With just one race left in the 2024 NASCAR Cup season, everyone from fans to drivers is buzzing with anticipation for what’s next. The upcoming season will brim with changes, including the start of new media rights leading to a boost in race purses, and the addition of international venues like Mexico City to the race calendar.
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Meanwhile, two-time Cup Series champion, Joey Logano, ever ready for new challenges, expressed his enthusiasm for the fresh circuit added to the schedule.
In a recent discussion with Front Office Sports, Logano remarked on the timing of the Mexico City race’s introduction, considering it optimal. He pointed out that this race is strategically placed at a point in the season when the pressure to secure playoff points or wins hasn’t peaked, nor does it coincide with the high-stakes playoff races.
He said, “I think it’s a great time for it because at the beginning of the year you have that excitement.”
The Team Penske driver further elaborated, “And then through the summer months there’s cars that are trying to either get their way into the playoffs. But there’s still time to get in. So, it’s not like do or die yet for a lot of teams. So it just ends up kind of being like teams are racking up points… I think it adds something to those summer races for sure.”
In June 2024, NASCAR revealed the addition to its 2025 schedule — the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City will host the first international points event in the division’s modern era. The race is set to broadcast live on Prime Video and will mark a significant expansion of NASCAR’s global footprint.
NASCAR’s brief history with international tracks
The Cup Series has not ventured outside the United States for a points race in over 26 years and has not participated in a points-paying championship event abroad since 1958.
The first NASCAR Cup race on foreign soil took place on July 1, 1952, at a half-mile dirt track in Ontario, which had been operational since 1923 but shut down shortly after NASCAR’s visit, in 1953.
That same year, NASCAR made a run at Canada, racing within the walls of the now-demolished Canadian National Exhibition Stadium on a 0.333-mile asphalt oval akin to Bowman Gray Stadium. It wasn’t until 30 years later that NASCAR ventured abroad again, this time for a non-points race at Calder Park Raceway in Australia.
The series last went international for an exhibition in 1998 with a race in Japan, marking the third consecutive year NASCAR had chosen Japan for its overseas exhibition, following events in 1996 and 1997.
In more recent times, NASCAR has expanded its reach, with the NASCAR Xfinity Series racing in Mexico City and Montreal, and the Truck Series competing at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
