3 Cup Tracks That Should Fall Off the Schedule or Lose a Race in the Near Future

With NASCAR’s current growth into new racing markets, as evidenced by this season’s first Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway outdoors of St. Louis and subsequent 12 months’s first avenue course occasion in Chicago, it goes with out saying that each time NASCAR provides a race, one other race should be faraway from the schedule to make room for the newcomer.

Tracks which have misplaced Cup dates or been faraway from the calendar altogether to make room for brand new races in current years embody Chicagoland Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Pocono, Michigan, New Hampshire, Dover, Texas and Road America.

So which tracks can be the subsequent victims of the continued progress of the Cup collection in uncharted territory? With the 2023 schedule already set, let’s take a fast take a look at three races that ought to be on the proverbial chopping block as the Cup Series continues to increase its attain in 2024 and past.

The fall race at Daytona

The NASCAR season may do with out a spring race at Daytona. | Meg Oliphant/Getty Images

If NASCAR needs to make the Daytona 500 much more particular and prestigious than it already is, it ought to make the 500 the solely annual cup race at the storied 2.5-mile superspeedway designed by NASCAR founder William HG “Big Bill.” “ France was constructed.

As far-fetched because it sounds to take a race away from a monitor with as a lot historical past as Daytona, it is not far-fetched in any respect given how unpopular the common season finale at Daytona has grow to be. Not solely does the race appear to be delayed by a day virtually each season resulting from rain, however drivers virtually universally despise that a monitor the place a lot is uncontrolled is the place a lot is at stake.

Daytona was the third time since October 2020 that rain resulted in an accident at a Cup race on an oval. Should #NASCAR Warning about rain?
Also large monetary enhance for groups at Daytona https://t.co/uIU92ugVsz

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 29, 2022

Drivers need this last-chance race to be held at a monitor the place their destiny doesn’t depend upon falling into one or extra of the all-too-familiar multi-car wrecks which are all however unavoidable at each Daytona and Talladega due of the tight racing fashion in the large pack.

While it is unlikely NASCAR will take a factors race away from Daytona, particularly contemplating the high-altitude Florida monitor already misplaced its Busch Clash preseason exhibition race to the LA Coliseum final 12 months, if you wish to take away a race from that Calendar resulting from its reputation – or lack of it – with drivers, the fall Daytona race would doubtless be the first to overlook.

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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway avenue course

Sorry, Brickyard lovers, however NASCAR did not make its long-awaited, much-anticipated debut at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1994, solely to resolve almost three a long time later to maneuver this once-in-a-lifetime marquee occasion to Indy’s far much less well-known Infield Road course.

No, the concept was for NASCAR’s finest to compete on the fabled 2.5-mile oval that hosted the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. The identical monitor the place guys with surnames reminiscent of Unser, Mears and Foyt celebrated historic victories and drank the legendary milk in Victory Lane to rejoice a career-defining win. The identical circuit that has hosted what’s broadly thought to be the world’s best motorsport occasion for greater than a century.

The backside line? If NASCAR elects to have Cup Series drivers compete on the Indy Road circuit moderately than the beloved oval monitor, as has been the case for the previous two seasons, the Cup Series would not should trouble in any respect to drive to Indianapolis – particularly contemplating that NASCAR’s inaugural division is now racing on extra avenue circuits than at any time in the sport’s 75-year historical past.

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The Bristol Dirt Race

sure i do know i do know The grime race, which has been held at Bristol Motor Speedway for the previous two springs, is the solely one in every of its form for NASCAR’s premier league. But is uniqueness alone actually a good purpose to get soiled 12 months after 12 months?

Hardly.

The novelty of a Cup Series race being held on grime ended the second the checkered flag flew at Bristol’s inaugural grime race of 2021. The Cup Series introduced final spring that they had been mainly executed with the whole grime monitor experiment and can be competing on a clay-covered Bristol for the third straight 12 months in 2023.

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RELATED: NASCAR’s transfer to ditch Saturday night time racing altogether for the Cup Series in 2023 is a main head-scratcher

If NASCAR has to clear some dates in 2024, one in every of the first races it ought to take into account scrapping is that at the Bristol Dirt – which has proved extraordinarily troublesome and has did not garner fan curiosity and to encourage the driver acceptance that NASCAR has and expects promoters to have.