When it comes to the number of road courses on the NASCAR Cup schedule, Ryan Blaney and Alex Bowman go in different directions. During media availability on Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, both drivers were asked whether there are too many road course races in NASCAR.
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Including the Chicago Street Race, there are six road course races on the 2025 Cup schedule: Circuit of the Americas, Mexico City, Chicago, Sonoma, Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval.
And rumor has it that NASCAR may add yet another road course to next season’s schedule, or potentially another street race. Blaney has no problem with adding another road race to the schedule.
“We do six (races) now I think; that’s a fine number to me,” Blaney said. “Whether you go four or six or seven, I don’t really have a huge preference.”
Blaney said he enjoys going to road courses because they provide a way to test him and his talent and ability. “I’m not the best at them but I enjoy the challenge of doing something different, whether it’s like a street course or here (Sonoma),” Blaney said.
Blaney has made 39 career starts on road/street courses in his Cup career. His combined performance total is: one win (2018, Charlotte Roval), five top-fives and 16 top-10 finishes.
Six races make up one-sixth of the Cup season’s 36-race points paying schedule, not including the preseason Clash and the mid-season All-Star Race, which are non-points paying exhibitions. And that’s where Blaney would like to keep it.
“Six seems like a good number,” Blaney said. “But if it goes down or up, it’s really not going to change the way I look at it. I’m just going to say okay to whatever’s on the schedule and try my best to do whatever I can there.”
Bowman has a different viewpoint than Blaney
“For me, they’re fun. It’s really all about what the fans want,” Bowman said. “I think we kind of continually chase that and it’s hard to make everybody happy all the time. Ten years ago, they wanted more road courses. Now, we have too many. So, I think five or six is probably a good number but there’s also people way smarter than me making that decision.”
Bowman has 38 career starts on a road or street course, with a combined performance of one win (2024 Chicago Street Race), eight top-fives and 17 top-10s.
“Selfishly, we typically run pretty well at the road courses, so I like them,” Bowman said. “But I think we’re certainly looking at pushing it on the too many side of things.”
“Whatever the schedule is, is where I’m going,” Bowman added. So despite Bowman’s own perspective that there are too many road/street races currently, like Blaney, he’ll just go wherever NASCAR tells him and his fellow Cup drivers.
