DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Daytona Speedweeks will officially enter a bold new era next February.
NASCAR and Daytona Int’l Speedway officials announced Wednesday afternoon that the traditional schedule for the annual festival of speed will undergo a major shift in 2021, condensing down from two weekends into just six days for the upcoming season.
The action begins on Tuesday, Feb. 9, when the non-points Busch Clash exhibition event moves from the 2.5-mile tri-oval onto Daytona’s famed 3.56-mile road course layout – well known for hosting the Rolex 24 at Daytona for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on an annual basis, as well as the Daytona 200 for motorcycles.
Next year’s Busch Clash will be run under the lights as a mid-week, primetime event for the first time, serving as the first buildup toward the 63rd annual Daytona 500.
It will mark the first road course event for full-bodied stock cars at Daytona, though an International Race of Champions event was held on the road-course configuration in 2006.
Wednesday, Feb. 10 will feature Daytona 500 Qualifying presented by Kroger, while the Bluegreen Vacations Duels at Daytona – the traditional 150-mile qualifying races for the Daytona 500 – remain in their traditional places on Thursday night, Feb. 11.
The NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races at Daytona on Friday, Feb. 12, while the Saturday portion of Speedweeks morphs into a double dip, with the stars of the ARCA Menards Series joining the NASCAR Xfinity Series on Feb. 13 for two races in one day.
Sunday, Feb. 14 caps the six-day run off with a bang, featuring the 63rd edition of the Daytona 500 for the NASCAR Cup Series and putting an exclamation point on Speedweeks.
The new Speedweeks schedule was officially unveiled in advance of this weekend’s 50th annual Daytona Supercross.
“We continue to look for opportunities to differentiate the Busch Clash from the Daytona 500, and obviously everything we do around Speedweeks presented by Advent Health is about building toward the 500,” said Daytona Int’l Speedway President Chip Wile. “This is about how we can continue to push and elevate the Busch Clash to be something different. And we’ve done that with a lot of new initiatives the first weekend.
“We’ve seen growth year over year with the Busch Clash and that weekend, but to see the resurgence in road-course racing and the excitement around it from the fans, we thought, why can’t we do this?”