Current and former NASCAR drivers are stoked for the sport’s return to Bowman Gray Stadium, an event that aims to have a long-term impact on the famed venue that currently hosts college football games and modifieds races.

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,