By James Stewart

People sometimes wonder how fast the modified cars go at Bowman Gray Stadium. The following is a list of track record holders at BG. From 1949-1965, heat races were run to establish the starting fields. I’m sure that when the Grand National cars ran there it was straight up qualifying, but I can find no records of the speeds.

The extent of my research finds 26 track records shared by 11 drivers. The first track record I can find recorded is April 16, 1966 by Perk Brown, 15.38, 58.52mph.

The rest are in order as follows:

August 9, 1975, Johnny Bryant, 15.32, 58.75mph;

June 4, 1976, Ralph Brinkley, 15.32, 58.75mph;

June 26, 1976, Paul Radford, 15.18, 59.29mph;

August 19, 1977, Paul Radford, 15.041, 59.836mph;

April 27, 1979, Paul Radford, 14.945, 60.221mph;

June 9, 1979, Paul Radford, 14.911, 60.358mph;

August 3, 1979, Ralph Brinkley, 14.891, 60.439mph;

May 23, 1981, Phillip Smith, 14.844, 60.631mph;

July 11, 1981, Paul Radford, 14.815, 60.749mph;

August 22, 1981, Paul Radford, 14.719, 61.145;

June 12, 1982, Paul Radford, 14.644, 61.149mph;

July 10, 1982, Paul Radford, 14.632, 61.509mph;;

August 21, 1982, Paul Radford, 14.607, 61.614mph;

May 7, 1983, Billy Middleton, 14.426, 62.387mph;

May 19, 1984, Satch Worley, 14.343, 62.572mph;

June 14, 1986, Brent Elliott, 13.809, 65.175mph;

June 2, 1990, Robert Jeffreys, 13.715, 65.622mph;

June 23, 1990, Jr Miller, 13.542, 66.460mph;

May 1, 1992, Jr Miller, 13.458, 66.875mph;,

May 10, 2003, Tim Brown, 13.371, 67.310mph;

May 24, 2003, Tim Brown, 13.303, 67.659mph;

May 31, 2003, Tim Brown, 13.289, 67.725;

June 21, 2003, Tim Brown, 13.069, 68.865mph;

April 25, 2008, Tim Brown, 12.966, 69.412mph.

Tim’s record has stood for 8 years. Back in the late 70’s I asked Modified driver and Bowman Gray legend Al Hill what speed the modifieds would have to reach on the straightaways to have these average speeds. His response was at least 100mph. Wow! Hard to imagine that they are going that fast. We will see if Tim Brown’s record holds in 2016.