We know where and when the races are for NASCAR’s top three series this season.
What we don’t know, for sure, is where and when — or how many — the races in 2021 will take place.
It’s a brave new world for NASCAR as series officials have made and will likely make more adjustments to the once-familiar litany of race dates we’ve seen over the past couple of decades. Much speculation surrounded the release of the 2020 schedule not because of the changes, which we will address shortly, but because it sets the stage for the 2021 schedule that will be the first with NASCAR’s new Gen-7 machines.
Key to that speculation is the fact that NASCAR’s five-year agreements with the various tracks, which end after the coming season, will no longer be in place and changes are expected in the number of races (currently at 36) and the duration of the season, which currently runs from mid-February to mid-November.
Also at play is the fact that International Speedway Corp., which owns many of the tracks at which the the NASCAR series compete, is in the middle of a restructuring to return to private ownership. ISC went public in the midst of the NASCAR boom times, alongside Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which owns Charlotte Motor Speedway and several other tracks. SMI is also returning to its private roots.
This year’s schedule for the NASCAR Cup Series features several changes from 2019, chief among them a new venue for the season-ending Championship 4 event. Since 2002, the season has ended at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but this year the final winner-take-all event will be at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway.
That 17-year run in South Beach opened with the first of three Tony Stewart titles, saw all seven of Jimmie Johnson’s celebrations and closed with Kyle Busch’s second championship last November. Others to claim titles there were Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano.
This season will usher in a new style of racing, as the 1.5-mile HMS oval gives way to the racy, multi-groove one-mile oval in Phoenix. The same holds true for the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and should provide a more frenetic final chapter to the season.
Homestead-Miami Speedway remains on the schedule, but on the weather-friendly date of March 22.
That’s another change for 2020: the first five races of the season will take place in warm-weather areas. Gone is the Atlanta Motor Speedway stop the week after the Daytona 500.
In its place, is the first of two trips to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, followed by races at California’s Auto Club Speedway and Phoenix Raceway before Atlanta hosts its annual event on March 15.
Martinsville Speedway has been a fixture in the sport since Harry Truman was in office and this year’s May 9 race will be a first for the venerable .526-mile concrete paperclip, as the event will take place under the lights for the first time, adding an element of the unknown that hearkens back to NASCAR’s roots as Saturday-night short-track racers.
The second Martinsville date, Nov. 1, is key for the simple reason that it is the race that will set the Championship 4 for both the Cup Series and Xfinity Series. Given the enthusiastic nature of the racing there over the past several seasons, that’s going to be a barnburner for sure, especially with a championship spot on the line.
Speaking of Martinsville, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will return there on Oct. 31 for the first time since 2006, which gives one more point of congruence between the Cup Series and its smaller cousin. It also goes back to NASCAR’s roots, which is going to be a theme that kicks off the decade.
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