Winter has thrown a snow-covered wrench into NASCAR’s plans, forcing the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium to slide to Monday night.
NASCAR announced Saturday that the season-opening exhibition race has been postponed to Monday at 6 p.m. ET, citing the lingering effects of winter weather across Winston-Salem and the surrounding Piedmont region. In other words, Mother Nature showed up uninvited, tracked snow all over the place, and refused to leave.
Snow blanketed much of the area Saturday, creating travel conditions best described as “don’t even think about it.” The decision to punt the Clash to Monday was made out of an abundance of caution for race fans, competitors, and the Winston-Salem community—because sliding stock cars around a quarter-mile bullring is one thing, but sliding minivans down icy side streets is quite another.
The revised schedule has NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying set for Monday at 11 a.m. ET with live coverage on FS2. The 20 fastest drivers in qualifying will earn a direct ticket to the main event. The remaining 18 drivers will be left to scrap it out in the Last Chance Qualifier at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Only the top two finishers from the LCQ advance, with a provisional spot reserved for the highest-ranked driver in 2025 points who doesn’t otherwise make the show. That sets a 23-car starting grid for the Cook Out Clash, a 200-lap feature scheduled for 6 p.m. ET Monday night on FOX—assuming winter finally gets the hint.
The weekend had already been reshuffled earlier in the week. By Thursday, officials determined the forecast was grim enough to wipe out any on-track activity on Saturday altogether. NASCAR officials have remained in close contact with the City of Winston-Salem and North Carolina officials to monitor conditions and determine when it’s safe to proceed.
Justin Swilling, NASCAR’s senior director of marketing services and the man overseeing the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, explained the decision during a Saturday teleconference from the track’s fieldhouse.
“The number one concern is always the safety of our competitors and our fans getting to and from the track,” Swilling said. “And in consulting with the North Carolina Department of Transportation this morning and the City of Winston-Salem, we didn’t feel that a Sunday schedule was best suited anymore, just given what the storm had developed thus far this morning. That’s the reason for our decision. We wanted to do our best to try to keep people off the road and let them know sooner rather than later.”
Even the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion saw the postponement coming from a mile away—probably through falling snow.
Kyle Larson admitted Saturday that the decision to move the Cook Out Clash to Monday hardly came as a shock, given the conditions unfolding around Winston-Salem.
“Well, I think we all assumed it probably wasn’t going to happen tomorrow anyways,” Larson said. “So, in my head, I think I was already planning for Monday, or potentially even further.”
Rather than sitting through the familiar motorsports purgatory of “hurry up and wait,” Larson said the early decision actually made things easier, allowing teams—and families—to pivot without living in limbo.
And in Larson’s case, that pivot involves sleds, snow tubes, and what sounds suspiciously like an OSHA violation waiting to happen.
“It kind of gets you excited that you can enjoy the snow with your family,” Larson said. “As soon as I’m done with this, I’m going to head over to my shop. We’ve got a good hill. We’ll probably build a jump; put the kids on some tubes and sleds, and go have some fun for the next couple days.”
It’s a very Kyle Larson solution to a very North Carolina problem: make the most of it, have some fun, and be ready when the helmet goes back on.
“So just try to make the most out of the situation, and also be ready to go when it is time to go,” Larson said. “We’ve already done our pre-event packet—going over the race weekend, practice, qualifying, all of that—so I feel like we have a good plan. Now we just have to wait until we get on track.”
Even as snow continued to fall at Bowman Gray on Saturday, crews had already begun clearing snow from the racing surface and infield grass. The goal is simple: turn a snow globe back into a racetrack as quickly—and safely—as possible ahead of Monday’s action.
“We have a tremendous amount of equipment here,” Swilling said. “We have already started to mobilize that to see how we can best clear the property as soon as the winter weather dissipates, hopefully later this afternoon or into the evening. And as soon as that happens, we are going to go to work. We have an incredible staff here helping to manage all the equipment and prioritize what needs to be taken care of first versus second versus third. I feel very confident in our game plan.”
NASCAR has been meeting daily since Jan. 26 with leaders from the quarter-mile facility, competition officials, and city leaders following a previous winter storm that left Winston-Salem coated in ice.
“I feel very confident telling you if you spoke with any city official, they would feel very good about how we’ve continued to communicate and align and collaborate as best we can,” Swilling said. “They’re supportive of us getting this event in the best way, shape, or form possible. We’ve also got to remember we’re not just looking after a venue—they’re looking after an entire community that’s still reeling from recent storms. We want to be very responsible and prudent.”
That responsibility is complicated by Bowman Gray’s location. Unlike sprawling speedways surrounded by acres of open land, the historic stadium sits snugly inside a suburban neighborhood, leaving little margin for error when snow, ice, or standing water take over parking areas.
“When storms roll up like this, it actually makes it more difficult than maybe other venues that we visit,” Swilling said. “If a parking lot here is snowed out or iced out, at other venues we might shift efforts from one side of the property to the other. Here, we don’t have that luxury. We’ve got to get very creative and prioritize the real estate we have. We always do that with the fan, the competitors, and our broadcast partners in mind, but it does make it more challenging—probably more challenging than any other venue I can think of.”
Parking lots for the Cook Out Clash will open Monday at 9 a.m. ET, with off-site shuttle services beginning at 9:30 a.m. Gates will open at 10 a.m. Race fans seeking the latest information can visit nascarclash.com/weather or call 855-525-7223.
For NASCAR, teams, and fans alike, that waiting game now has a firm end point. The Clash is set for Monday night, snow permitting, at the Madhouse—where the only sliding anyone wants to see happens on the racetrack, not on the roads getting there.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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