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NASCAR 101: Looking Ahead to the 2025 Schedule

Despite reports earlier this year that the 2025 season would be coming sooner than usual, an official schedule release has yet to happen.

However, there are some key instances that can be pieced together about next year’s schedule, with three big storylines to follow.

The Return (or Not) of the Chicago Street Race

With the second straight disappointing running of the Chicago Street Race just a few weeks ago, the race’s future is very much up in the air. In possibly the biggest blunder of 2024, NASCAR was unable to get the full race in due to weather, which some blamed NASCAR for to begin with, and fans still have not seen a dry NASCAR Cup Series race on the street course.

Currently, the Chicago Street Race is due to return for its final originally agreed upon installment in 2025. However, as the contract negotiations were rumored to have taken place in bad faith on the part of the city’s leadership at that time, that final year is in limbo.

Essentially, Chicago has until January to decide whether or not to hold the race as part of a 180-day opt-out clause that was included in the original agreement. Coupled with the unrest that some Chicago residents have shown with the race, it remains to be the biggest question mark on the 2025 schedule in many eyes.

Indubitably, discussions will take place from now until that January deadline as to whether or not to bring the race back for its third installment. Those discussions are multi-faceted and require many heads in the room, along with extra planning to ensure the race’s third running can go off without a hitch. That takes a lot of time.

Thus, the Chicago Street Race has probably caused a few snags along the way as far as the release of the 2025 schedule goes.

See also
Playoffs? The Silly Scheduling of the NASCAR Postseason

NASCAR Going Abroad?

The rumors of a race outside of the United States have long since moved on from the rumor category, with multiple outlets reporting that a race on foreign soil is supposedly on the table for 2025.

The question, though, is will these races be a full series weekend or simply hold a Cup race? If they only hold a Cup race, is it truly beneficial for the sport, or is it too gimmicky to fulfil the desired purpose?

International travel is a completely different ballgame than driving haulers state to state to transport equipment like most teams do. It requires all team members to have the necessary legal documents, offering a much different logistical problem, especially for NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series teams.

With Mexico City the reported frontrunner for an international race, eyes should be glued to the decision of whether to make the potential weekend in Mexico City a full race weekend or a one-off Cup experiment.

Playoff Shifts

Talladega, Darlington, Gateway and New Hampshire will each shift a date to the postseason, according to a tentative schedule obtained by The Athletic.

This poses several questions, namely whether or not drivers will be happy with having a superspeedway race in Talladega play a big role in deciding their playoff futures. At a track where predictability and driver ability gets thrown out the window, many playoff drivers could either crash out early or ride at the back of the pack most of the race to stay out of trouble.

Moving a superspeedway into the playoff is a crowd-pleasing choice rather than a driver-pleaser, and that’s not a surprising direction for NASCAR to go in. With tracks like Darlington and New Hampshire going to the playoffs, though, the argument from NASCAR might be to take the good with the perceived bad.

The 2025 schedule should actually arrive sooner than later now, just in time for the media to ask drivers their thoughts on it before a race day, which is sure to offer fans a window into the decision-making process and negotiations.

Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s Cowbell Corner, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.

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John

Superspeedways have no place in the playoffs. They are essentially crapshoot wreckfests.