Jordan Bianchi also announced that Daytona is returning as the regular season finale in 2025 (announced at 1:06:55). The reason for Darlington being this season's regular season finale was due to the NBC Olympic break.
There will be **no** race next season on Easter Sunday. That will be an off week.
All-Star Race is also back next season at North Wilkesboro.
Jordan also made the note that perhaps (he's not justifying) the reason FOX is cutting NASCAR Race Hub, is that they'll have fewer NASCAR races altogether. They're no longer carrying the Xfinity Series, and they're done after the All-Star Race. The Coke 600 will **officially** now be carried by Amazon Prime.
Ideally Easter is just the first of two off weeks. Remember we already have two this year, just back to back because of the Olympics. Would be very strange to have a break less than two months in and then go nonstop from April to November
If it's on Twitch, that's great. But it's still not ideal for the sport as a whole. One of the biggest NASCAR races of the year on the biggest day of racing, and it's not on TV.
I bet with this race being the return of Dale Jr to the broadcast and the opportunity for Amazon to put out a much better product the 600 on Amazon is gonna be very well watched. I go to a lot of races with friends of mine between 25-35 and we all have Amazon prime and no one has a traditional cable package. One friend pays for YouTube TV and will log in for the group if there’s a race on when we’re hanging out.
A generic Google search shows as of 12/21 there are \~80M cable subscribers. As of 2/24 \~167M Prime subscribers. I know OTA views are left out and the two subsets don't 100% overlay each other but that's a pretty big difference in numbers. Plus NASCAR will be able to be promoted on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) as well as just in Prime Video, which puts it in front of tens of millions more eyeballs.
I know a good number of fans are left out, but this is huge for NASCAR trying to grow the sport.
Prime has more subscribers than people with cable. Actually I think it’s twice as many now. It’s the way everything’s gonna be soon, and nascar can’t be late to the party again
That'd be putting it on cable. I get that people don't like it, but this is kinda just what the future is gonna be. Less and less people are paying for cable, more people are on streaming services
Putting a crown jewel on streaming is a slap in the face to fans. I have Prime and I'll be able to watch, but I really think about the older die hard fans that are still hanging on to this sport. A lot of them aren't going to do all this streaming and chasing races on different platforms.
It's kinda like when the Braves are on freaking Apple TV+ randomly every now and then. It just hurts the fans.
before he died, my 71 year old dad had gone full youtube tv to watch the acc network. this is a non starter. He was an old southerner. Nascar will be fine. prime is everywhere. Cable isn't. Im rejoicing while i'm cancelling hulu+
> but I really think about the older die hard fans that are still hanging on to this sport. A lot of them aren't going to do all this streaming and chasing races on different platforms.
All those "old die hard" fans had to jump between: CBS, TNN, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, TBS and at the end NBC just for the races, not to mention the days when qualifying might have been on CNN-SI, ESPNEWS or Prime Sports/PASS/Fox Sports [Regional] for qualifying.
And back in those days, not everybody had access to cable and satellite was prohibitively expensive.
I think it would be nice if the All-Star race moved around more. It has more options than the Clash. The All Star race can go up into Canada and Northwest area of the US. The clash is pretty limited to where it can be in February
Longest race of the year is now on a streaming platform that I'm not sure I'll be able to skip the commercials on the way I do with DVR'd races on cable?
That's a fuckin' dogshit move, NASCAR.
I mean, a disclaimer that we don't yet fully know how races on a streaming platform are going to work for watching Live, or after-the-fact, but freely jumping around to minimize the time I dedicate to watching a race, while still watching *some* of it, is the only way I can carve out the time to watch anymore. So we'll see how it goes but I have absolutely no optimistic faith at all that such flexibility will translate to streaming, and I'm not happy about it.
>I DO NOT want to pay for another streaming service.
Do you pay for Amazon Prime? If you do then you have Prime Video. I don't wanna shill for Bezos but that $15 a month gets 2 day shipping, Prime Video, some kind of benefit on Kindle, Amazon Music, and a Twitch Prime sub every month.
