WINSTON, SALEM, N.C. – A bomb cyclone battering North Carolina has forced NASCAR to postpone its preseason exhibition until Wednesday night. Snow-covered roads pose a danger to teams and fans trying to reach the historic Bowman-Gray Stadium.
The event, known as The Clash, was originally scheduled for Sunday night. Due to the heavy snowfall that covered the area, it has been postponed twice, with adjustments to the schedule. Initially, NASCAR reduced the race to a one-day event on Sunday, and then moved it to Monday.
On Sunday, NASCAR announced the change to Wednesday night “due to the impacts of the historic winter weather in the North Carolina region”.
The race is now scheduled for a week before qualifying for the Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway, where The Clash was held from 1979 to 2022.
After being held on a temporary track inside the Los Angeles Memorial Stadium for three seasons, The Clash returned to its roots at Bowman Gray last year.
His first year was a success, but the second edition has been disrupted by the bomb cyclone, an intense weather system that is rapidly strengthening, according to meteorologists. This phenomenon contributed to almost a foot of snow in Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina and home to most NASCAR teams.
Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center of the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland, indicated that the snowfall represented one of the five most significant snow events in Charlotte’s history.
