The date is March 12, 2020, and in an unprecedented decision, NASCAR suspended the upcoming race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading like wildfire throughout the United States.
The 2020 season only had four race weekends in the books, and NASCAR suddenly found itself in an unfamiliar work stoppage that dragged on for more than two months.
The NASCAR Cup Series finally returned to action at Darlington Raceway on May 17, with a revamped schedule that squeezed the remaining 32 Cup races into a truncated six-month window.
All 36 races were completed without a hitch, and little did anyone know that the COVID-19 disruption would serve as the spark that would usher in an era of change and innovation that reinvented NASCAR and continues to do so to this day.
The loss of two months forced innovation on NASCAR’s part in order to complete the season on time, and the sanctioning body implemented weekday races and upped the number of doubleheader weekends in order to complete the season by November. And while the weekday races and doubleheader Cup races did not return for 2021 and 2022, respectively, they were NASCAR’s first foray into improvising its stagnant schedule.
Stagnant because the late 2010s saw Cup and the NASCAR Xfinity Series in the midst of a five-year deal that locked in every track and race date on the schedule until the deal’s expiration at the end of 2020. That meant that the only new track added to the schedule during the deal was the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2018. Otherwise, the schedule was copy-and-pasted from year to year.
The deal expired and was not renewed at the end of 2020, and as a result, the 2021 schedule arguably saw more year-to-year change than any other schedule NASCAR had devised in its modern era.
Not one, not two, but five new tracks were added to the 2021 Cup schedule: Circuit of the Americas, Road America, Nashville Speedway, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course (which replaced the Brickyard 400) and the return of dirt tracks for the first time since 1971, with the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt race in April.
None of the following years were able to replicate the monumental shift undertaken in 2021, but it’s worth noting that the Cup Series has seen at least one new track added to the schedule for the late five years.
The 2022 season saw the debut of World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, the Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the highly anticipated debut of the Next Gen car, a car unlike any Cup car produced before it. And yes, while tweaks need to be made to the car to improve racing on short tracks and road courses, there is no denying that the car has revolutionized the previously stale racing found on 1.5-mile intermediate tracks.
Innovations continued in 2023, as that season played host to NASCAR’s first-ever street race through downtown Chicago and the triumphant return of North Wilkesboro Speedway as the new All-Star Race. Last year saw Iowa Speedway’s introduction to the Cup schedule while this year will see the Clash move to Bowman Gray Stadium and the Cup Series’ first race on international soil since 1958 with a trip south of the border to Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
The new tracks only scratch the surface of the changes for 2025, which will mark the first year NASCAR’s new charter deal (for the teams that signed it) as well as the debut of NASCAR’s new TV deal.
The new deal will see the return of former partner TNT and the five-race debut of Amazon Prime Video, which will mark NASCAR’s first foray into streaming. The 10-race summer stretch between TNT and Amazon will also set the stage for the brand-new In-Season Tournament, which will implement a head-to-head, 32-driver bracket through five race weekends, with the winning driver claiming a $1 million prize in tournament’s final round at the Brickyard 400.
The In-Season Tournament will keep fans entertained during the summer months in the leadup to the playoffs, which may or may not look different from the playoff format used during the 2024 season.
Now, have all of these new innovations succeeded? Of course not. For example, the Bristol dirt race, the Indianapolis road course and the Clash at the L.A. Coliseum were all removed from the schedule after three years. NASCAR’s decision to race on Easter Sunday between 2022 and 2024 also failed, and Easter Sunday (April 20) will return as Cup’s only off-weekend for the upcoming 2025 season.
But success does not come without failure. NASCAR is doing everything it can to reinvent itself in a rapidly changing media and consumer landscape after years of stagnation, and the last five years have already seen the debut of new tracks and successful initiatives that have turned into mainstays on the calendar each season.
The important thing is that NASCAR is continuing to swing for the fences, and it’s trying anything it can to promote and revitalize its product.
About the author
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
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Nascar has truly alienated the hardcore race fans with all of this gimmickry. I keep waiting for the figure 8 race.
With the cars towing school buses.