After the 2023 CARS Tour season concluded in early November and Carson Kvapil was crowned champion, many began to wonder what CARS owners Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Justin Marks could possibly have up their sleeves for 2024.
On Nov. 27, everyone got their answers, as the four owners were part of a press conference detailing three key announcements for the series’ 2024 season. FloRacing was announced as the continuing broadcast partner for the series, and zMAX was named as the new title sponsor.
But perhaps the most important announcement was that of the the 2024 season schedule, and it certainly did not disappoint.
As we look ahead to 2024 for the newly rebranded zMAX CARS Tour, here are three takeaways from the 2024 series schedule.
North Wilkesboro Comes Full Circle With Championship Event
It’s hard not to start off with the biggest change on the entire schedule: the addition of a second race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
And not just that — that race is also the finale of the 2024 season.
CARS was the host series for the Racetrack Revival event at North Wilkesboro in 2022, a weekend that pretty much sold out the once-vacant speedway.
From that moment on, it seemed as though North Wilkesboro was destined to be a staple in the CARS Tour.
Last year’s midweek show at the track had the biggest entry list of the 2023 season, a field that included names such as Earnhardt, Harvick, Daniel Suarez, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain and more.
In 2024, the track will once again host a midweek event during NASCAR’s All-Star Race weekend as well as the championship finale for both the Pro Late Models and Late Model Stock Cars in 2024.
This move feels like a full-circle moment, especially for Earnhardt, after he’ played such a key role in the new life of North Wilkesboro in many ways. It wasn’t that long ago that Earnhardt had a team of people with weed eaters out cleaning the 0.625-mile track just enough to get a scan for iRacing, and now the track will hold the championship event for a premier short track series.
Orange County Set to Make Highly Anticipated Return
North Wilkesboro wasn’t the only new event added for this upcoming season, as Orange County Speedway is set to make its return to the series in 2024.
Orange County was one of the original tracks for the Tour, holding two races every year from the inaugural season in 2015 to 2019, including the first-ever Old North State Nationals in 2019.
Orange County was left off the 2020 schedule amid the COVID-19 pandemic, before returning in 2021 once again to host the Old North State Nationals. However, since that 2021 race, the series has not been back, and the Orange County void was filled by other tracks over the past two seasons, most notably with Caraway Speedway hosting the Old North State Nationals in 2022, and Tri-County Race Track holding the event in 2023.
However, the schedule still felt like it was missing something with Orange County absent from the series, and that hole has now been filled.
The track being back on the schedule is great for the market that it is in, as Orange County sits about an hour northwest of Raleigh, N.C. The central region of North Carolina has always been a hub for the series and late model stock racing in general, so having another track in the region back on the schedule will help the series in attendance for both fans and drivers alike.
As for the Old North State Nationals, the rumor was that if Orange County came back, the event would go back to the place where it all began back in 2019. However, while we know Orange County is back, we do not yet know where the Old North State Nationals event will be held, as that has not yet been announced.
Both Tri-County and Orange County are great racetracks and are capable of holding the event, but it is worth noting the dates for both tracks. Tri-County has two dates on the 2024 schedule, but both coincide with NASCAR’s weekends at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May and October. Meanwhile, the Orange County date is back in early April, which just so happens to be the spot on the calendar that both previous Old North State Nationals fell in 2019 and 2021, so all signs are still pointing toward a return to Orange County for the series’ biggest event.
CARS Continuing to Build Relationship With NASCAR
One other thing worth noting is the series’ continued efforts to work with NASCAR. Going down through the schedule, four dates of the 19 on the series schedule work almost directly with where NASCAR will be racing on that same weekend.
The most obvious of the four is the first race at North Wilkesboro, a two-day event during NASCAR’s All-Star weekend that will include the Pro Late Models on May 14, and the Late Model Stock Cars on May 15. The event was a major hit in 2023, drawing massive car counts in both series, including many NASCAR stars. Keeping the fans involved all week long for the All-Star festivities at North Wilkesboro was an important aspect for NASCAR, and the CARS Tour is a perfect midweek partner for the series.
Aside from North Wilkesboro, the second most obvious is the date for Florence Motor Speedway moving from late March in 2023 to Aug. 30 in 2024, joining the Labor Day weekend festivities for NASCAR’s Southern 500 weekend at Darlington Raceway. The NASCAR Xfinity Series will race on Saturday, while the Cup Series Southern 500 will be on Sunday, so a Friday night late model event less than 15 miles away will not only draw a large crowd of fans, but also potentially star drivers from the NASCAR ranks to fill out the already impressive CARS field even further.
Finally, both the May and October races at Tri-County just so happen to be the same weekends that NASCAR will be at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The series will first be at Tri-County on May 25 before returning on Oct. 12.
Unlike Florence and Darlington, Tri-County is more of a drive for fans, almost an hour-and-a-half from one track to the next. However, both Xfinity Series races run on the same Saturday are midday events, so the thought is that fans will be able to leave Charlotte and potentially travel up to Granite Falls, N.C., for the Saturday night shows.
Chase began working with Frontstretch in the spring of 2023 as a news writer, while also helping fill in for other columns as needed. Chase is now the main writer and reporter for Frontstretch.com's CARS Tour coverage, a role which began late in 2023. Aside from racing, some of Chase's other hobbies include time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, and keeping up with all things Philadelphia sports related.