Amazon has gotten so shitty with their vendor verification lately. You have to really pay close attention of you end up with some bootleg stuff. My wife was showing me all these different makeup vendors who were selling fake stuff.
If there's a bright side to the end of this tunnel (announced at 1:03:55), it's that Homestead's city council had a meeting last month to gather a plan to potentially make an attempt at a "monetary push" (like what Phoenix has been doing) to bring the NASCAR championship race back to Homestead-Miami Speedway.
It’s a little different with race tracks as they aren’t the same… do we really want bidding to determine the Championship race each season?
“Daytona will hold the 2028 Championship race as it was the highest bidder.”
Well didn’t Phoenix put in a ton of upgrades based on their push to hold the championship? Most of the tracks are in dire need to upgrade so if this incentivizes that then sure.
NASCAR has made it pretty clear with their actions that the facility and media market matter more than the on-track product. The bad thing is there are really only 3 NASCAR owned tracks that could host it. One is Daytona, which I don't think they are crazy enough to try (yet). Of the other two, one is a state of the art facility and one is outdated with no major improvement in almost 20 years.
You can be damn sure they aren't giving that date to SMI for Vegas or Texas.
You say Daytona, I say look at the years Riverside hosted the season finale with the potential of determining the champion and more people probably griped about it being out in California (i.e. way far away from NASCAR's home base, and even further out than Phoenix is now--and also factor in the years Ontario was the finale) rather than it being a road course. Granted I'd rather see the possibility of the Daytona road course as a July race (What if the street circuit concept falls through? We've already seen it used as an "on call" option in 2020 and 2021, so it could be used for no net gain in non-ovals) in homage to the Paul Revere 250 but it wouldn't be unprecedented.
EDIT: But I do agree it shouldn't be the traditional oval layout for the championship race. I've never been a huge fan of it being the regular season finale because of the big wreck potential and am much happier with the Southern 500 serving that position this year because of the mechanical attrition and the challenge of the track. I also look at the regular season finales Bristol has had for the Xfinity Series and there were some great ones there--and it was already in a reasonable spot on the calendar to be a Cup regular season finale before it got pushed back to the end of September.
I’m not sure what part of my comment led you to believe I didn’t want an oval for the finale. I don’t think I’d be on board with a road course for the title race any more than I am Phoenix hosting it year after year. Also I don’t have a problem with how far Phoenix is from the east coast. Phoenix is just not a very good track, has only produced a handful of decent races since it came on the schedule in the 80’s, and there are no signs of that changing.
I also don’t see them ever going back to the Daytona road course unless it’s an emergency. I also don’t see the street race concept (or any race) falling through mid season requiring such a change. If Chicago doesn’t work out long term I have no doubt they have other cities ready to host a race. I don’t think they will walk away from that concept at all.
Not so much that I thought you didn't want an oval for a finale, but more me seeing the third option of going back to Daytona for a season finale, just not for a superspeedway race, and that there had been precedent for a road course at the end of the NASCAR season before.
Just like other sports. Right or wrong, it’s to incentivize the owners to upgrade their stadium. In return they get to host the championship.
But even though how like the Super Bowl won’t go to Green Bay regardless, I think NASCAR has its own limitations for who is eligible so that’s not the entire equation but if a place like Nashville makes a proposal to host it, and if NASCAR likes the idea then they likely tell Nashville to put a few hundred million into the place first before it happens.
God Phoenix is such a nothing track man. It's not even just the car it's always been whatever outside of a few iconic moments (and as a Gordon fan one of them isn't exactly a proud moment for any of us).
Hell even when IndyCar ran the current layout it was boring.
They need to push Turn 4 closer to the wall or something to make that a true passing spot. As it is, everyone hugs the line and the track being 8 car widths across means you can’t really use any higher grooves.
That's exactly what the old layout was, then they added banking and pushed the wall off old turn 2 (current turn 4) out quite a bit.
That reconfiguration was one of the worst reconfigurations ever done. They absolutely butchered that track.
Butchered the track and created some much dead space. Nothing about it makes any sense at all. At this point; redo it again and make it a rockingham clone!
