While many would consider the 2022 season at the notorious Bowman Gray Stadium to have been an exciting one, the one detraction many people had was about the new racing surface laid down during the offseason. 

Bumps, dips, humps, whatever you want to call them plagued the racing surface right from the start. In addition to that, the surface had no grip causing drivers to slip and slide all the way around the quarter-mile ribbon of asphalt. And if they tried to venture into the second lane? Well, that was even worse.

Drivers complained all season long, but came to accept the fact that they were all in the same box with the same racing surface and were just going to have to live with it. But, apparently their voices were heard. Dolan Reynolds of Fox 8 in Winston-Salem reported on September 20 that Bowman Gray Stadium would be repaved once again, less than a year after it was originally done.

According to Fox 8, the surface is being repaved after “samples were taken of the track that revealed certain areas had deteriorated, so the construction team decided the best plan was resurfacing the track instead of patching any problematic areas.”

A City of Winston-Salem news release said that just the top layer will be “milled and a new surface laid down” and it also added that the resurfacing efforts of the track, which is owned by the city, will not cost the city taxpayers any additional money. 

FloRacing was able to connect with a couple of the stars from Bowman Gray Stadium, including 12-time and defending Modified champion, Tim Brown, and multi-race Modified winner, Jonathan Brown, to get their thoughts on the resurfacing news.

“Hopefully they do better this time,” said Jonathan Brown in a joking-but-not-really manner. “I definitely think it’s something that needs to happen. It’s tough to race two-wide with the pavement as it was this season. The bumps in turns one and three made it tough to race on the outside, because the car inside of you would bounce up into the outside lane enough to wash the outside car out of the second groove.”

Tim Brown, who won a record-setting 12th track championship even without winning a single race this season, was equally as excited.

“I think it is great,” said the all-time wins leader at Bowman Gray. “The last job was not very good. Hopefully this one will be smooth and fast.”

The interesting thing about the pavement laid down last year was that it was smooth. If you ran your hand across it, it didn’t feel abrasive at all. But, with the dips and bumps on corner entry at both ends of the track, plus some other bumps in the middle of the straightaway, the drivers often felt like they were riding a rollercoaster.

“Hopefully they use a better compound of asphalt so the track will build rubber and gain some grip,” added Jonathan Brown. “It should promote better racing for the fans, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Bowman Gray Stadium is the longest running weekly racing track in the United States. The track will begin its 74th season of racing in April of 2023.