I am not going to lie but I had nothing for this month. It is partly because we didn't really have a full month of motorsports in August. We had two weeks of real competition. Most series were off due to the Olympics or Formula One had its summer break. Nothing really happened. I could have done the "it's great to have racing back" spiel but it is lazy. Thankfully, NASCAR saved the month, and the best thing about August 2024 is what is to come in 2025.
2025 NASCAR Schedule
NASCAR released the 2025 schedule for its three national touring division, and it is amazing what changing two or three race weekends will do. For all three series, it is mostly the same. Same tracks. Same race distances. Most are in the same time of the year. A few took big leaps around the calendar, but it is nothing crazy. It is the little things though that make all the difference.
Let's start in the Cup Series, where the biggest domino fell. Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City will host the Cup Series for the first time on June 15, 2025. This will be the first international race for the Cup Series since 1958, and the first time a NASCAR national series is competing in Mexico City since the then-NASCAR Busch/Nationwide Series raced at the circuit from 2005 to 2008.
This is about 20 years overdue. NASCAR should have taken the Cup Series to Mexico City immediately after that first Busch Series race in 2005. That 2005 race was an incredible weekend, and honestly, it is probably the closest feeling a NASCAR weekend has come to the inaugural Brickyard 400 in the last 30 years. It brought out top Mexican drivers as well as some of the best road course ringers around. You had extra Cup drivers competing in it, and a local stole the show in qualifying.
Jorge Goeters, on his series debut, won pole position and stunned everyone. Goeters took pole position away from a field that included Robby Gordon, Martin Truex, Jr., Boris Said, Ron Fellows, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard, Carl Edwards and Elliott Sadler. That is literally eight of the other nine top ten starters. That is not including Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Ron Hornaday, Rusty Wallace, Denny Hamlin and Adrián Fernández, who were also in this field.
It will be a remarkable crowd, and it remained an event of note throughout its first spell. The Cup race is coming about 20 years later than it should have.
Other than Mexico City, it is mostly moving pieces around on the Cup side. Austin is moving up a few weeks. Homestead is moving to March. Watkins Glen is back to August. Gateway, Loudon and Darlington are now playoff races. Michigan is moving to June. It is nothing crazy.
We should acknowledge the In-Season Tournament NASCAR will introduce for next year. It should be noted that the 32-driver bracket will be set based on the results over the Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono races.
The five-race tournament will begin at Atlanta on June 28 before moving to Chicago, Sonoma, Dover and concluding with the Brickyard 400 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27.
This is exactly how NASCAR would draw up a tournament. The first three rounds are all crapshoots. With Atlanta turned into a flat-out, pack race, the door is wide open for upsets. That continues onward to Chicago and Sonoma. They have made a tournament that is centered around chaos. Any lap could bust a bracket. A driver could be having a great day and then he is caught in an accident or is pushed into a tire barrier. That is what NASCAR wants.
The final two races are rather normal in Dover and Indianapolis, and that is the scary thing because with this bracket format, there will only be two matchups during the Dover race and one during the Brickyard 400, and this is where chaos could lead to the downfall of the tournament.
If you have semifinal matchups that are Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. vs. Christopher Bell and Michael McDowell vs. Kyle Larson at Dover, it could be a pretty boring storyline to follow. It will be great over the first two rounds because there will be 16 matchups and eight matchups, and plenty to watch for, but if you have two matchups and Bell is running third while Stenhouse is 27th, and Larson is leading while McDowell is 25th, it will be pretty bland. It could set up a good final, but when it is one matchup, all the eggs are in that basket. It could be Bell vs. Larson, but if Bell loses an engine on lap 56 of 160 laps, it is over right then and there.
In that case, the fall back is the Brickyard 400 and the race itself can makeup for the tournament.
Credit to NASCAR because it put up five races that should keep it interesting and even if the tournament is a little flat, the races should hold up on their own.
And that is just the Cup Series!
NASCAR's second division has its own new events. Along with returning to Mexico City, it will visit Rockingham Speedway on April 19, Easter Saturday. The Truck Series will also compete at Rockingham that weekend. Rockingham has been a possible venue since it received $9 million dollars from the state of North Carolina from the American Rescue Plan. This is the same way North Wilkesboro Speedway received $18 million, which allowed it to return to the NASCAR schedule with the All-Star Race.
And the Truck Series does one better! Not only is the Truck Series going to Rockingham, but it will visit Lime Rock Park for the first time ever on June 28. That also isn't mentioning that Watkins Glen will be back on the schedule and the Charlotte Roval will host the Truck Series for the first time ever.
To put it honestly, NASCAR is trying shit. There is a detriment to trying shit, see Road America, but NASCAR has branched out more in the last four years than it had in the decade that preceded it. In the moment, it feels great. In eight years, we could be wondering why we have a bunch of two or three-year stints at venues and question NASCAR's lack of long-term commitment, but NASCAR is going to different places. Five years ago, could anyone have imagined North Wilkesboro, Rockingham, Lime Rock Park, Portland and Mexico City all hosting NASCAR national touring series? I am not sure anyone could have imagined one of those tracks hosting a race let alone all five and that will be the case in 2025!
And who knows what is next?
Montreal? Maybe.
San Diego street course? That's new.
Why couldn't Stafford Motor Speedway or Road Atlanta host a race?
Pikes Peak International Raceway is still standing and there is no race in Colorado.
Things have kind of gone quiet on the Nashville Fairgrounds, but it could be on a schedule soon.
We aren't sure what is going on with the Fontana redevelopment, but that could lead to something.
There has been some teasing of a race in Brazil.
In NASCAR of the 2020s, it all sounds plausible.
September Preview
This is actually a fun weekend in its own right because September 1 will have MotoGP from Aragón, Formula One from Monza, the FIA World Endurance Championship from Austin, IndyCar from Milwaukee and the Southern 500 from Darlington.
That is a great way to start September and that isn't even taking into consideration that over the rest of this month there NASCAR playoffs will start, IndyCar will run a season finale, IMSA has its first endurance race from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and there are two Formula One races before Formula One goes on a quiet autumn break.
Other events of note in September:
MotoGP will spend two weekends at Misano and a race in Indonesia.
Mugello hosts the European Le Mans Series for the first time.
The World Rally Championship will contest the Acropolis Rally and Rally Chile.
World Superbike visits Magny-Cours, Cremona and Aragón.