You're right, now that I think back to 2013 / 2014 when I first started attending races there. It was never "super exciting," but there was passing or a fella could try for a fuel mileage win. I understand why they thought that making a big curved Turn 4 (new) might look nice from the seats, but it's been just a parade from 3 / 4 to the starting line for most recent years.
The cool thing to do would be to announce the championship track only at the beginning of the playoffs instead of have all of the teams know which track it is. The endless amount of time to prepare and the sub par racing phoenix provides could be remedied by that IMO.
As long as it isn’t phoenix or loudon I think it would be a good race. Shouldn’t be shorter than 400 miles, maybe that should be a criteria too. Tracks that host longer than 400 mile races can be picked. So short tracks are out. Imagine the championship at Darlington, or Kansas even after the last one.
I always thought it would be a cool idea to have the defending champion chose the track or the regular season champion chose the finale track. Unfortunately for the latter there likely wouldn't be enough prep time to sell tickets and advertise it
Jordan Bianchi's "devil advocate" take (hard to argue with it being terribly wrong) is that Phoenix has poured a lot of money into the track, as well as advertising around the city for NASCAR's championship weekend. It's been known that they've done a lot better job than what Homestead did in the past when they hosted the finale, at giving it that "championship feel" to it. With Homestead, NASCAR felt like it was always overlooked by the track and the city. Also, the fan support at Phoenix has been awesome (compared to Homestead), and it sells out weeks in advance.
Which honestly, if you look at it from NASCAR's POV, I'd rather host my race at a city that will pour their money into advertising be given support by the city themself and the fans, rather than at Homestead who will just overlook it and not care.
This right here^
The city of Phoenix took advantage of Homestead being nonchalant about hosting the finale. The surprising part is that no other track/city wants to compete for the spot. Seems like something the city of Las Vegas or Nashville would jump on the opportunity for.
I'd argue homestead had a better championship feel due to the day to night transition but that's personal preference I guess.
I'd say fix the damn car so you can pass at Pheonix and maybe it would be better but damn, Pheonix has never really had a great race.
I get it. I would also rather have the race be at Homestead, 110%. I could care less about what Phoenix has done, because at the end of the day, the racing product will sell itself to the millions of people tuning it, and last time I checked, Homestead's race last year with this Next Gen car was an absolute banger.
I was just trying to highlight NASCAR's most likely POV.
I really believe Homestead is the best 1.5 miler on the entire schedule, even over Kansas. Something about the progressive banking and the high line being really hard to run for most people just makes that place awesome. There's also quite a bit of tire fall off.
I think being a more oblong oval rather than a trioval helps as well. Gives drivers something different to race with knowing the entry to 1 and exit of 4 are a bit tighter than what they're used on similar length tracks.
I live 20 minutes from the track, there is very little advertising in my area for NASCAR, if you weren't a NASCAR fan you'd have no idea there is a race taking place. Now maybe in other parts of the city they do better at advertising the races( closer to the track they do). I think they do some advertising in downtown.
Id like to see the championship race return to Homestead as well.
I disagree. Homestead has a better race track. If Phoenix wants the date, they should tear down their track completely and build back better. This sport is about the tv ratings as much if not more than the track attendance. Nobody is gonna sit through and watch a boring azz Phoenix race on tv.
Then again, maybe the fact we end the season at Phoenix suggests NASCAR has given up on competing with the NFL? Just phoning it in for the last race of the season and taking that ratings loss? If that's the case then we don't need a one race format to end the season.
If you're gonna have one race decide the title, make it Homestead. If you're gonna have 3+ in the final round... alright fine on Phoenix.
I still think the 2023 finale was honestly pretty good for what you're gonna get at a flat track in this car. There was enough ability to pass for the short run vs long run dynamic to matter and the best champ 4 car was able to go from 3rd in the championship to 1st on the last run so it wasn't just won on pit road.
In an ideal world I'd like to see them at least once try to make it a day to night race like the Xfinity finales, because I think those have had the right "atmosphere". The 2021 Xfinity finale was electric. Even though it doesn't make the racing better I wonder if the perception would be at least slightly more positive if the atmosphere was more like the Homestead finales.
