The regular season finale moves from Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Daytona International Speedway on August 29th, 2020. Indianapolis takes the place of Daytona on the traditional July 4th weekend.
After being the season finale since 2002, the finale will move from Homestead-Miami Speedway to ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona. The champion will be crowned on November 8th, 2020 a week earlier than recent seasons. Homestead-Miami will move to March 22nd between Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.
The playoffs are getting a make-over also. Las Vegas Motor Speedway moves from the playoff opener to the round two opener. Darlington Raceway takes the playoff opener as the opener moves back a week to Labor Day weekend. Richmond Raceway remains the median race while another short track race pushes the Charlotte Roval to round two. The Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol moves from August to the cut-off race.
With Talladega Superspeedway and Charlotte Roval, Las Vegas will be extra important for those drivers who want immunity into the third round of the playoffs. The Roval will now be the elimination race that moves it down from 12 drivers to eight. To narrow it down from eight to four, drivers will have to run past Kansas, Texas, and Martinsville as Martinsville will set the final four.
Within the regular season, instead of going from Daytona to Atlanta, NASCAR will kick off the West Coast Swin immediately in Las Vegas on February 23rd. Instead of ending the swing in Auto Club, it will end in Phoenix, Arizona at ISM Raceway while Atlanta moves to March 15th.
Martinsville finally gets a night race. On Mother's Day Weekend, the Cup Series will race under the lights on Saturday, May 9th. Another key change to the schedule is Pocono Raceway changing it up with back-to-back Cup races on Saturday, June 27th and Sunday, June 28th.
One big notable piece of the puzzle of the schedule is two off-weekends on July 26th and August 2nd. These two dates are the same as the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. The last time NASCAR and Summer Olympics were at the same time, conflict faced much of the time including Olympics coverage overlapping NASCAR coverage. It's just speculation on why those two dates were set as off-weekends. (Koelle,2019)
Photo: Daniel Shirey/Getty Images/NASCAR Media
2020 NASCAR Cup Series Schedule
- Sunday, Feb. 9 - The Clash
- Thursday, Feb. 13 - Duel at Daytona
- Sunday, Feb. 16 - Daytona 500
- Sunday, Feb. 23 - Las Vegas Motor Speedway
- Sunday, March 1 - Auto Club Speedway
- Sunday, March 8 - ISM Raceway
- Sunday, March 15 - Atlanta Motor Speedway
- Sunday, March 22 - Homestead-Miami Speedway
- Sunday, March 29 - Texas Motor Speedway
- Sunday, April 5 - Bristol Motor Speedway
- Sunday, April 12th - OFF
- Sunday, April 19 - Richmond Raceway
- Sunday, April 26 - Talladega Superspeedway
- Sunday, May 3 - Dover International Speedway
- Saturday, May 9 - Martinsville Speedway
- Saturday, May 16 - All-Star Race, Charlotte
- Sunday, May 24 - Charlotte Motor Speedway
- Sunday, May 31 - Kansas Speedway
- Sunday, June 7 - Michigan International Speedway
- Sunday, June 14 - Sonoma Raceway
- Sunday, June 21 - Chicagoland Speedway
- Saturday, June 27 - Pocono Raceway
- Sunday, June 28 - Pocono Raceway
- Sunday, July 5 - Indianapolis Motor Speedway
- Saturday, July 11 - Kentucky Speedway
- Sunday, July 19 - New Hampshire Motor Speedway
- Sunday, July 26th - OFF
- Sunday, August 2nd - OFF
- Sunday, Aug. 9 - Michigan International Speedway
- Sunday, Aug. 16 - Watkins Glen International
- Sunday, Aug. 23 - Dover International Speedway
- Saturday, Aug. 29 - Daytona International Speedway
2020 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs
- Sunday, Sept. 6 - Darlington Raceway
- Saturday, Sept. 12 - Richmond Raceway
- Saturday, Sept. 19 - Bristol Motor Speedway
- Sunday, Sept. 27 - Las Vegas Motor Speedway
- Sunday, Oct. 4 - Talladega Superspeedway
- Sunday, Oct. 11 - Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval
- Sunday, Oct. 18 - Kansas Speedway
- Sunday, Oct. 25 - Texas Motor Speedway
- Sunday, Nov. 1 - Martinsville Speedway
- Sunday, Nov. 8 - ISM Raceway
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