Multiple sources have confirmed to Frontstretch that the Daytona International Speedway road course will replace Auto Club Speedway on the 2021 NASCAR schedule in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series.
The race at Auto Club was slated to be the third race of the season. With the move to Daytona, it will bump up to the second weekend of 2021 — running the week following the Daytona 500.
This will push the scheduled weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway back to the third race of the season. Additionally, the Camping World Truck Series’ race scheduled to be held at Homestead has been moved to the Daytona road course.
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, sporting events in Southern California have recently been canceled or moved to a different location. This is the next move, as the race weekend was scheduled to feature the Cup Series and Xfinity Series on Feb. 27 and 28.
In August, NASCAR took to the Daytona road course for the first time, spanning across all three national touring series. Sheldon Creed, Austin Cindric and Chase Elliott were the winners of each respective race.
NASCAR declined to comment, but an announcement is expected to come later this afternoon.
The sanctioning body is set on returning to the 2-mile layout at Auto Club in 2022 before turning the venue into a half-mile, high-banked short track, as The Athletic first reported in September.
Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.