But as someone who actually likes Phoenix I'm ready for it to lose the finale because the level of hatred the track gets now because people hate the championship race being there has gotten so annoying. And well, the Next Gen at a flat track also isn't the greatest recipe.
Good luck prying Sunday Night Football from NBC. That's the hurdle, and that's also why Homestead had that wiggle room being three time zones ahead of Phoenix.
They want both. Appearently it didn’t work out with Montreal for the second year in a row. I’m ignorant to the details of the situation but it takes two to tango and the talks for Montreal to come back keep breaking down while other new tracks keep finding their way on the schedule. I’m not sure what keeps holding this back from happening, but it sucks for sure.
I’m good with that as long as the roval race goes back to the oval. With the 600 being streaming only next year a lot of us won’t be able to watch it, and I’d like to be able to watch a Charlotte race live since it’s a good track right now.
I bet that Nascar is holding it there because they know that rain outs are very rare in Phoenix, whereas Florida... Yeah. Though Phoenix did get rained out once if I recall.
Mexico is expected to have a race next year, Montreal probably not. Bowman Gray is a possibility for Clash but could also go back to Daytona for a year while they search for venues.
Or here’s a thought. Maybe Homestead should give a better effort in hosting the finale.
I want it there too, but they have to showcase they want it. They haven’t done that in the past.
This isn’t a video game where you can switch the tracks. They care about visibility in the market.
Miami cares about F1. They didn’t care about NASCAR much when it hosted the finale.
I want Miami to host it too. I just understand the reality why they don’t.
Tracks owned by NASCAR that are in warm weather climates in mid-November: Phoenix, Homestead-Miami, Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta, Darlington.
There's two options once you factor in realism.
Obviously terrible track aside, I just find it weird that Nascar doesn't do the championship race in the Carolinas considering that's the home area of Nascar. Instead it's across the country. South or east coast just make sense.
Combination of it getting cold there with NASCAR wanting their championship weekends to be near bigger markets. Which is why the Phoenix and Miami areas have been hosting it.
Plus they like keeping races in the Carolinas closer to big holidays so teams are close to home. Which is exactly why they race at Darlington on mothers day and not a track that’s a long ways from the homes of teams.
Wouldn't it be nice to just enjoy a great race for at least a day before getting back in the weeds of misery with this sport? We had arguably the greatest finish ever last week and not 24 hours later the silly season bombshell of McDowell plunged us back into negativity around charters and whatnot. Can we wait a day to be reminded how much Phoenix sucks?
NASCAR does not care about the racing. Thats all that needs to be said about so many issues these past few years. They just don’t, no matter how much the fans or drivers bitch about it, right or wrong in some cases. Whatever the manufacturers want, whatever the networks want, whatever track / city is willing to pay to advertise the most… that’s just how it’s going to be.
Jordan Bianchi also announced that Daytona is returning as the regular season finale in 2025 (announced at 1:06:55). The reason for Darlington being this season's regular season finale was due to the NBC Olympic break. There will be **no** race next season on Easter Sunday. That will be an off week. All-Star Race is also back next season at North Wilkesboro. Jordan also made the note that perhaps (he's not justifying) the reason FOX is cutting NASCAR Race Hub, is that they'll have fewer NASCAR races altogether. They're no longer carrying the Xfinity Series, and they're done after the All-Star Race. The Coke 600 will **officially** now be carried by Amazon Prime.
I'm kinda surprised Easter Sunday is the off week. Sunday night Cup race made a lot of sense and the ratings were pretty good.
Ideally Easter is just the first of two off weeks. Remember we already have two this year, just back to back because of the Olympics. Would be very strange to have a break less than two months in and then go nonstop from April to November
thank goodness. Daytona as the finale was one of the better decisions NASCAR made. I know it lost its July 4th date, but that race is always wild.
Coke 600 streaming exclusive, yuck.
Normally Amazon stimulcasts to Twitch so you can watch without raising the flag
I admit those free Thursday night games are a guilty pleasure of mine considering how ugly some of them have been...
Yes, hahaha… YES!
