NASCAR’s two race date a year problem- and how to fix it

This past weekend’s NASCAR race once again exposed an issue with the schedule. It’s something that I’ve felt has been an issue for years and it seems more people are getting on board with. That issue of course is most NASCAR tracks don’t need two races. In recent years we’ve seen a few tracks cut to one race. New Hampshire, Pocono, Michigan, Dover and Texas all cut down to one race in the last few years. Unfortunately many tracks host two races that don’t need two and none is more apparent than Richmond. Easily the most boring short track on the schedule, this track has 3 memorable moments since 2014 and one is a fan climbing the catch fence in the 2014 Fall race. This leads to the issue of a boring track hosting 2 races. The two most boring and worst races of 2024 were at tracks that have a second date still to come, Richmond and Phoenix.

The solution of course is twofold, especially at tracks like Richmond and Phoenix. The first issue is that NASCAR needs to improve short track racing with the Next Gen car which was introduced in 2022 and increased the size of the brakes and tires which has increased the grip the cars have along with the ability to brake later into a corner. This has created issues on all short tracks but it seems to have made an already boring track like Richmond worse. We know the short tracks are suffering with the new car, martinsville historically has been one of the best NASCAR tracks but since 2022 it’s been one of the worst. The car needs to be and can be fixed on short tracks. I felt like the only short track that has been better with the next gen car has been New Hampshire with the ability to use multiple lines throughout the corner instead of just one single line. I was at the New Hampshire race in 2023 and it was impressive to see how much the cars actually moved around in the corner compared to my previous experiences at New Hampshire in 2013, 2009 and 2008 back when it was just a one grove track. I feel that to improve the racing over all on these short tracks we do need a return to more power to once again wear out the tires and allow passing. Also softer tires which will wear faster or a return to smaller tires and brakes are an option to fix this all though that seems unlikely. Fixing these issues makes the desire for short track racing go up thus keeping two Richmond dates could be viable 

Of course the other solution to NASCAR’s schedule issues would be to just cut down on tracks that the current car isn’t racing well at along with in my opinion just cutting down on multiple dates in general. One race date a year draws a bigger crowd and creates more demand. Pocono in 2023 had crowds that hadn’t been seen in years all due to having just one date. I feel the only tracks that truly need two races are Daytona, Talladega, Martinsville and Charlotte, an argument for Bristol can be made but recent crowd sizes say otherwise. I feel these four tracks are the most deserving because, Daytona is the most iconic track in NASCAR, Talladega is the most exciting track, Martinsville is the oldest track and the only one to have a race in all 76 seasons from 1948 all the way to now in 2024 and Charlotte is the home base for the sport itself as well as most of the teams and drivers, I feel Charlotte with both the oval and roval (combination of the oval track with a infield road course) layouts does help in the only one track on the schedule argument though as the layouts are so different. 

What tracks would lose a date? Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Bristol, Richmond, Kansas, Darlington. All these tracks would drop down to one in the ideal scenario. Atlanta and Darlington had two, lost one and then gained one again in 2020 as fill-in tracks during the Covid pandemic, these tracks could easily go back to one. So what should replace these tracks? Atlanta, Las Vegas and Bristol are owned by Speedway Motorsports (SMI) so they need to be replaced with other tracks owned by SMI. For context between NASCAR themselves and SMI they own all but 3 tracks on the schedule. SMI leases Circuit of the Americas for the race weekend but we will count that as a track they own for the purposes of this article, as the date they use for COTA was originally a second Texas date. First Atlanta, let’s give that date back to Kentucky and see what the Next Gen car can do at that track. Next up, Las Vegas, I’d like to see SMI use this date to give North Wilkesboro its first points race since 1996 after its successful revival for the 2023 all star race. Speaking on the all star race. Finally on the SMI side, Bristol’s date will go to the Nashville fairgrounds, that’s not a wish or just an idea, once that track is approved by the city and renovations take place this will be what happens. As for the NASCAR owned tracks, Phoenix, send that to Portland, NASCAR races the Xfinity series there it’s time for a Cup race. Richmond, send that date to Chicagoland, same as I said with Kentucky. Let's see what the Next Gen car can do at that track plus it gives a race in Chicago again once the street race idea is eventually moved to another city. Kansas, let’s move that to an alternating schedule with Daytona Road Course and Sebring every other year or of course this date could be used to race in Montreal at the F1 track, this was rumored to be on the 2024 schedule and didn’t happen and it’s once again rumored for 2025. Lastly Darlington, this date will go to a Southern California event, whether that’s a LA street race or the California speedway when the transformation on that track is complete. 

I think this is the best way forward for the NASCAR schedule, cutting down to one race per track. It helps with getting more tracks on the schedule and a few races in markets that haven’t gotten races yet. Overall I’d love to see this idea happen. It would take a fews years to happen and of course some of these tracks have contracts that might make a single race date impossible all together. It’s fun to speculate and work on what the ideal NASCAR cup series schedule could be though.