A veteran stock-car driver at a North Carolina short track died over the weekend after suffering a medical emergency while competing in a race, officials said.

Robbie Brewer’s car struck head-on a wall on the quarter-mile (0.40-kilometer) track at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem and came to a stop near the start-finish line.

Track workers peeled away the roof to remove 53-year-old Brewer, and an ambulance took him to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist hospital, after which he died, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

“We are saddened by the passing of Robbie Brewer after he was transported to an area medical facility following an on-track medical incident,” track officials said Sunday in a statement. “Robbie was a talented and passionate racer, and highly respected competitor among his peers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Robbie’s family and friends at this time.”

Details of the medical emergency weren’t released.

Brewer was competing in a 20-lap Sportsman Series race at Bowman Gray, where thousands of racing fans turn out weekly on Saturday nights in the spring and summer for races across four divisions. Bowman Gray also was the locale for this year’s preseason NASCAR Cup Series exhibition event in early February.

Brewer’s first career start at the oval came in 1990, and he made nearly 260 starts in the Sportsman Division, winning the points championship in 2011, the newspaper reported.

Fellow Bowman Gray driver Brad Lewis, whose race shop is near where Brewer lived, said Brewer “was like a big brother to me even though we were not that far apart in age.”

“He was a wheelman through and through,” Lewis said. “I’m not only going to honor him the rest of the season but for as long as we race out there. He’ll be missed.”

The 2025 NASCAR season kicks off on Feb. 16, 2025 with the 67th running of the Daytona 500.

A NASCAR insider wants the governing body to get back to basics when it comes to the Cup Series and the playoffs. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic sounded off on the playoff system after covering the Watkins Glen race.

“I’m almost there, where everything needs a rest,” Gluck said. “I don’t know how you do it, but I’m almost there on what is even the point of playoffs at all. What is even the point of a 10-race chase? I get all the drawbacks, and could you have runaways and all this stuff? I don’t think you can argue that a large part of the fanbase is airing frustration because they have feelings of how things were or how things used to be, and they want the simplicity back in whatever way it is.”

Gluck then talked about the Watkins Glen race and what happened with Kyle Larson. If there were no playoffs in the NASCAR Cup Series, Gluck said that Larson would be the story of the day because his last-place finish at Watkins Glen would have prevented him from winning the NASCAR Cup Series Championship. But with him already clinching a spot in the playoffs, the last-place finish for Larson is an afterthought.

Should NASCAR re-evaluate the playoffs?

“I just don’t think it’s going to be easy to soothe them,” Gluck said about NASCAR fans. “There’s not one thing right now that’s going to make everybody happy again. How do you rest things? How do you sort of get back to simplicity, back to basics a little bit, where people are going to be like, ‘Okay, this is something we feel good about?’

NASCAR’s playoff system has been in existence in the Cup Series since the 2004 season. There have been changes over the years, and the current format features 16 qualified drivers competing in the final 10 races of the season. After three races, four drivers are eliminated, and the final four compete in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway in November.

Robbie Brewer, a short-track racecar driver, died over the weekend after suffering a medical emergency while competing in a race. 

Brewer’s vehicle smashed head-on into a wall at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on Saturday night. He was competing in the 20-lap Sportsman Series race, which occurs every weekend across four divisions. 

The car came to a halt near the finish line, and the 53-year-old Brewer was taken out of it after track workers took the roof off. 

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Track crew members rip the roof off of Robbie Brewer’s car to remove him after a medical emergency in the first 20-lap Sportsman Series race at Bowman Gray Stadium, Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, in Winston-Salem, N.C. (Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP)

Brewer was rushed to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist hospital, where he eventually died, per the Winston-Salem Journal.

“We are saddened by the passing of Robbie Brewer after he was transported to an area medical facility following an on-track medical incident,” track officials said in a statement on Sunday. 

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“Robbie was a talented and passionate race, and highly respected competitior among his peers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Robbie’s family and friends at this time.”

Details of Brewer’s medical emergency were not disclosed. 

