NASCAR Cup Series season is set to kick off this weekend with the annual preseason exhibition event dubbed the Cook Out Clash. This year, the event wil

The NASCAR Cup Series season informally begins with Sunday's Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem. The non-points paying race is the annual opening exhibition in the Cup season, with this year's race taking place at the quarter-mile Bowman Gray Stadium for the first time.

This weekend in Winston-Salem -- a little ways off from the tobacco farms and not far from the greater Charlotte area -- the Carolina winter will heat up and the earth will roar back to life with the beginning of a new year for NASCAR with its annual preseason exhibition race,