Reviewing NASCAR's 2025 Schedules (2024)

After heavy anticipation, the 2025 calendars for the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series were officially unveiled on Thursday (Aug. 29).

Here are all the changes you need to know about next season’s stops on the calendar.

1. What are the biggest changes to the 2025 Cup schedule?

New Additions and Removals

• Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., will host the Busch Light Clash on Feb. 2. It will replace the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which had played host to the preseason exhibition for three years.
• The Cup Series will host its first-ever race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City on June 15.
• Richmond Raceway will lose one of its two dates to accommodate Mexico City’s addition. Richmond’s one race will be held Aug. 16.

Playoff Changes

• Additions: Darlington Raceway (Aug. 31), World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (Sept. 7) and New Hampshire Motor Speedway (Sept. 21).
• Removals: Homestead-Miami Speedway (March 23), Atlanta Motor Speedway (June 28) and Watkins Glen International (Aug. 10).
• Talladega Superspeedway will move to the Round of 8 and serve as the third-to-last race of the season on Oct. 19.

Saturday Night Races & In-Season Tournament

• Four races will be run on Saturday night, up from two in 2024: Atlanta (June 28), Richmond (Aug. 16), Daytona International Speedway (Aug. 23) and Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 13).
• TNT will carry the five-race in-season tournament, which will start at Atlanta on June 28 and end with the Brickyard 400 on July 27.
• Amazon Prime Video will carry the five races before TNT, starting with the Coca-Cola 600 on May 25 and ending at Pocono Raceway on June 22.

Other Notable Date Shifts

• Iowa Speedway’s date will move from mid-June to Aug. 3.
• Dover Motor Speedway’s date will move from late April to July 20.
• Circuit of the America’s date will move to March 3, serving as the third race of the season.
• There will be no race on Easter Sunday (April 20) for the first time since 2021; that will serve as the lone off week for the Cup schedule.
• Darlington’s first race will move from Mother’s Day to April 6. The first Kansas Speedway race will be run on Mother’s Day, May 11.

NASCAR has been wanting to go international for quite some time, so Mexico City was the next logical choice after talks with Circuit Gilles Villenueve in Montreal fell apart. It will mark the Cup Series’ first-ever trip to Mexico and the first Cup race for points on foreign soil in 67 years. The race will serve as a huge opportunity for NASCAR to expand its international influence and with home country hero Daniel Suarez in the field, the place will almost certainly be packed.

An Easter Sunday race was absolutely worth a try, but it’s not surprising to see it scrapped after mixed results. The Cup Series reclaims a traditional off week that will serve as its only off week. Not a fan. With the grueling Cup schedule, there should be at least two off-weekends interspersed throughout the year. It’s also not a surprise to see Richmond drop to one race, given its attendance woes in recent years. The track should benefit attendance-wise from shifting to one date like many before it, and a Saturday night race will help keep the fans cool in the summer.

With the racing it puts on, it’s a bummer that Homestead will be removed from the playoffs. Adding Gateway and New Hampshire seem like peculiar choices, but they make sense when considering that their traditional summer dates have been plagued by extreme heat and rain, respectively. Inserting Talladega into the Round of 8 will certainly make the championship battle more intense, but it will also turn one of the biggest crunch-time moments of the season into one decided largely by chance.

Next year will mark the fifth consecutive year that the Cup Series will feature a new track on the schedule, so it’s always a good sign to see that NASCAR is looking for ways to expand to new markets and innovate with new ideas like the in-season tournament. It’s a welcome change compared to the complacency and stagnation of the schedule between 2005 and 2020.

2. What are the biggest changes to the 2025 Xfinity Series schedule?

New Additions

• Second Bristol race (April 12)
• Rockingham Speedway (April 19)
• Mexico City (June 14)
• Gateway (Sept. 6)

Removals

• Second Darlington race
• Michigan
• New Hampshire
• Richmond

Notable Date Shifts

• Homestead will move from October to March 22.
• Portland International Raceway will shift from June to Aug. 30.

With how good the Xfinity car races on short tracks, a second Bristol race is a welcome addition. That’s also why it’s such a shock to see Richmond get axed and for North Wilkesboro Speedway to remain off the schedule since its return. It’s also surprising to see Michigan and New Hampshire removed, but those races will be added to the Truck schedule instead.

Rockingham will be a welcome addition for the both the Xfinity and Truck series. It’s right in the teams’ backyards, and it’s great to see the establishment of more standalone weekends to give both series their own identities.

The biggest concern I see for the Xfinity schedule is how expensive the schedule could be for the teams — especially smaller ones. There are two races each at the crash-prone superspeedways, Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, and there are six road courses on the schedule (which frequently devolve into chaos) with the addition of Mexico City.