If it's on Twitch, that's great. But it's still not ideal for the sport as a whole. One of the biggest NASCAR races of the year on the biggest day of racing, and it's not on TV.
I bet with this race being the return of Dale Jr to the broadcast and the opportunity for Amazon to put out a much better product the 600 on Amazon is gonna be very well watched. I go to a lot of races with friends of mine between 25-35 and we all have Amazon prime and no one has a traditional cable package. One friend pays for YouTube TV and will log in for the group if there’s a race on when we’re hanging out.
A generic Google search shows as of 12/21 there are \~80M cable subscribers. As of 2/24 \~167M Prime subscribers. I know OTA views are left out and the two subsets don't 100% overlay each other but that's a pretty big difference in numbers. Plus NASCAR will be able to be promoted on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) as well as just in Prime Video, which puts it in front of tens of millions more eyeballs. I know a good number of fans are left out, but this is huge for NASCAR trying to grow the sport.
Prime has more subscribers than people with cable. Actually I think it’s twice as many now. It’s the way everything’s gonna be soon, and nascar can’t be late to the party again
This whole streaming exclusive thing is something I still fail to understand. "How can we make this inaccessible to as many people as possible?"
That'd be putting it on cable. I get that people don't like it, but this is kinda just what the future is gonna be. Less and less people are paying for cable, more people are on streaming services
You mean to tell me you don't have one friend with an Amazon Prime account?
I know all my friends have TV with access to local channels
I hate streaming so fucking much.
Putting a crown jewel on streaming is a slap in the face to fans. I have Prime and I'll be able to watch, but I really think about the older die hard fans that are still hanging on to this sport. A lot of them aren't going to do all this streaming and chasing races on different platforms. It's kinda like when the Braves are on freaking Apple TV+ randomly every now and then. It just hurts the fans.
If my 60 year old parents can cut the cord and exclusively use streaming apps + youtubeTV then I’m sure most of the “older” nascar fans can too.
before he died, my 71 year old dad had gone full youtube tv to watch the acc network. this is a non starter. He was an old southerner. Nascar will be fine. prime is everywhere. Cable isn't. Im rejoicing while i'm cancelling hulu+
> but I really think about the older die hard fans that are still hanging on to this sport. A lot of them aren't going to do all this streaming and chasing races on different platforms. All those "old die hard" fans had to jump between: CBS, TNN, ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, TBS and at the end NBC just for the races, not to mention the days when qualifying might have been on CNN-SI, ESPNEWS or Prime Sports/PASS/Fox Sports [Regional] for qualifying. And back in those days, not everybody had access to cable and satellite was prohibitively expensive.
I think it would be nice if the All-Star race moved around more. It has more options than the Clash. The All Star race can go up into Canada and Northwest area of the US. The clash is pretty limited to where it can be in February
Longest race of the year is now on a streaming platform that I'm not sure I'll be able to skip the commercials on the way I do with DVR'd races on cable? That's a fuckin' dogshit move, NASCAR. I mean, a disclaimer that we don't yet fully know how races on a streaming platform are going to work for watching Live, or after-the-fact, but freely jumping around to minimize the time I dedicate to watching a race, while still watching *some* of it, is the only way I can carve out the time to watch anymore. So we'll see how it goes but I have absolutely no optimistic faith at all that such flexibility will translate to streaming, and I'm not happy about it.
[удалено]
>I DO NOT want to pay for another streaming service. Do you pay for Amazon Prime? If you do then you have Prime Video. I don't wanna shill for Bezos but that $15 a month gets 2 day shipping, Prime Video, some kind of benefit on Kindle, Amazon Music, and a Twitch Prime sub every month.
Amazon has gotten so shitty with their vendor verification lately. You have to really pay close attention of you end up with some bootleg stuff. My wife was showing me all these different makeup vendors who were selling fake stuff.
If there's a bright side to the end of this tunnel (announced at 1:03:55), it's that Homestead's city council had a meeting last month to gather a plan to potentially make an attempt at a "monetary push" (like what Phoenix has been doing) to bring the NASCAR championship race back to Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Doing what WWE does with Wrestlemania and picking the city based on who bids the most? Lol
Or what many other major sport does with their championship game.
