2024 NASCAR schedules revealed

NASCAR’s 2020s schedule shake-ups are continuing for another year as the 2024 NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck Series feature various changes that, while perhaps not as wide-scale as in recent years, are still major ranging from the return of Iowa Speedway to configuration swaps for Bristol Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Cup and Truck Series’ Bristol Dirt race has been dropped after a three-year experiment and will return to being on the concrete. Likewise, Indianapolis has stopped flirting with the infield road course as the Cup and Xfinity Series race on the 2.5-mile oval again. With the Truck Series dropping Knoxville Raceway after 2022, NASCAR’s national series no longer have dirt races for the first time since 2012.

“We’re certainly open to dirt racing, whether it be with our Cup Series, Xfinity Series or Craftsman Truck Series. Something we’re going to continue to consider,” said NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing development and strategy Ben Kennedy. “That said, I think after we’ve seen racing on the dirt at Bristol play out for the past few years and hearing some of the fan feedback, we felt like it was an opportunity for us to shake things up a bit, move back to the concrete surface in the spring, and move back to all asphalt and concrete tracks for ’24.

“I think that said, as we think about what the future looks like, dirt racing does have a unique place in motorsports. You think of a lot of our drivers, they came from dirt racing. You think of some of the best racing that I’ve personally seen, it’s on dirt. Do I think there’s going to be a dirt race sometime in the future? I think so. What that track looks like or what the time is, we’ll see, but it’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on for sure. I think similar to some of these unique styles of tracks like street courses, if it does come back on the schedule, I don’t think it’s going to be something where we have fifteen different dirt tracks. I think it might be one or two that we’d have throughout the year and really make it something special.”

Perhaps the largest change is the addition of Iowa Speedway to the Cup calendar. The track, owned by NASCAR, had long been considered a potential Cup host site as it welcomed Xfinity and Trucks only to be dropped from both schedules due to COVID-19 in 2020.

Some schedule rumours that ultimately did not come to fruition include the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval being dropped for the oval layout, the return of Rockingham Speedway after a restoration effort, and the addition of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. The latter, which currently hosts Formula One’s Canadian Grand Prix, was an Xfinity track from 2008 through 2012 and was teased as NASCAR continued expanding its track diversity as officials have long mulled adding an international date.

“As we think about international venues in general, we still are bullish about finding our way either north of the border, whether that be in Montreal or Toronto or another market, or south of the border down into Mexico,” Kennedy explained. “As we’ve mentioned in the past, we want to bring our NASCAR Cup Series there at some point. We think it’s important for us to get outside of the United States with our series in some way, shape or form, so that’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on as we think about 2025 and beyond.”

In the meantime, the NASCAR México Series will support the Cup Series for the first time by appearing at the season-opening Busch Light Clash exhibition at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Date-wise, the Cup Series playoffs will be pushed back a week, making Darlington Raceway the last race of the regular season rather than Daytona International Speedway. The playoffs will now begin at Atlanta Motor Speedway before heading to Watkins Glen International, which joins the postseason while Texas Motor Speedway is swapped out and will now have its lone race in April.

Atlanta’s addition means the playoffs will have two superspeedway-based tracks. Its presence coupled with Watkins Glen and Bristol in the Round of 16 was designed to “test the variability of our drivers and their skills”, as Kennedy put it.

At the Xfinity level, Bristol and Kansas trade places such that the former will once again be the regular season finale. Portland International Raceway is the only standalone race as Road America is off the schedule for the first time since 2009, though the latter’s absence has been attributed to NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics and is believed to be a one-off disappearance.

The Olympics, which are exclusively covered by NBC much like the Cup and Xfinity Series’ second halves, heavily factored into delaying the schedule release as NASCAR sought to put the pieces together. Due to the Paris Games, the Cup Series has a two-week summer break between Indianapolis and Richmond. NASCAR’s current television contract with FOX and NBC also expires after 2024, though only The CW has been confirmed as a broadcaster for 2025 onwards as the exclusive network for the Xfinity Series.

“I know that ’25 is going to look different,” Kennedy commented. “Naturally, we’ll be in our new media rights agreement, so it won’t be an Olympic year, so I think the schedule overall will have a lot of variability to it as we think about ’25.

“[…] As you think about the layout of the schedule, a lot of that is driven from our conversations with them and programming and times, whether it’s an afternoon race, a primetime race, a Saturday night race, where a lot of our windows are. They certainly have a very big voice at the table. That said, we also have a lot of voices to hear from, so our fans are probably number one on that list. Broadcast partners are high on the list. Our teams and drivers are high on the list. Our partners are high on the list. There are a lot of folks that are certainly weighing in as we think about these scheduling changes, and it’s incumbent upon us to take in all that data and information and feedback, try to make the best calculated decisions as we think about rolling out the next schedule.”

The Truck Series will only have one road course race at Circuit of the Americas as Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course has been dropped.

For the fifth year in a row, all three series will conclude their seasons with NASCAR Championship Weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

Cup Series

Xfinity Series

Craftsman Truck Series