lit a candle 3h agoMy dad grew up watching Gary race at Bowman Gray. He'd take me as a kid and point out number 9 coming around turn three. That track meant everything to their family, and Gary kept it alive.
Their story
Gary Burton Myers was the heart of a four-generation North Carolina racing family and one of the defining figures of Bowman Gray Stadium, the quarter-mile Madhouse in Winston-Salem where short-track stock car racing is as much civic ritual as sport. Born on 4 March 1950 and raised in the orbit…
Gary Burton Myers was the heart of a four-generation North Carolina racing family and one of the defining figures of Bowman Gray Stadium, the quarter-mile Madhouse in Winston-Salem where short-track stock car racing is as much civic ritual as sport. Born on 4 March 1950 and raised in the orbit of that track, he grew up watching his father, Billy Myers, and his uncle, Bobby Myers, race in the 1950s. Both men died young in racing-related tragedies later that decade. Gary stayed. For more than sixty years he was a fixture in the pits, first as a son and nephew, then as a driver, then as a father and grandfather teaching the next Myers generation how to race.
He turned professional in the mid-1970s and made his NASCAR Winston Cup Series debut during the 1974 Yankee 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Over the next four seasons he competed as an independent, logging 46 Cup starts between 1974 and 1978 according to Racing-Reference and The Third Turn. He also ran the NASCAR Grand National East Series and later the NASCAR Featherlite (Whelen) Modified Tour. The numbers never made him a national headline in the Cup garage. At Bowman Gray, and on the SMART Modified Tour he helped build, they made him a legend.
Myers won 38 Modified features at Bowman Gray, a total still cited by the track as the measure of his home-track dominance from the 1970s into the 2000s. He was a founding member of the SMART Modified Tour and its 1996 champion, finishing his SMART career with 15 tour victories. Weekly Series records from The Third Turn show seasons of double-digit starts and multiple wins at the Madhouse through the 1980s and 1990s. He last raced in October 2003. The career that mattered most to the Carolinas was not a Cup championship run. It was the long grind of Friday nights, the family shop, and a stadium that treated the Myers name as part of its architecture.
Off the track he was the patriarch of a dynasty that still fills Bowman Gray entry lists. Sons Burt Myers and Jason Myers became stars of modern Modified racing; Burt later passed the 100-win mark at the stadium. Grandson Slate Myers extended the line into a fourth generation. Gary was married to Pam Myers. When he died on 10 September 2026 at the age of 76, after a period of declining health, Burt wrote that he had lost his hero and that his father had taught him everything he knew. Jason's family post called Gary his best friend and the family's patriarch. Bowman Gray Stadium, the SMART Modified Tour, Jayski's Silly Season Site, Deadline, WBTV, and outlets across the NASCAR media ecosystem published tributes the same weekend.
Myers did not leave a glossy national brand. He left a working-class racing culture intact: a family that still races, a track that still packs the stands, and a record of 38 Madhouse wins that short-track fans recite the way other towns recite high-school football scores. In the words of the stadium that raised him, the Bowman Gray family was saddened by the loss of Gary Myers. The Madhouse keeps racing. His name stays in the record book.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia; The Third Turn; Racing-Reference; Legacy.com (Walnut Cove); Jayski; Deadline; WBTV; Daily Express US; Heavy; Bowman Gray Stadium and SMART Modified Tour statements.
In their own words
“Last night I lost my hero. He fought so hard but was so tired. My daddy is in Heaven and can finally do the things he wanted to do the last several years. Thank God for the times we had. He taught me everything I know.”
Burt Myers, Facebook tribute announcing his father's death, September 2026.
“Last night we lost our patriarch. Gary was Jason's best friend. He taught him and Burt everything they know and touched so many people along the way. To know him, was to love him. Rest easy, legend.”
Jason Myers family Facebook tribute, September 2026.
“Our Bowman Gray family is saddened by the loss of Gary Myers. Gary earned 38 wins at Bowman Gray in Modified competition, in a career that also saw him make starts in the NASCAR Cup Series and Grand National Series.”
Bowman Gray Stadium official statement on X, 11 September 2026.
“We lost one of our heroes - Gary Myers. Gary was a Founding Member of the SMART Modified Tour & its 1996 champion. He had 15 wins.”
SMART Modified Tour statement quoted in Deadline, September 2026.
Photos
2Gary Myers smiling at Bowman Gray Stadium
by People Forever
Gary Myers with son Burt Myers in victory lane at Bowman Gray Stadium
by People Forever
He really did. That whole family did.