WINSTON-SALEM -- The 2025 NASCAR season unofficially gets underway on Sunday night, as some of the top drivers head to the legendary Bowman Gray Stadium for the Cook Out Clash. After three years racing at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, NASCAR elected to move its premier preseason event to a more traditional venue.

NASCAR returns to its roots Sunday with the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, which last played host to a Cup Series event more than 50 years ago. After three years on a temporary short track at the Los Angeles Coliseum, NASCAR has moved The Clash to the 0.25-mile track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, known as “The Madhouse.”

NASCAR returns the weekend of Feb. 1 with The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium before drivers prepare for the iconic Daytona 500 and the 2025 season.

See the full 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule, beginning with The Clash, the Daytona 500 and ending with the Championship race in Phoenix.

The Clash was once about getting a coveted coat. That might seem hard to conceive now for an event that has crisscrossed the country twice in the past three years while mushrooming into a preseason extravaganza,

NASCAR is back, old-school style, as 2025 opens with a return to the “Mecca of Madhouse” for Sunday night’s preseason Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium

NASCAR Cup Series season begins as it always does, with the Clash non-points race on Sunday. But the venue is different in 2025, with the Cook Out Clash taking place at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem,