now the ARCA Menards Series East. Winners included Matt DiBennedetto, Corey Lajoie, Ben Kennedy, Ben Rhodes and Scott Eckert.

Another famed venue that hosted various forms of racing, both stock cars and open wheel, is Soldier Field in Chicago. Soldier Field, now home to the Chicago Bears, was famous for racing long before the Bears called it their home field.

Tiger Tom Pistone, who was the first driver to ever make a pass for the lead in the Daytona 500, started his career at Soldier Field, as did future NASCAR Hall of Famer – and former ARCA Menards Series winner – Fred Lorenzen. In 1958, Lorenzen won a race co-sanctioned by ARCA and USAC on the tight quarter-mile, one of 11 career series victories.