NASCAR 2025 Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium: Odds, format, times and more info

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — NASCAR is kicking off the 2025 season with the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium bringing the sport back to its roots.

• Practice/Qualifying: 6 p.m. Saturday (all times Eastern) on FS1
• Heat races (4) start at 8:30 p.m. Saturday (TV: FS1)
• Last-chance qualifier: 6 p.m. Sunday (TV: FOX)
• Cook Out Clash: 8 p.m. Sunday (TV: FOX)

After three years of The Clash taking place on a makeshift quarter-mile track in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, The Clash is at a permanent quarter-mile track in the historic Bowman Gray Stadium.

The NASCAR Cup Series first raced at Bowman Gray Stadium on May 24, 1958. Bob Welborn won after taking the lead from Rex White with 49 laps to go in the 150-lap race.

After Bobby Allison took the most recent checkered flag in the NASCAR Cup Series at Bowman Gray Stadium on Aug. 6, 1971, it took over 53 years for NASCAR to formally recognize his win.

Allison and Welborn are among the 12 drivers who have won a NASCAR Cup Series race at Bowman Gray Stadium:

• Rex White: 6 wins
• Glen Wood, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty: 4 wins each
• David Pearson: 3 wins
• Bobby Allison: 2 wins
• Bob Welborn, Jim Paschal, Jim Reed, Johnny Allen, Lee Petty, Marvin Panch: 1 win each

Rex White, who turned 95 in August, is the oldest living NASCAR Cup Series champion. A 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee, Bowman Gray Stadium was a cornerstone of White’s legacy. In 12 starts at the track, White amassed an average finish of 1.8 and never finished worse than fourth.

Cook Out Clash drivers with experience at Bowman Gray

When Allison crossed the finish line for the final Cup Series race to-date at Bowman Gray Stadium, Tim Brown was just one month old and the only 2025 Clash entrant alive at the time.

Tim Brown is the winningest modified driver at Bowman Gray Stadium (101 wins). When Brown is not racing modifieds, he prepares cars at Rick Ware Racing for others to race in the Cup Series.

This time, Brown will get to race the Cup car he prepared.

“I’ll be honest with you, when I turned 30 years old, I kind of gave up on my lifelong dream of being a Cup driver, just because I had seen that transition where you either have to start young or have a lot of money to pay an owner to let you drive,” Brown said. “Then finally when they announced The Clash was gonna be at Bowman Gray, Rick [Ware] and Robby [Benton] were the first ones to text me and say, ‘Hey we’re going to make this happen.'”

Brown isn’t the only local hero getting an opportunity against the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series.

In the Team AmeriVet-fielded No. 50 Chevrolet is Burt Myers, an 11-time and defending modified champion at Bowman Gray Stadium. Myers will sport a paint scheme akin to what he has often won with in modifieds.

Full-time NASCAR Cup Series drivers with experience at Bowman Gray Stadium

Other drivers with experience at Bowman Gray Stadium include Ryan Preece. In 2013, Preece led all 199 laps and won from the pole of a NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour race there.

Further back, Cody Ware finished 13th after a crash ended his race after 163 laps.

Two years later, Preece also earned the pole and finished second.

When the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East (now ARCA Menards Series East) visited Bowman Gray Stadium from 2011 to 2015, eight other full-time Cup drivers raced there, including two NASCAR Cup Series champions.

In 2012, Kyle Larson finished fifth after winning the pole and leading 35 of 153 laps. Elliott finished sixth, improving from an 18th-place finish the year before.

Other Cup drivers with Bowman Gray experience include:

• Alex Bowman (finished 12th in 2011)
• William Byron (15th in 2015 for current Trackhouse owner Justin Marks)
• Cole Custer (10th in 2013 for Ken Schrader)
• Justin Haley (Third in 2015)
• Daniel Suarez (22nd in 2012, ninth in 2013, second in 2014)
• Bubba Wallace (Sixth in 2011, second in 2012)

These drivers shut all of those full-time current Cup drivers out of victory lane in the East series at Bowman Gray:

• 2011: Matt DiBenedetto, current NASCAR Xfinity Series driver
• 2012: Corey LaJoie, current part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver
• 2013: Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing development and strategy
• 2014: Ben Rhodes, two-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion
• 2015: Scott Heckert

Format for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium

The field will be split into three practice groups with each group receiving three sessions. Each driver’s fastest lap time from their final practice session will determine the starting lineup for the heat races:

• The fastest qualifier will be on the pole for the first heat race
• Second-fastest gets the pole for the second heat race
• Third-fastest gets the pole for the third heat race
• Fourth-fastest gets the pole for the fourth heat race

The top five finishers from each 25-lap heat race will advance to the 200-lap Cook Out Clash.

The other drivers will have 75 laps to make The Clash through the last chance qualifier. The top two finishers in the LCQ will advance to the Clash. The driver highest in the 2024 Cup points standings, not locked in through the heat races and the LCQ, will get the final spot in the Clash.

Only green flag laps count in the heat races and the last chance qualifier so there is no overtime in play.

In total, there will be 23 drivers in the Clash. The Clash is scheduled for 200 laps with a halfway break. Only green flag laps count and the race must end under green. This means the leader must take the checkered flag for the race to be official. A caution could fly on the final lap and force another restart, unlike a typical Cup race where a caution on the final lap ends the race.

Odds for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium

• Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson +700
• Ryan Blaney +850
• Joey Logano, William Byron, Kyle Busch +1000
• Ty Gibbs +1200
• Chase Briscoe +1400
• Brad Keselowski +1600
• Chase Elliott +1800
• Alex Bowman +2200
• Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon +2500
• Ross Chastain +2800
• Bubba Wallace +3300
• Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher +3500
• Tim Brown, Justin Haley +5000
• Austin Cindric +6000
• Burt Myers, Carson Hocevar +6500
• Michael McDowell +7500
• A.J. Allmendinger, Riley Herbst, Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith, Cole Custer, Daniel Suarez, Erik Jones, Noah Gragson +10000
• Shane van Gisbergen, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. +12500
• John Hunter Nemechek +20000
• Ty Dillon +25000
• Garrett Smithley, Cody Ware +50000