“Already better than I expected”: Dale Earnhardt Jr. hopes for the ‘madhouse mentality’ as NASCAR returns to Bowman Gray

Former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. took to X (formerly Twitter) and made his feelings clear about the first race of the 2025 NASCAR season at the Bowman Gray Stadium. The Cup Series veteran commented about the action from the heat races at the Madhouse and expected more of the same from the showdown on Sunday, February 2nd.

“I’m really enjoying the optics of Cup cars racing around Bowman Gray Stadium. The racing, its already better than I expected. Hopefully the Madhouse mentality gets into all the drivers throughout the rest of the weekend. Fun seeing them push each other around out there,” tweeted Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The Bowman Gray Stadium is one of the smallest tracks where NASCAR has hosted its races, coming in at just 0.25 miles long. The thrilling racing action from the heats is what set Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s expectations for the main event. Given the short length of the track, there is a flurry of incidents during a race.

Even with just 10 cars out on the track during a heat, there were multiple collisions and spins in each heat. Kyle Busch was spun out by Justin Haley and later tapped the rear bumper of the No.7 during a caution. This incident led to a final warning for Busch from the Stewards who asked him to knock it off.

23 cars will start the main race on February 2 and given the incidents during the heats, a fair bit of mayhem is expected, or as Dale Earnhardt Jr. mentioned, “Hopefully the Madhouse mentality gets into all the drivers”.

The Bowman Gray Stadium is a historic venue for NASCAR as it became the first weekly racing and paved track. Richard Petty won his 100th race at this venue with the last NASCAR race held in 1971, won by Bobby Allison.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. slams NASCAR for ‘taking away the challenge’ from the Clash

Dale Earnhardt Jr. during the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway. - Source: Imagn

Dale Earnhardt Jr. slammed NASCAR in the latest episode of the Dale Jr Download podcast for nerfing the Clash. He detailed when a driver was eligible for the clash only if he/she got a pole, but NASCAR nerfed the rules, which took away from the feeling of achievement. Earnhardt Jr said:

“The rules of eligibility were continuously massaged and twisted to basically just to kind of include anything. We used to make the joke like, 'Hey man, you got a valid driver's license, you're eligible for the clash.' So it became a joke, and took a lot of the legitimacy or the uniqueness, the specialness out of the Clash.” [20:50 onwards]

“Drivers no longer go, 'Hell yeah, I'm in the Clash.' Now, when you lost that, what have you done? What have you done? You've made a mistake. And so I guess what I'm, what I'm saying is like the this, this, this feeling like it's necessary to make sure everybody's always a part of it takes away the challenge of, of achieving,” he added.

The Bowman Gray Stadium will be hosting The Clash for the first time with the last three events being held at the LA Memorial Coliseum.