With interest in hosting NASCAR Cup races from countries outside the USA increasing, NASCAR faces the challenge to manage its schedule.
NASCAR is looking to expand its horizon outside the US and earlier this month, it was revealed that this possibility could turn into reality as early as 2024.
NASCAR’s current Cup Series schedules 36 official races in tracks from around the US. While not everyone is convinced that it could happen this early, the question of international tracks is about when and not if anymore.
“I did turn down truck opportunities, Xfinity opportunities” – Ryan Preece risked being jobless to be at SHR
Speaking about the possibility on the Stacking Pennies podcast, NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell outlined some places of interest.
“Certainly Canada, we’ve always had a stock car series up there. We went to Montreal with the former Busch Series. One of the things that I kind of learned going up there was, we didn’t bring Cup. So we haven’t necessarily brought the Cup Series to Canada or the Cup Series to Mexico. So there’s a lot of interest from both those places. Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, they’re all talking to us, Montreal, Toronto.”
While it’s nice to see the conversation fully underway, it would include a lot of decision-making regarding how to balance the already congested schedule of the Cup Series.
“So there’s a lot of interest, the key for us is going to be, ‘How do we balance this?’. You grew up on short tracks, our fans love short tracks. We don’t want to turn it into a 30-race road course schedule. Got to balance where we’re going to take a race, and what kind of race track we’re going to migrate that to,” O’Donnell added.
Not many drivers have come up with their response but it will be interesting to take into account their opinion regarding this matter.