NASCAR: Time to add more road courses to the schedule

By Jacob LeBlanc | Aug 19, 2020

Matt Kenseth, Chip Ganassi Racing, Daytona, NASCAR (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) /

After a successful NASCAR weekend at a new road course, it’s time for more road courses to be added to the Cup Series schedule. They have been producing amazing races for years, and there is no reason why there shouldn’t be more of them.

This past weekend, NASCAR had its top three series race at the Daytona Road Course for the first time ever, as it was added to the schedule due to the cancellation of the Cup Series and Xfinity Series races at Watkins Glen International and the Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway.

Given the fact that none of these three series had any on-track practice or qualifying before the races, the weekend went well.

We have seen some amazing races at the regular road courses on the Cup Series schedule, including Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen International and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. But only three of the 36 races on the schedule are road course races. There is no reason why there can’t be more added to the schedule.

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The Xfinity Series runs at Road America and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course without the Cup Series, and the Truck Series runs a race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, also without the Cup Series. These three tracks would be great additions to the Cup Series schedule.

On the 2019 schedule, there were a whopping 12 tracks that featured two Cup Series races, all oval tracks. I’m not arguing that NASCAR shouldn’t run at some tracks more than one time per year, but to run multiple races at 12 tracks? NASCAR could easily sacrifice some of those duplicate races for some more road course races.

It seems as though every time we get a road course race, NASCAR Twitter calls for more road course races. While some old school fans would be against adding more road courses to the schedule, there would still be 30 oval races on the 36-race Cup Series schedule if NASCAR were to add Road America, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Adding road courses would create a whole new aspect to the sport throughout the season. We regularly see very similar top performers on the 1.5-mile ovals through the year, but road courses could open up the field quite a bit, especially on new tracks where the Cup Series has never run.

I understand that Chase Elliott seems to be the clear best road racer in the field right now, but over the years, we have seen many different road course winners.

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I do believe and hope that NASCAR will keep the Daytona Road Course for future races, but above all, I hope that this will get the ball rolling to motivate the sport to add even more road courses to the Cup Series schedule.

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