At some point over the weekend, this stopped being a weather delay and started becoming a civil engineering project.
NASCAR announced Sunday that the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium has been moved again, this time to Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 6 p.m. ET on FOX, not because of indecision or inconvenience, but because North Carolina quite literally disappeared under snow.
Historic snow.
According to the National Weather Service, Winston-Salem received between 8 and 10 inches of snow on Saturday, while Charlotte—roughly 80 miles south and home base for most NASCAR Cup Series teams—was buried under 11 inches. That’s not a nuisance. That’s a regional shutdown. That’s the sort of snow total that turns interstates into parking lots and race shops into sledding hills.
So NASCAR, the City of Winston-Salem, and the State of North Carolina collectively did something refreshingly sensible: they slowed everything down.
“This decision is made again in an abundance of caution for the fans and the competitors that are traveling to the venue,” said Justin Swilling, NASCAR’s senior director of marketing services and Project Lead for the Cook Out Clash. “It’s mission critical that we get everyone here safely… we don’t feel we can have one without the other.”
That line—we can’t have one without the other—is really the entire story.
This wasn’t about whether the track could be cleared. It was about whether the people could get there.
By Sunday morning, it was clear this wasn’t your garden-variety NASCAR weather issue. Rain delays are annoying. Snowstorms are logistical nightmares. This was the second major winter storm to hit the region in two weeks, and parts of Winston-Salem were still recovering from the first when the second rolled through.
When NASCAR, city leaders, and state officials compared notes early Sunday, they all reached the same conclusion at roughly the same time: Monday was still too soon. Wednesday made sense.
“No one tentacle really pushed this decision,” Swilling said. “It was pretty aligned from the moment we started talking about Wednesday.”
Behind the scenes, however, the work has been anything but casual.
At Bowman Gray Stadium, NASCAR crews and city workers have been attacking the snow like it personally insulted them. Over the weekend alone, more than 40 dump trucks’ worth of snow and ice were hauled out of the facility. Forty. That’s not cleanup—that’s excavation.
The racing surface, Swilling said, is already nearly dry. The football field in the infield is about 70 to 80 percent clear, with the paint and sponsor markings miraculously preserved. The garage area is next, while city crews focus on the grandstands, concourses, steps, and fan areas.
It’s a carefully choreographed dance between NASCAR and the city, complicated by one inconvenient fact: Bowman Gray Stadium sits smack in the middle of a community, not surrounded by acres of empty parking lots and farmland.
“When storms roll up like this, it actually makes it more difficult than maybe other venues,” Swilling explained. “We don’t have the luxury of just shifting things from one side of the property to the other. We’ve got to get very creative and prioritize the real estate that we have.”
Translation: there’s only so many places you can put eight inches of snow when everything around you is someone’s neighborhood.
NASCAR explored every option, including running without fans earlier in the week. But that idea didn’t survive long.
“We’re here for the fans,” Swilling said. “Anytime anybody’s come to the Madhouse, it’s just as much the fans as it is the competitors that make it a show.”
That thinking also shaped the decision to move to midweek rather than force a rushed return. Most ticket buyers, NASCAR says, are local to the Winston-Salem and Triad area, meaning a Wednesday event—while inconvenient—still gives fans a realistic chance to attend safely.
And for those who can’t, NASCAR is offering either a 120 percent credit or a full refund.
From a competitive standpoint, Wednesday also offers something NASCAR rarely has in winter: flexibility. If rain shows up, wet-weather tires are an option. Snow, at least for now, appears to be retreating.
The revised schedule calls for Cup Series practice and qualifying at 1:30 p.m. ET on the FOX Sports App, followed by the 75-lap Last Chance Qualifier at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX, and the 200-lap Cook Out Clash at 6 p.m. ET on FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Swilling, for his part, has taken the chaos in stride, repeatedly deflecting credit to the operations teams who’ve been moving mountains—well, snowbanks—around the stadium.
“I don’t drive heavy machinery,” he said, “but what I’ve tried to do is let them know we’re going to see this through. We’re race fans too.”
That may be the most telling part of all this. Everyone involved understands what Bowman Gray means, what the Clash represents, and why getting it right matters more than getting it fast.
So the Madhouse waits until Wednesday—not because NASCAR couldn’t race sooner, but because sometimes the smartest move is letting the snow melt, the roads clear, and the people arrive safely.
And if you’re going, bring layers. Lots of them.
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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