Despite early reservations surrounding the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule, the official announcement from stock car racing’s governing body has garnered a positive response from fans of the sport.
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The most notable changes to the same come in the form of Bowman Gray Stadium hosting the exhibition-style Busch Light Clash next year replacing the LA Memorial Coliseum. NASCAR will also visit the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico marking stock car racing’s first points-paying international race in modern history next year.
The regular season will see usual suspects such as the Daytona International Speedway kicking the regular season off along with the 2.5-mile-long tri-oval’s return as the final race before the playoffs start.
2025 Cup Series schedule:
-two new venues previously announced in Winston-Salem and Mexico City
-they replace LA Coliseum and one Richmond race
-Atlanta, Homestead, Watkins Glen out of playoffs
-Darlington, Gateway, New Hampshire in playoffs
-Talladega now in semifinal round pic.twitter.com/cknujF8TKc— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) August 29, 2024
However, the postseason schedule and venues have been shaken by quite a significant margin with one of the biggest talking points being the addition of Talladega Superspeedway in the Round of 8. The fraternity reacted to the track’s appearance during the last round of the postseason as something that leaves the title fight open to luck rather than skill, owing to the nature of superspeedway racing as a whole.
Other significant changes include the addition of the World Wide Technology Speedway during the postseason as well, while the venue for the championship finale remains the same at Phoenix Raceway.
Apart from the controversial Round of 8 schedule during the postseason, fans were left pleasantly surprised with four Saturday night races making an appearance during the upcoming season, up from a total of two this year.
“Needed more Saturday night races”
Fans on social media made their feelings known as NASCAR unveiled its official schedule for the coming year this week. The roster so far has received mixed reviews from the fraternity with some favorable as well as some questionable decisions being made by the governing body as per industry analysts.
However, one aspect that seems to have hit the right note with the fans is double the amount of racing on Saturday in 2025. The upcoming roster includes four events slated to go live on Saturday night, which has provoked a positive response from the community. “I think that the Saturday night races are awesome. I’m glad there will be four in the cup series in 2025,” wrote one fan. “W needed more Saturday night races,” added another.
Elaborating on how racing on Saturday also helps with the fan’s weekly schedule for the coming week, another fan reacted, “More Saturday night races, mean less hungover Monday’s for me. Great news,” while another seemed wholeheartedly onboard with the idea as well, “F Sunday night races! Bring back saturdays.”
The 2025 season kicks off with the Busch Light Clash going live on Sunday, February 2 followed by the official start of the points-paying regular season on Sunday, February 16 with the famed Daytona 500.
