There was more buzz around The Clash than the Daytona 500 this season, and for good reason! The iconic Bowman Gray Stadium made its long-awaited return to the Cup Series after 1971, and NASCAR, along with Fox, made sure we didn’t miss a second of it. They made a whole documentary on it. And the race was a total hit. The grandstands were packed, people were elbow-to-elbow, and the viewership numbers? Way up from last year when the race was held at the Coliseum.
Fox reported a solid 3.08 million viewers for the race, a major jump from the 1.51 million who tuned in last year. Even the race itself was a nail-biter, with Chase Elliott holding off Ryan Blaney (P2) and Denny Hamlin (P3). But here’s the big question: Will The Clash come back to Bowman Gray for a second year? Or even a third? It’s a risk—after all, the Coliseum fell flat after a few years. And, well, even Dale Earnhardt Jr. has some thoughts on that!
Dale Earnhardt Jr opens up on coming back to BGS in 2026!
Since long ago, Dale Jr was a strong advocate of having the Clash at ‘the Madhouse.’ But he was not present on the track when the race happened there. He had to run some errands in Florida. But he made sure to chime in on his Dale Jr. Download podcast episode, “I think there’s probably a social media tweet, where I said they should go to Bowman Gray and not the Coliseum. I’m not mad they went to the Coliseum. It was cool the first year.”
But yeah, just the first year, there was enough hype. A race track inside a football field… who would not watch that race? But Dale Earnahardt Jr and fans believed it should have been a one-off and then moved elsewhere. Further in the podcast, he said, “The Clash at the Coliseum I thought was really cool the first year, I didn’t love it the second year and started to hate it, didn’t hate it but didn’t like it the third year. The only problem is NASCAR can’t do exactly what we want and go race at The Clash once.”
However, according to Jr, NASCAR’s hands get wrapped up in such cases as for them and for the host cities, ‘one-offs’ doesn’t make sense. “NASCAR to be able to work with the city and all of that, the Coliseum, its got to be this 2-3 year contract. Same thing with the street course at Chicago. I’m sure… one-off and we’ll see how it goes. There had to be some commitment for multiple years there that everyone would have to adhere to. So that everyone is taking the same risk.”
And it’s probably the same deal with BGS, but Junior doesn’t feel it’d be a good idea. “We may not know that there’s already ink on paper. For this to already go forward the next year. And even the third, who knows? So I’m not gonna get too upset about what the future holds. I hope they go back the next year and I don’t know if they need to do it three years in a row. I don’t know if this needs to be ‘The Clash’ for the next decade,” he added.
But even if it does, it might work out better at BGS than at the Coliseum. First, the track has a great history and became a popular racing destination for the Modifieds. So you barely see the grandstands empty. And second, according to Jr, the Coliseum isn’t how a race track should be.
He said, “The track was forced, the radius of the corners was bad. It didn’t race good at all. As you saw at Bowman Gray, the radius of the corners matters. Just that little more of a wider radius allows the cars to race and go about the turn… Somebody gives you money and tells you to build a short track in your hometown. That’s not the f—— layout you are gonna build right?”
And Junior was part of the next-gen car’s test runs in 2021 when they ran it on BGS, ahead of the car’s launch. So clearly he knows what he’s talking about. Also, many drivers after the race think it was a success and expect it to come back there next year.
NASCAR veterans on BGS’s 2026 return
Continuing his family legacy, Chase Elliott repeated what his father did in 1987. Bill Elliott won his first Clash race in ’87, keeping Geoff Bodine and Darrell Waltrip at bay. So it was special for Chase to get his first Clash win too. “I hope we didn’t disappoint. It was fun for me at least. We’ll hopefully come back here one day. I just feel like if we’re going to race on a football field, this is probably as good of a place as any to do it.” While it was more of a cakewalk for Elliott, leading 171 laps out of the 200, the story turned different with Ryan Blaney.
Blaney started from P23 (last) in the race and climbed through the pack on the narrow track to get P2. He echoes Elliott’s thoughts on the race returning here next season. He said, “I’m looking forward to hopefully coming back next year. I don’t see why you wouldn’t come back. There’s going to be just as many people here next year as there was tonight,” Blaney said. “I don’t think it would lose any of its luster.”
The next advocate is a bit of a surprise. Denny Hamlin entered the race as the defending winner, but he wasn’t sold on it being at BGS. He wanted it back at the Daytona International Speedway. Where it raced since 1978, the first Clash until getting moved to the Coliseum in 2022. But after the race he seems to have had a change of heart.
“They took a facility here that’s been around for a long time and made it feel like a brand new one. The fans obviously were very, very excited to see us. They were enthusiastic. We feed into that. It felt like a big event even though it’s not a points-paying event or anything like that. You want to go wherever can give you that feel and atmosphere. There’s surely bigger venues and bigger cities to go to, but will you have this type of feel or not? That’s really what matters,” Hamlin said.
What did you think of the Cookout Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium? Would you like it to return there in 2026? Or go back to Daytona? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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