CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR made the first significant changes to its schedule in years by shuffling the 2020 season into a freshened new sequence that tries to meet the wants of fans to the best of NASCAR’s current ability.
“The fans and the industry have been vocal about the desire for sweeping changes to the schedule, and the 2020 slate is a reflection of our efforts to execute against that feedback,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer.
The 2020 schedule was released Tuesday at ISM Raceway outside Phoenix, which got the season finale following a $175 million renovation to ISM Raceway.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway got July 5th to give the track back-to-back summer holiday weekends; the event will follow the Indianapolis 500, a mere 42 days after that Memorial Day staple. IMS President Doug Boles said the Brickyard was the correct “venue to throw a massive party for our nation’s birthday.”
The July 4th holiday had belonged to Daytona International Speedway, but it gave up the traditional and often rain-wrecked event to claim the final race of the regular season, Aug. 29, when the championship field is finalized.
Daytona track President Chip Wile said the July race now created a chance at a “potential walk-off home run moment for a driver to solidify a playoff berth.”
Pocono Raceway will run both its 400-mile races on back-to-back June afternoons, Martinsville Speedway got a Mother’s Day race under the lights and also a slot in the playoffs.
Even better for Martinsville, it got the penultimate race for the championship finale.
Bristol and Richmond short tracks both joined the playoffs, as did Darlington Raceway.
Martinsville in 2017 became the first major motorsports facility in the U.S. with an LED Lighting system and will finally get to use them on the Saturday night before Mother’s Day. Speedway President Clay Campbell noted fans have asked “literally every single day since we installed the lights” when Martinsville would have a Cup race at night.
The season ends one week shorter than usual, but still includes 38 events that run from a Feb. 9 exhibition race at Daytona through the finale on Nov. 8 at renovated ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix. That includes consecutive weekends off so that NBC Sports can focus on the Tokyo Olympics.
International Speedway Corp., the company controlled by the NASCAR-owning France Family, moved the season finale to ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix. Homestead-Miami Speedway has hosted the final race since 2002 and the Cup series champion has been the race winner since the current format was introduced in 2014.
ISC shoved a race there in March, a month few track operators want because of weather concerns that shouldn’t be as big an issue in the Miami area.
Martinsville is perhaps the big winner with not only a race under its new lights system, but a race that will decide the championship field of four.
The playoffs now begin at Darlington on Sept. 6, go to Richmond, Bristol, Las Vegas, Talladega, Charlotte, Kansas, Texas, Martinsville then finally ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix.