After a thrilling wet weather showdown in Loudon, New Hampshire, NASCAR is now set to bring the heat down on Nashville. The Music City hosts all three national series throughout this weekend for the fourth time since its reopening in 2021. As the team haulers begin lining up and setting up shop in the garages, let’s take a look at the monetary prizes that are at stake.
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The purse size for the Cup Series race, Ally 400, will be $8,915,372, as reported by Bob Pockrass. This figure includes all the payouts including those for finishing positions, contingency awards, historical performance, and so on.
In 2023, the purse for this race was nearly $400,000 shorter at $8,516,134. In 2022, it was even lighter at $8,065,125. The steady increase is attributable to the TV revenue rights.
A step below in the Xfinity Series, the change hasn’t been as drastic. This year, the prize will be $1,420,381. In 2023, it was $1,616,383 and in 2022, it was $1,319,713. Over in the Craftsman Truck Series, the field will share $897,631 amongst itself. Last year, it had a larger pie worth $940,852. From a financial standpoint, only the premier tier has more to fight for than it did last year.
Purses for Nashville Superspeedway weekend, incl all payouts for all positions, contingency awards, year-end pts fund and for Cup, charter payouts for competing each week and historical performance:
Cup: $8,915,372
Xfinity: $1,420,381
Truck: $897,631
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 26, 2024
According to numbers from DraftKings Sportsbook, Hendrick Motorsports star Kyle Larson is the top favorite to win the Cup Series race with odds of 17-4. Denny Hamlin follows him closely with odds of 11-2. His teammate Christopher Bell, who won at New Hampshire last week, rounds off the top three favorites with odds of 6-1. All these three drivers each have three victories this season so far.
The reason behind the Nashville Superspeedway’s decade-long absence from NASCAR
Since opening in 2001, the Nashville Superspeedway made consistent attempts at hosting the NASCAR Cup Series with the Xfinity Series and the Truck Series already in the bag. However, the premier tier refused to play ball for nearly a decade. This led to the track announcing in 2011 that it would shut its operations down in 2012 due to poor attendance.
The Vice President of the track said at the time, “The reality is after 10 years of effort we have to face the fact that without a Sprint Cup race and/or a significant change in the operating model for other events, we simply cannot continue.” Eight years later, in 2021, NASCAR came back knocking at its doors and made a deal to host all three national series races.
