NASCAR wraps up busiest month in nearly five decades

The month of August featured a total of seven NASCAR Cup Series races. Prior to August, no month had featured that many races since 1971.

The coronavirus pandemic caused a ton of postponements throughout the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season, and several tracks which were scheduled to host races lost their race dates altogether.

Nevertheless, the Cup Series recently got back on their original schedule and back on pace to complete a 36-race season as planned after running 20 races over the course of 98 days, a span during which there had originally only been 12 races scheduled.

During this grueling stretch, the month of August featured seven races. Seven races in a month had not been contested in 49 years. It last happened in August of 1971.

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New Hampshire Motor Speedway led things off on Sunday, August 2. This weekend was originally scheduled to be an off weekend for the Cup Series as a result of the Summer Olympics, but they were postponed until 2021.

The track was initially scheduled to host a race on Sunday, July 19, but Texas Motor Speedway ended up moving to that date after its race from Sunday, March 29 was postponed. The following weekend, Michigan International Speedway hosted a doubleheader, with one race on Saturday, August 8 and another on Sunday, August 9. The track had initially been scheduled to host a race on the latter.

The race on the former was rescheduled from Sunday, June 7. While the Cup Series was back in action by that point following the 10-week hiatus caused by the pandemic, that race weekend was given to Atlanta Motor Speedway to make up its postponed race from Sunday, March 15, which is when this whole cancellation mayhem began.

Then the Daytona International Speedway road course hosted its first ever Cup Series on Sunday, August 16, the date when Watkins Glen International was slated to host its annual race but could not do so due to coronavirus-related travels restrictions.

Dover International Speedway hosted a doubleheader the following weekend, with one race on Saturday, August 22 and another on Sunday, August 23. The track had initially been scheduled to host a race on the latter, while the race at the former was rescheduled from Sunday, May 3.

Finally, on Saturday, August 29, the 26-race regular season concluded with the initially scheduled race at Daytona International Speedway.

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From now until the end of the season, there is one race on the calendar per weekend, beginning with the Cook Out Southern 500 this Sunday, September 6 to lead off the four-round, 10-race playoffs at Darlington Raceway, which served as the site of the first two Cup Series races following the lengthy hiatus earlier this year. Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 6:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of this event.

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