Hard racing, hard feelings and the History channel

If you consider yourself a fan of grassroots racing, you probably already know a lot about Bowman Gray Stadium.

That doesn’t mean the upcoming series on History doesn’t deserve a serious fan’s full attention. The 13-hour presentation may provide some valuable education for the uninitiated while dishing up plenty of validation for the true believers.

And it will help explain why many fans and competitors know that hallowed piece of racing ground in Winston-Salem, N.C., simply as “The Madhouse.”

See a trailer and slideshow on ThatsRacin.com's home page or at this link.

Where Wake Forest University played football games until 1968 and Winston Salem State still does, Bowman Gray is approaching its 62nd racing season.

It can also honestly bill itself as “NASCAR's longest running weekly race track.” That’s surely long enough – against the many odds and fates that have befallen far too many old tracks – for it to build a tradition rich enough to make a bailed-out banker blush. But History’s series will also try to show how a new generation of drivers, teams and fans are still building on that tradition.

Consider that Fonty Flock won the track’s first NASCAR-sanctioned event in 1949. The first Grand National (now Sprint Cup) victor was Bob Welborn in 1958.

Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson, David Pearson, Marvin Panch, Richard Petty, Rex White and Glen Wood can also be counted among the winners. Ah, those were the days, as the saying goes … when Richard Childress was hustling peanuts in the grandstands while racing’s biggest names were hustling their cars around the flat, narrow quarter-mile track.

While bigger money, TV, private jets and helicoptering in and out on race weekends have taken today’s big names out of the picture, Bowman Gray’s racing remains among the best anywhere.

The names more recently shouted out by fans are those of Junior Miller, Burt and Jason Myers, Tim “The Rocket” Brown and Chris “The Showstopper” Flemming, among others. As if individual egos weren’t enough, family and team rivalries as old the track itself add to the tensions on and off the racing surface.

And they bring the emotions right out there into plain sight for everyone to see.

So spend a little time with the folks at The Madhouse, courtesy of the History outfit, starting Sunday night at 10 in the East. Along with that recommendation, we’d suggest full and complete consultation of your local listings.

Oh, and one more thing: You might want to hang on. It’s going to be a madhouse.