After running Cup Series races on Easter Sunday each year from 2022 to 2024, NASCAR reverted back to tradition in 2025 by giving its top series off for the holiday,
and they did so again in 2026.
Prior to 2022, NASCAR had gone 51 consecutive years without a Cup series race scheduled for Easter Sunday. Only once (1989) from 1971 to 2021 did NASCAR race on Easter, and that only happened because of the fact that a race at Richmond Raceway was rescheduled due to a snowstorm in February 1989.
In 2025, the Cup Series' off weekend for Easter took place two weeks later in April than it did this year. However, NASCAR did not schedule any other off weekends for the Cup Series throughout the rest of the season.
So for the first time since the stretch between Sunday, February 28, 1971 to Monday, September 6, 1971, when NASCAR crammed 36 races into 28 weeks without any weeks off during the 1971 Winston Cup season, there were 28 consecutive Cup Series race weekends to wrap up the 2025 season.
This year, NASCAR is smartly back to not doing that.
NASCAR has a second off weekend scheduled in 2026
Even in 2020, when NASCAR was brought to an unexpected 10-week halt due to COVID-19-related restrictions, the series didn't run on 28 straight weekends. They managed to cram 32 races into a 26-week stretch, via doubleheaders and mid-week races, following the return to action to ensure a full 36-race season.
A post-Easter stretch with no breaks to wrap up the 2026 season would have seen 30 consecutive race weekends, as there are still 29 points races, plus the exhibition All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway, remaining on this year's calendar.
Those 30 race weekends have instead been split up into stretches of 16 and 14 straight race weekends, respectively thanks to NASCAR's second off weekend of the Cup Series season in early August.
The 16-race stretch is set to begin at Bristol Motor Speedway this Sunday, April 12 and conclude at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 26.
Unlike Easter weekend, when the Craftsman Truck Series and O'Reilly Auto Parts Series still raced at Rockingham Speedway, all three national series are set to be off on the first weekend in August.
As a result of the second off weekend, the season is set to end one weekend later than it did a year ago. The 14-race stretch to end the season is scheduled to begin with the race at Iowa Speedway on Sunday, August 9 and conclude with the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, November 8.
Bristol Motor Speedway is scheduled to host the Food City 500 this Sunday, April 12 beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET, with live coverage set to be provided by Fox Sports 1. Start a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action from the "Last Great Colosseum"!