The 2025 Cookout Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium
Cookout Clash | 2025
The 2025 Cookout Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium also known as the “Madhouse” delivered a spectacular race weekend not only on Sunday night for the main event, but with the 75 lap last chance qualifier as well.
Last Chance Qualifier | 75 Laps
We’ll start with the last chance qualifier. Kyle Larson won the show with Josh Berry finishing second also advancing. Ryan Blaney advances based on points from the 2024 season, so he took an early out to get prepared for the main event. The qualifier wasn’t all that simple though. Several drivers got tossed into trouble with each other causing tempers to rise.
Burt Myers, a local legend at Bowman Gray stadium was put in the fence by the bright orange SunnyD Chevrolet driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The hometown crowd did not appreciate the move from driver #47 as the crowd cheered ‘boo’s’ and gave Stenhouse the “Ole’ number one” as the red flag was out and he was parked in front of them.
Ty Gibbs and Justin Haley found each other several times tonight as well. Once, Twice and Thrice into each other causing the #54 Toyota Camry to spin around. Gibbs not happy with Haley, retaliated and sent his Monster Energy Toyota into the right side of Haley’s FOE Chevrolet. Gibbs caught some air in the University Stadium tonight and left several speechless.
Others to mention getting into trouble, the Dillon brothers getting into one another. Erik Jones, and John Hunter Nemechek having each of their own spins. AJ Allmendinger, Cole Custer, Michael McDowell and Riley Herbst were among some of the others involved in something during the nights event.
Main Event | 200 Lap Feature
The main event saw 23 cars start the race and act fairly tame compared to the previoud event held about an hour before. The starting lineup is listed below.
Chase Elliott
Chris Buescher
Denny Hamlin
Tyler Reddick
Brad Keselowski
Chase Briscoe
Joey Logano
Christopher Bell
Noah Gragson
Shane Van Gisbergen
William Byron
Ryan Preece
Kyle Busch
Bubba Wallace
Carson Hocevar
Austin Cindric
Ross Chastain
Daniel Suarez
Alex Bowman
Todd Gilliland
Kyle Larson
Josh Berry
Ryan Blaney
Race
What started out slow saw Chase Elliott dominated the first half of the event. He led almost every lap in the first half. He lost the lead to Denny Hamlin on lap 96 which saw Hamlin then take the field to the caution flag. During the first stint of the race, there was only two cautions involving the cars of Suarez, Gragson, Busch, Byron and Gilliland. Kyle Busch and Noah Gragson never seemed to get their racecars running the way they were before the cautions came out.
After the halfway break, Hamlin led the field to green. He and Reddick led for a combined 29 laps before Chase Elliott came back through and took the lead after a restart. All the while, Ryan Blaney slowly worked his way up through the field and was eyeing the lead.
The latter half of the main event saw more cautions early on, but ended with a long green flag run. The cautions involved Larson x2, Briscoe x2, Hocevar x2, Cindric, Bell, Logano, Byron, Wallace and Keselowski. The largest event for a caution was caused when Hocevar moved Bell to pass him. Bell then dove behind Hocevar while Logano tried to put a nose underneath him, causing a chain reaction and leading to the #77 Chevrolet ending up in the wall.
Chase Elliott led 75 laps to end the race while holding off Hamlin, Reddick and Ryan Blaney. Blaney made several attempts to get to and pass the #9 NAPA Chevrolet, but could not see the outcome he wanted. Elliott was able to navigate through lap traffic (Possibly due to help from Chevrolet teammates) easier than Blaney was.
In the end Chase Elliott ended up winning the 2025 Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium. Results are listed below.
Chase Elliott
Ryan Blaney
Denny Hamlin
Joey Logano
Bubba Wallace
Ross Chastain
Austin Cindric
Tyler Reddick
Shane Van Gisbergen
Chris Buescher
Ryan Preece
Christopher Bell
Josh Berry
Todd Gilliland
Kyle Busch
Carson Hocevar
Kyle Larson
William Byron
Alex Bowman
Noah Gragson
Brad Keselowski
Daniel Suarez
Chase Briscoe
The next race will be at Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500 on February 16th, 2025
Where would you like to see the Clash run next?
Sources:
NASCAR via X (Visuals)
NASCAR on FOX via Stream Service (Coverage)
Racing Reference via Browser (Detailed Information)
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