NASCAR adds 2 new venues to 2025 Cup schedule, tweaks 10-race playoff

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR released its full 2025 Cup Series schedule on Thursday, two days after it announced it will take its top level of competition for an international points-paying race for the first time in modern history.

NASCAR said Tuesday it would race next June in Mexico City, and that road course race will replace one of the two annual short track events at Richmond International Raceway.

NASCAR had also previously announced that it would end its three-year run of the exhibition Clash at the Coliseum after three tries on a temporary course built inside Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. That exhibition opener to the season will now be held at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Mexico City and Bowman Gray are the only two new venues on the 2025 Cup schedule.

The rest of the changes are minor tweaks, particularly for the playoff races.

Atlanta Motor Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Watkins Glen all lost playoff spots and will instead be held during the 26-race regular season.

Darlington Raceway will be the playoff opener now, while Gateway outside of St. Louis and New Hampshire were both moved into the 10-race playoff schedule. The playoffs for years opened at New Hampshire before the event was moved to Chicagoland and eventually Darlington or other tracks.

Talladega Superspeedway was moved to the semifinal round of the playoffs.

But, in what won’t be popular among drivers, teams and their families, is that for the first time in 50 years the Cup Series will race 28 consecutive weekends. The previous record in the modern era (since 1972) was 23 consecutive weekends, set this season when the series raced from the Feb. 18 Daytona 500 to the July 21 race at Indianapolis without a break.

The Cup Series will take off Easter Weekend next year — it had raced on that date since 2022 — and it is the only off weekend of the year. From there, the Cup Series will race every weekend through the Nov. 2 season finale at Phoenix.

“I think as we’ve gone through some of the past few years, some of the feedback we’ve received — and received in particular on the Cup side — is trying to find a way to get that Easter weekend back off for them,” said Ben Kennedy, the great-grandson of NASCAR’s founder and a current executive vice president.

“So, we’re able to achieve that. I think as you look at the domino effect of the entire schedule, you can add more of those off weeks. That also has a trickle down effect of where Daytona lives and where Darlington lives, opening up the playoffs on Labor Day weekend, which has always been a traditional weekend for them and then all the way down to Phoenix for our championship venue.”

The season will open Feb. 16 with the Daytona 500 and end Nov. 2 at Phoenix for the earliest conclusion of the Cup calendar since 1973. That year, the season concluded Oct. 21.

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