The Clash Has Become an Afterthought

This week marks the first “race week” of 2026 for NASCAR. Fresh off the Rolex 24 at Daytona, NASCAR should be taking center stage in the racing world with The Clash. Once again hosted at Bowman Gray Stadium, The Clash serves as the official kick off to the new NASCAR season. Well, sort of. Despite The Clash marking the return of Cup Series cars on track competitively since November, there is little fanfare for the event. Sure, NASCAR, Bowman Gray, and (somewhat) FOX has advertised the event to hype it up. However, The Clash does not feel like the kick off to the NASCAR season. Rather, it is almost an afterthought. Not only for the fans, but NASCAR as well.

Instead of focusing on the first time Cup cars return to action, NASCAR, the teams, and fans have their gaze fixated on Daytona. While you expect lower series teams to hype up Daytona in January, you would think that the Cup Series teams would want to bring attention to their actual first event. However, all of the countdowns from these organizations’ social media are revolving around the Great American Race. There might be some lip service to The Clash, but it is clear that NASCAR’s first event of the year is being massively overlooked.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon phenomenon for The Clash. NASCAR has been trying to elevate The Clash to its former glory for some time now. From running the Daytona Road Course to racing at the LA Coliseum, NASCAR is searching for ways to generate more eyeballs to this race. Once, The Clash (formerly known as the Bud Shootout) was the highlight of Daytona Speedweeks. Kicking off 8 days before the Daytona 500 on Saturday night, the Shootout was a can’t miss ticket. Back then, the Daytona crowd for the Shootout would be a packed house. With a field of the prior year’s pole sitters and former Shootout winners, the exhibition race perfectly captured what was needed out of NASCAR’s season debut.

However, the glory days of the Shootout faded as interested waned. NASCAR, as they usually do, came up with more convoluted formats for the race while meddling with how drivers qualified. Before everyone was invited (starting with the LA Coliseum), the format started to make it difficult to differentiate The Clash from the All-Star Race. The culmination of this bastardization of a once great product was the 2020 Clash. The entire field got caught up in at least one wreck while Erik Jones “triumphed” over the other 5 remaining cars. That event left a lasting black eye on The Clash that has yet to be healed. The Daytona Road Course did little to boost ratings or fan interest the following year, so that led NASCAR to the LA Coliseum.

At first, the pure madness of NASCAR attempting this was enough to draw casual eyes to the product. Afterall, who would not be mildly intrigued over the prospect of these massive stock cars rumbling around a historic football field. The first year of the Coliseum was when it peaked though. Many racing fans saw through the novelty while the heavily casuals in attendance did not seem destined to become regular consumers. Despite tweaks and the addition of NASCAR Mexico to the proceedings, the LA Coliseum experiment died on a whimper during a rushed weekend of racing due to a monsoon in Los Angeles in 2024.

While fans can provide plenty of criticism for NASCAR’s decisions, one thing that has been a welcome addition to the sport has been going back to their roots. Is it completely disingenuous? Absolutely; but the return of North Wilkesboro, Rockingham, and Bowman Gray are still fantastic additions to the NASCAR calendar. Bowman Gray fit the bill better than the LA Coliseum ever could for what NASCAR wants from The Clash. Sure, NASCAR are not bringing any new fans to the track hosting The Clash at Bowman Gray. However, that actually turned into a benefit last year. Seeing a die-hard fanbase heavily featured on TV during the two days of The Clash would do more for a viewer at home than the shots of bored or clownish fans in Los Angeles. You could feel the energy of the crowd through your TV.

Last year’s Clash certainly felt like a win for NASCAR. Not only were the fans at Bowman Gray more energized, but so were the drivers, teams, and media personalities. The LA Coliseum felt like a chore for the teams. Two weeks before the Daytona 500, it was clear no one really wanted to make the trek across the country to California. Meanwhile, Bowman Gray is in NASCAR’s backyard. Most of the team personnel were able to sleep in their own beds. That translated to better TV as the drivers looked more amped and hungry to be there. Although the Coliseum and Bowman Gray offered similar styles of racing, the aggression felt more competitive rather than an annoying necessity.

The decision to return to Bowman Gray was an easy one. Based on last year, the hype for this year should be pretty high. If that were the case though, this article would not exist. Despite all the good feelings from last year, this year’s Clash once again falls into the malaise of the offseason.

Maybe the rough offseason plays a significant role in why The Clash feels forgettable. While the date for the Daytona 500 is engraved into the brain of every NASCAR fan, The Clash needs to have a calendar alert set so fans will not miss it. Still, the feeling around the fanbase is a strong desire to end the offseason and get back to racing. Yet, most look at Daytona as that return despite The Clash being held this Sunday.

The big question in all of this is how can NASCAR boost the importance of The Clash again. How can this event return to being a marquee staple of NASCAR’s start?

Although its popularity started to wane, The Clash should return to Daytona. While Bowman Gray is an ideal host (especially for this style of The Clash), this event will struggle to be a draw if it continues to be two weeks ahead of Daytona. If you had to boil down what the main reason why The Clash is overlooked, that would be it. How can the kickoff of to the season be immediately followed by an entire week of nothing? Maybe that could be cured by Daytona returning to an actual Speedweeks presentation than 4ish days, that could help. The only way that would happen though is if The Clash returned to Daytona.

Outside of a desire to want Speedweeks to return, putting The Clash back to Daytona would be wise considering the NFL’s plans to push the Super Bowl back one more week. Obviously, the Daytona 500 will be pushed back as well since NASCAR (nor FOX) wants that scheduling conflict. That said, putting The Clash on Super Bowl Sunday could be an out-of-the-box idea that could benefit NASCAR. Now, The Clash would not go head-to-head with the Super Bowl. Instead, it could be a lead-in event on that Sunday or Saturday night. Either way, returning The Clash to the weekend before the Daytona 500 would make it feel like the actual kickoff to the NASCAR season. With enough creativity, NASCAR could make it work. Getting creative with scheduling would be an improvement than more gimmicks for the actual racing.

What about Bowman Gray Stadium? Rather than hosting The Clash, Bowman Gray could receive the All-Star Race moving forward. Bowman Gray would never be seriously considered for a points paying race. You cannot get a full field of Cup cars on the track at once. So instead of wasting Dover on the All-Star Race, let Bowman Gray receive it. It would be the best of both worlds. Daytona would actually have Speedweeks again while Bowman Gray deservedly maintains their Cup date. The Clash needs to feel important again. However, that cannot happen with a week gap between it and Daytona.