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Eyes on Xfinity: Schedule Musings

On Thursday, Aug. 29, NASCAR will finally release the schedules for all three of its national touring series.

One of them is all but known. The full NASCAR Cup Series schedule has been reported out by Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic, to go along with other previously announced dates on the calendar.

As of this writing, however, the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule remains in secrecy. But there is plenty that can be worked out as it is.

The first question, of course, will be standalone races. There are two that have been somewhat confirmed. First, FOX Sports reported that Rockingham Speedway will return to the schedule with a standalone race on Easter weekend. This means that there will be no off-weekends for NASCAR from the Daytona 500 to championship weekend, as the lone Cup off-weekend will be Easter.

The second would be Portland International Raceway. Already the lone NXS standalone, Portland was seemingly confirmed by series team owner Tommy Joe Martins in a tweet.

As there have been no strong rumors for new standalones and with no NASCAR at the Milwaukee Mile next season, this is probably it. The other 31 races will likely be companion races to the Cup Series.

But let’s dive in even further. NASCAR has scheduled Portland to be next to Sonoma Raceway on the schedule, just because of logistics. Xfinity teams can save some money with the two back-to-backs, instead of having to make another round trip or only going out west for just one standalone race.

Per The Athletic’s report, Sonoma is in between the Chicago Street Course and Dover Motor Speedway. Obviously, NXS will be back at Chicago next season.

That leaves Dover as the odd man out, which means the Truck Series gets to go support that weekend. As Dover is an SMI-owned racetrack, this makes where the current NXS date at that track goes to rather elementary.

When Bristol Motor Speedway used to hold dirt races in the spring, the NXS race there was moved in favor of a Craftsman Truck Series race, as that series had already been running dirt at Eldora Speedway for years.

Moving that Truck race to Dover and NXS back to the spring Bristol date makes sense. It also helps with the NXS schedule balance; remember that new Mexico City date used to be a race at Richmond Raceway, a short track.

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I’m not just talking out of my butt when it comes to this either. Looking at the current Cup schedule, the lone two SMI race weekends that have no NXS race are that Bristol race and North Wilkesboro. And North Wilkesboro is already selling tickets advertising a Truck race and not an NXS race.

Now the chief question is … where does that Rockingham race come from? The Truck date at Rockingham comes from the Milwaukee race, so that’s easy. NXS doesn’t have that luxury. There’s a few options NASCAR has, but I know the one I would go with.

The fall race at Talladega currently has both NXS and Trucks racing there, at a track with no lights, and is moving three weeks deeper into the year.

Getting rid of that NXS race means that Trucks can now start on Saturday instead of Friday afternoon. And, because Xfinity already races on the spring weekend, they’ll still get a taste of Talladega.

So, that’s it. This is me calling my shot. The 2025 NXS season will feature two standalone races and 31 Cup companion races. They will continue to skip Kansas Speedway in the spring, Richmond in the summer and World Wide Technology Raceway in Gateway.

They’ll now skip Dover and fall Talladega to go along with those three.

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Now, I’m fully prepared to be wrong. I hope I am, just because NXS has no business going to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in lieu of Indianapolis Raceway Park instead. But it just seems like the most logical schedule on the table.

If removing Talladega in the fall is a step too far (playoffs, playoffs, playoffs) and NASCAR doesn’t want to give up their own date, keep an eye on Pocono Raceway in June. That’s another track that doesn’t have lights, and it would be taking a date from an independently-owned track and giving it to another independent track.

You may be asking why there are so few standalone races on the NXS schedule nowadays. It’s actually fairly simple.

The NXS purse is higher when they are at Cup weekends because Cup generates more ticket sales and advertising dollars. Not to mention that costs are down because teams don’t have to fly in Cup pit crews or use alternate pit crews.

Maybe there should be less companion races. But at the same time, if this is a series designed to train drivers, pit crews and staff for future Cup roles, what good does it do them to have a bunch of non-Cup races?

Maybe, someday, Cup will go to Portland. But it hasn’t happened yet, and may well never. Portland helps to give the Xfinity series some kind of identity rather than just the B league, but it drives different from just about every road course on the calendar.

What a murderer’s row of road courses in July, though. Chicago, Sonoma and then Portland, back-to-back-to-back? And with Shane van Gisbergen in Cup next season, there might be a couple of different winners.

About the author

Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.

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