NASCAR is set to end a 32-year drought in 2022
By Asher Fair
When NASCAR unveiled the Cup Series schedule for the 2022 season, it was announced that the series would be ending a 32-year drought.
NASCAR revealed the 36-race schedule for the 2022 Cup Series season in mid-September 2021.
Not including the Busch Light Clash exhibition race at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, February 6, the 2022 season got underway on Sunday, February 20 with the 64th annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
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This year’s schedule features only one off weekend from the Daytona 500 until the season finale at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, November 6.
That off weekend is Father’s Day weekend in June between the race at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday, June 12 and the race at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, June 26.
Naturally, June 19 isn’t Easter Sunday.
For the first time since the 1989 season, the Cup Series is set to be in action on Easter Sunday. Easter 2022 is scheduled for Sunday, April 17, and the Cup Series is set for the second ever dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway that evening. This race, the Food City Dirt Race, is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET.
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In 1989, the race a Richmond Raceway was moved back from February to Easter Sunday as a result of snow. Before that, the Cup Series had not raced on Easter Sunday since 1970, when Bobby Allison won at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the 10th ever Cup Series race on this particular holiday.
Even if you include Easter weekend as a whole (Saturday and Sunday as opposed to just Easter Sunday), the Cup Series hasn’t been in action on this weekend since 1989.
NASCAR last ran a Cup Series race on the Saturday before Easter in the 1985 season. This race, the eighth ever on the day before Easter, was contested at Bristol Motor Speedway. Prior to the 1985 season, the Cup Series hadn’t run on Easter weekend since Greenville-Pickens Speedway hosted a race the day before the holiday in the 1971 season.
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This year’s Easter race is the ninth race on the 36-race schedule.