Nascar has unveiled its 2024 schedule, but an international race is yet to come to fruition for the US-based stock car racing series.
Confirmed:
- Atlanta and Watkins Glen become postseason events
- As previously announced, Iowa Speedway will debut in 2024
- Two-week break confirmed during Paris Olympics
- Season begins on 4th February and concludes on 10th November
Context:
Nascar has been drip-feeding information from next season’s schedule up to this point, with a return to oval racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Bristol Dirt switching back to a concrete surface both among the events already confirmed. Like IndyCar, Nascar will have a mid-season break for the Paris Olympics, which will see the series end one week later usual. The calendar has no room for an international event – something that Nascar executives have been working towards for some time – but the series states ‘efforts are ongoing for future expansion outside the United States’.
Comment:
Ben Kennedy, senior vice president of racing development and strategy at Nascar, said: “We haven’t ruled [international expansion] out. It’s something that we’ve continued to explore. We’ve been exploring this since we put the scheduling group together several years ago. We’ve explored it for ’22, ’23, ’24. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything that necessarily came together around ’24. I think that said, as we think about ’25 and beyond, we’re still bullish on taking the Cup Series international.”
Coming next:
The stock car racing series has been prioritising international development recently, propelled by the success of its Garage 56 project that competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Michael Lock, who worked on the project, told BlackBook Motorsport in April that this could take the form of a Cup Series race in Europe. With the recent news that Formula E now has a larger global fanbase than Nascar, expanding beyond North America now appears to be a necessity for Nascar, otherwise it will fail to take advantage of the swell of attention from Garage 56.