Robbie Brewer’s car skids down the front stretch after a wreck on the restart on lap 16 of the first 20-lap Sportsman Series race at Bowman Gray Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, in Winston-Salem, N.C.  (Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP)

Brad Lewis, a fellow driver at Bowman Gray, said Brewer “was like a big brother to me even though we were not that far apart in age.” Lewis’ race shop was near where Brewer lived.

“He was a wheelman thorugh and through,” Lewis added. “I’m not only going to honor him the rest of the season, but for as long as we race out there. He’ll be missed.”

Brewer has been racing at the track, which served as a preseason NASCAR Cup Series exhibition event back in February, since 1990. 

Track crew work to remove Sportsman Series driver Robbie Brewer from his car after suffering a medical emergency on the restart on lap 16 of the first 20-lap Sportsman Series race at Bowman Gray Stadium, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025, in Winston-Salem, N.C. (Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP)

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Brewer made almost 260 Sportsman Division starts, and he won the championship in 2011, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A veteran stock car driver at a North Carolina short track died over the weekend after suffering a medical emergency while competing in a race, officials said.

Robbie Brewer’s car struck head-on a wall on the quarter-mile (0.40-kilometer) track at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem and came to a stop near the start-finish line.

Track workers peeled away the roof to remove 53-year-old Brewer, and an ambulance took him to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist hospital, after which he died, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

“We are saddened by the passing of Robbie Brewer after he was transported to an area medical facility following an on-track medical incident,” track officials said Sunday in a statement. “Robbie was a talented and passionate racer, and highly respected competitor among his peers. Our thoughts and prayers are with Robbie’s family and friends at this time.”

Details of the medical emergency weren’t released.

Brewer was competing in a 20-lap Sportsman Division race at Bowman Gray, where thousands of racing fans turn out weekly on Saturday nights in the spring and summer for races across four divisions. Bowman Gray also was the locale for this year’s preseason NASCAR Cup Series exhibition event in early February.

Brewer’s first career start at the oval came in 1990, and he made nearly 260 starts in the Sportsman Division, winning the points championship in 2011, the newspaper reported.

Fellow Bowman Gray driver Brad Lewis, whose race shop is near where Brewer lived, said Brewer “was like a big brother to me even though we were not that far apart in age.”

“He was a wheelman through and through,” Lewis said. “I’m not only going to honor him the rest of the season but for as long as we race out there. He’ll be missed.”

In a brief but sharply worded order that chastised NASCAR for making a “play to the court of public opinion and perhaps color [the judge’s] perception” of 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and their counsel, U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell on Monday denied NASCAR an order that would have required 23XI and Front Row to show cause over allegations of submitting fake evidence and attorney-scripted testimony.

Bell wrote that NASCAR’s motion “does not productively move this case forward.” He reminded the parties the antitrust case is “important” because it “risks the fortunes of NASCAR” and the two teams. The case also “significantly impacts all the other companies and individuals who depend on their success (as well as legions of stock car racing fans),” Bell stressed.

Last Friday, NASCAR accused 23XI—which is co-owned by Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin and Curtis Polk—and Front Row, along with the teams’ attorneys, of presenting fake evidence and scripted letters. The accusation implied that Bell was duped into granting a preliminary injunction last December. The injunction, later vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, ensured the two teams could enjoy the rights and face the obligations of the 2025 charter agreements without having to agree to a mutual release provision. 

Bell’s decision last December was based in part on assertions, purportedly from 23XI drivers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, that they were very worried about the lack of charters and how the absence of charters would impact their careers and contracts. A month earlier, a different federal judge, Frank D. Whitney, denied essentially the same motion on grounds 23XI and Front Row had submitted insufficient evidence that an injunction was necessary for them to avert irreparable harm, meaning the kind of harm that monetary damages could not later remedy.

Bell on Monday suggested NASCAR misunderstood where his focus rests. The judge wrote his concern is “not on how” evidence and affidavits “came to be” but instead on “determining what truthful substance they hold.”  

Along those lines, Bell reasoned that “regardless of whether or not the driver letters were prompted or even written by someone connected to Plaintiffs,” the substance of those letters is what counts. He added that “counsel often prepare their witnesses for depositions with suggestions on how to phrase answers.”

Last Friday, attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who is lead counsel for 23XI Racing and Front Row in the litigation, slammed NASCAR for “yet another baseless distraction.”