NASCAR is set to end a 51-year drought this weekend

Easter Sunday is today, and for the first time since the 1970 season, the NASCAR Cup Series has a race scheduled to take place on this day.

The last time the NASCAR Cup Series raced on Easter Sunday was the 1989 season. But that only happened because the race at Richmond Raceway was moved back from February to Easter because of snow.

The most recent season to have a Cup Series race actually scheduled for Easter Sunday was the 1970 season, more than five decades ago. Bobby Allison won that race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Excluding Easter Sunday, there hasn’t even been a race on Easter weekend since the 1985 season, when Bristol Motor Speedway hosted a race the day before the holiday. Before then, it hadn’t happened since the 1971 season, when Greenville-Pickens Speedway hosted a race.

But this is all set to change this weekend, and it is a decision that not many are very fond of.

There is only one off weekend on this year’s 36-race Cup Series schedule from the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday, February 20 all the way until the season finale at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, November 6.

And that off weekend is the third weekend in June, Father’s Day weekend — not Easter weekend.

For just the 12th time in Cup Series history, the series is set to run a race on Easter Sunday. The Food City Dirt Race, the second ever dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway, is scheduled to take place this evening (full starting lineup available here). It is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET.

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Today’s race is set to end a run of 51 consecutive seasons during which no races were initially scheduled for Easter Sunday.

There have been just 19 Cup Series races contested on Easter weekend since the sport’s inception, with eight on the Saturday before Easter and 11 on the holiday itself.

Easter weekend Cup Series races used to be far more common. From 1952 to 1971, there were a total of 17, including 14 in a row from 1958 to 1971.