A few surprises and shuffles as NASCAR reveals 2024 schedule

After a long wait, NASCAR officially released its full 2024 schedule on Wednesday. The list features a few surprises and more than a few shuffles.

“Another exciting day,” summed up NASCAR Senior Vice President of Racing Direction and Strategy Ben Kennedy.

“I know we all have a lot of anticipation in and around schedule announcement day, but an exciting day as we announce the 2024 schedule, and another great blend of some of the new markets that we’re going to be returning to, a new track that a lot of our fans have been asking for for a long time, and then a lot of historic racetracks that we get to celebrate as well.”

Some of the biggest surprises were actually already announced. The season will once again open with the Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which will feature the NASCAR Mexico Series as well. The Bristol dirt race is going away, with two concrete races at the Last Great Coliseum planned for next season. And the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is moving from the road course back to the oval.

But the biggest news, announced Tuesday before the schedule was released, is that the Cup Series will be visiting a new venue: Iowa Speedway, which has hosted IndyCar and the Trucks and Xfinity Series, will be hosting its first-ever Cup Series race in 2024.

As for the schedule itself, the big changes are mostly just shuffling events around, particularly to make room for the two-week Olympic break in NBC’s coverage in late June and early August.

Those changes are most visible in the regular season conclusion, which will be at Darlington next year. This season, Daytona was the finale and Darlington was the opening round of the Playoffs. Instead, Daytona will be the second-to-last race before the Playoffs and the postseason will open at Atlanta. The opening round will be made even more unpredictable with the addition of the road course at Watkins Glen after Atlanta, with the round concluding once again at Bristol.

“The racing product and what we’ve seen so far, the positive fan sentiment that we’ve seen around what it looks like on track, and then we felt like it was an opportunity to introduce a little bit of variety to the schedule in the Playoffs,” Kennedy explained of what made NASCAR move Atlanta into the postseason.

“Introducing a drafting-style track like Atlanta to the Round of 16, to follow it up with Watkins Glen and then the Bristol Night Race is really going to test the variability of our drivers and their skills as they think about punching their ticket to the Round of 12.”

Atlanta Motor Speedway is the venue for another swap next season too: instead of heading straight from Daytona to the ‘west coast swing,’ the Cup Series will head to Atlanta after the Daytona 500 for another drafting track.

The other track with a change is Richmond, which will host two Sunday night races under the lights next season. The first will be on Easter Sunday and the second will be in early August.

One date that remained up in the air was the Chicago Street Race. With changing local politics in the city, whether NASCAR could continue its deal with the city looked uncertain. However, the race and festival will be returning to the Windy City, hopefully with less rain next season.

“To be back here in Chicago is going to be amazing. The event this year was unprecedented in a lot of ways, including our winner. To be able to come back next year is going to be another tentpole event for us,” Kennedy added.

“I’m really excited about it.”

Another venue that put on a highly publicized race last season with no guarantee of a return is North Wilkesboro, which will once again host the All Star Race. This time, though, the ageing track surface will be repaved before playing host to the million-dollar race.

As for future schedules, Ben Kennedy emphasized that changes don’t have to be permanent.

That’s true, for instance, of the decision to race on the Bristol concrete instead of the dirt. Though that means there won’t be any dirt racing in any of NASCAR’s national series next season, he said that there might be a return in some form the future.

“We haven’t, no. We’re certainly open to dirt racing, whether it be with our Cup Series, Xfinity Series or Craftsman Truck Series. Something we’re going to continue to consider.”

Kennedy emphasized, though, that the sanctioning body listened to fans’ complaints about the racing, and that all schedule changes were made with fan feedback in mind.

That does mean, for instance, that changes like Darlington as the regular season finale may stay if fan feedback is positive rather than reverting to Daytona, he added.

NASCAR’s big ambition is to expand abroad, particularly in the Americas.

“As we think about international venues in general, we still are bullish about finding our way either north of the border, whether that be in Montreal or Toronto or another market, or south of the border down into Mexico,” said Kennedy.

“As we’ve mentioned in the past, we want to bring our NASCAR Cup Series there at some point. We think it’s important for us to get outside of the United States with our series in some way, shape or form, so that’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on as we think about 2025 and beyond.”

The Xfinity Series looks much the same as the Cup Series schedule for most of the year besides a stop at the Portland road course once again, except for a small Playoff shakeup: Bristol will be the final round of the regular season and Kansas will open the Playoffs, a swap from this year. In addition, the series will compete at Talladega in the Playoffs as well alongside the Cup Series, unlike this year, which replaces the series’ visit to the Road America road course.

For the Truck Series, Richmond will be the regular season finale, while the Milwaukee Mile is back on the schedule to open the Playoffs. The Truck Series also drops a road course, too, heading to Martinsville for a second time instead of Mid-Ohio.

2024 NASCAR Cup Schedule

* Non-points event
All races on SiriusXM NASCAR.
All times Eastern.

2024 NASCAR Xfinity  Schedule

All races on SiriusXM NASCAR.
All times Eastern.

2024 NASCAR Truck Series  Schedule

All races on SiriusXM NASCAR.
All times Eastern.

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Owen Johnson

Owen Johnson is a lifelong car enthusiast and passionate fan of NASCAR. He’s written about the sport for years, starting at DriveTribe, where he managed NASCAR content. He's now Associate Editor at CupScene and Caraganza.

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