For 51 consecutive seasons from 1971 to 2021, the NASCAR Cup Series did not have a race scheduled to take place on Easter Sunday. The only race that was actually contested on the holiday during that stretch took place at Richmond Raceway in 1989, and that was because the originally scheduled Richmond race needed to be moved to a new date due to a February snowstorm.
However, NASCAR surprisingly bucked tradition in 2022 by running the dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway, which was added to the schedule in 2021, on Easter Sunday evening. The race returned on Easter Sunday in 2023, and although the dirt race was removed altogether for 2024, NASCAR still raced on Easter Sunday at Richmond.
NASCAR did deserve some credit for running these races at night, rather than during its usual Sunday afternoon timeslot, when many families are generally together celebrating the holiday, but as we all know, any decision NASCAR makes that isn't in alignment with the views of the broader fanbase is going to be criticized.
And in this case, the criticism was probably justified.
Nobody was asking for a race on Easter Sunday, and this was a case of NASCAR simply not knowing their audience well enough to know that it would not sit well over the long run, or even over the short run. When it comes to the NASCAR fanbase, this was a complete apples to oranges comparison to something like the NFL playing on Thanksgiving.
After the 2024 Richmond event, NASCAR finally read the room and ditched the idea of racing on Easter Sunday, and even though the 2025 off weekend for Easter produced the first stretch of 28 consecutive races, a grueling stretch that had not been seen at any point in a season since 1971, to conclude the season, NASCAR left Easter Sunday without a Cup Series race again in 2026.
This year, the series is set to have a second off weekend in early August as well, so there are only slated to be 16 consecutive race weekends from next weekend through late July, and then 14 more from August through the end of the season in November.
It's a perfect balance, following a stretch of seven straight race weekends in a row to open up the regular season, although it goes without saying that there will need to be some sort of modifications each year moving forward, because of the fact that the date for Easter Sunday generally varies widely from one year to the next. Next year, for example, Easter is scheduled to be on Sunday, March 28.
There's an added benefit totally unrelated to the holiday in play here as well.
NASCAR still raced on Easter weekend in both 2025 and 2026, but only with the Craftsman Truck Series and O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Rockingham Speedway returned to the Truck schedule for the first time since 2013 a year ago, and it returned to the O'Reilly (formerly Xfinity) schedule for the first time since 2004.
It's the lone race weekend of the season to spotlight the two lower national series while the Cup Series isn't in action at all, which is an added bonus for the stars of those two levels, all while allowing the holiday itself to remain clear of any events.
NASCAR Cup Series action is scheduled to resume on Sunday, April 12 with the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, notably on the concrete surface. Fox Sports 1 is set to provide live coverage from the "Last Great Colosseum" starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!
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