It will also be a grueling schedule in terms of distance, as the Xfinity Series will be the only series of the three to visit the three most distant tracks from Charlotte: Sonoma Raceway, Mexico City and Portland.

Nevertheless, the Xfinity Series and its fans have a diverse, fun and exciting season to look forward to.

3. What are the biggest changes to the 2025 Truck Series schedule?

New Additions

• The Truck schedule will expand from 23 races to 25.
• Rockingham (April 18)
• Michigan (June 7)
• Lime Rock Park (June 28)
• Watkins Glen (Aug. 8)
• New Hampshire (Sept. 20)
• Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL (Oct. 3)

Removals

• Milwaukee
• COTA
• Gateway
• Second Kansas race

Notable Date Shifts

• Darlington will now serve as the playoff opener on Aug. 30.
• Homestead will move from October to March 21.

The Truck schedule hit a home run. With the Xfinity and Cup schedules at 33 and 36 races, respectively, there is absolutely zero reason for the Truck Series to have a lowly 23. The expansion to 25 races still feels a little small, but it’s a welcome addition in the right direction.

Lime Rock Park, a 1.53-mile road course in Northwestern Connecticut, is another exciting standalone race added to the schedule like Rockingham. It’s also notable that the Truck Series will jump from one road course to three. COTA is off the schedule, but Lime Rock, Watkins Glen and the ROVAL have all been added.

But perhaps the most underrated change of all is that the playoff schedule no longer feels disjointed. The Truck playoffs will begin at Darlington next year along the Cup playoffs, which is a much-needed change after the random starts to the playoffs in mid-August in years past.

The final three weeks (Talladega, Martinsville and Phoenix) will also be back-to-back-to-back, ditching the off weeks in between the Round of 8 and the Championship 4. That will keep the energy up and the attention on the series during the homestretch. One agonizingly long break will be between Lime Rock (June 28) and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (July 25), with nearly a full month without any action. It’s not ideal, but it’s much better to have that break in the summer before the playoffs begin.

The one downside to the schedule is the removal of the Milwaukee Mile. Between losing the Cup and Xfinity dates at Road America and now this, it has been a rough, rough go for Wisconsin fans in recent years.

That state deserves a race.

4. Who can play playoff spoiler in the Southern 500?

Unlike years past where the regular-season finale was held at Daytona, Darlington’s Southern 500 on Sunday (Sept. 1) will play host the final Cup race before the playoffs begin.

While Darlington likely won’t have the same intensity and drama that we saw with Harrison Burton’s upset win last weekend at Daytona, there are several drivers below the cut that have run well historically at Darlington and just might punch their ticket while scoring a win in one of NASCAR’s marquee races.

Bubba Wallace (-21) and Ross Chastain (-27) can theoretically point their way into the playoffs this season, but it will require a catastrophic race from Chris Buescher to do so. That said, both will have sizable winning chances.

The No. 23 team is running significantly better than it did at the start of the year, and Wallace’s 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick finished runner-up in last year’s Southern 500 and led the most laps at Darlington in May. Wallace has a best finish of fifth at the track, so while it is a long shot, all of the pieces are there.

For Chastain, it’s a matter of how fast his No. 1 will be. It’s been a rough season for Trackhouse across the board in terms of speed and Chastain has seldom been in contention for wins, unlike years past. He has the results at Darlington, as he finished third in the Southern 500 in 2021 and has led 131 laps at the track.

Kyle Busch won the Southern 500 in 2008 and has been running much better since the Olympic break, but he must win to qualify for the playoffs. He led the most laps in 2022 Southern 500 before blowing an engine with 20 to go, but he hasn’t shown any recent signs of replicating such a performance this weekend. You can’t count him out, but Busch’s streak of 11 consecutive playoff appearances is in serious jeopardy.

Erik Jones is another Darlington favorite that comes to mind, as he won the Southern 500 in 2019 and 2022. But the No. 43 team is way off this season, as Jones’ lone top 10 was recorded all the way back in February at the Daytona 500. Barring a miracle, a third Southern 500 win won’t be in the cards.

What also doesn’t bode well for the drivers looking to win their way in is that, aside from the usual suspects like Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson, all three drivers that are above the cut line and looking to point their way in (Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs and Buescher) also excel at Darlington. Truex is a two-time winner at the track, while Gibbs recorded a career-best runner-up finish at Darlington in May. Buescher finished third in last year’s Southern 500, and he was tantalizingly close to winning at the track earlier this year until contact with Reddick cut down his tire in the final sprint to the finish.