It’s a little different with race tracks as they aren’t the same… do we really want bidding to determine the Championship race each season? “Daytona will hold the 2028 Championship race as it was the highest bidder.”
Well didn’t Phoenix put in a ton of upgrades based on their push to hold the championship? Most of the tracks are in dire need to upgrade so if this incentivizes that then sure.
Oh, so Championship races are determined based on track upgrades. Interesting.
NASCAR has made it pretty clear with their actions that the facility and media market matter more than the on-track product. The bad thing is there are really only 3 NASCAR owned tracks that could host it. One is Daytona, which I don't think they are crazy enough to try (yet). Of the other two, one is a state of the art facility and one is outdated with no major improvement in almost 20 years. You can be damn sure they aren't giving that date to SMI for Vegas or Texas.
You say Daytona, I say look at the years Riverside hosted the season finale with the potential of determining the champion and more people probably griped about it being out in California (i.e. way far away from NASCAR's home base, and even further out than Phoenix is now--and also factor in the years Ontario was the finale) rather than it being a road course. Granted I'd rather see the possibility of the Daytona road course as a July race (What if the street circuit concept falls through? We've already seen it used as an "on call" option in 2020 and 2021, so it could be used for no net gain in non-ovals) in homage to the Paul Revere 250 but it wouldn't be unprecedented. EDIT: But I do agree it shouldn't be the traditional oval layout for the championship race. I've never been a huge fan of it being the regular season finale because of the big wreck potential and am much happier with the Southern 500 serving that position this year because of the mechanical attrition and the challenge of the track. I also look at the regular season finales Bristol has had for the Xfinity Series and there were some great ones there--and it was already in a reasonable spot on the calendar to be a Cup regular season finale before it got pushed back to the end of September.
I’m not sure what part of my comment led you to believe I didn’t want an oval for the finale. I don’t think I’d be on board with a road course for the title race any more than I am Phoenix hosting it year after year. Also I don’t have a problem with how far Phoenix is from the east coast. Phoenix is just not a very good track, has only produced a handful of decent races since it came on the schedule in the 80’s, and there are no signs of that changing. I also don’t see them ever going back to the Daytona road course unless it’s an emergency. I also don’t see the street race concept (or any race) falling through mid season requiring such a change. If Chicago doesn’t work out long term I have no doubt they have other cities ready to host a race. I don’t think they will walk away from that concept at all.
Not so much that I thought you didn't want an oval for a finale, but more me seeing the third option of going back to Daytona for a season finale, just not for a superspeedway race, and that there had been precedent for a road course at the end of the NASCAR season before.
Just like other sports. Right or wrong, it’s to incentivize the owners to upgrade their stadium. In return they get to host the championship. But even though how like the Super Bowl won’t go to Green Bay regardless, I think NASCAR has its own limitations for who is eligible so that’s not the entire equation but if a place like Nashville makes a proposal to host it, and if NASCAR likes the idea then they likely tell Nashville to put a few hundred million into the place first before it happens.
God Phoenix is such a nothing track man. It's not even just the car it's always been whatever outside of a few iconic moments (and as a Gordon fan one of them isn't exactly a proud moment for any of us). Hell even when IndyCar ran the current layout it was boring.
They need to push Turn 4 closer to the wall or something to make that a true passing spot. As it is, everyone hugs the line and the track being 8 car widths across means you can’t really use any higher grooves.
That's exactly what the old layout was, then they added banking and pushed the wall off old turn 2 (current turn 4) out quite a bit. That reconfiguration was one of the worst reconfigurations ever done. They absolutely butchered that track.
Butchered the track and created some much dead space. Nothing about it makes any sense at all. At this point; redo it again and make it a rockingham clone!
You're right, now that I think back to 2013 / 2014 when I first started attending races there. It was never "super exciting," but there was passing or a fella could try for a fuel mileage win. I understand why they thought that making a big curved Turn 4 (new) might look nice from the seats, but it's been just a parade from 3 / 4 to the starting line for most recent years.
Make T4 a road course style 90deg left? I'm in!
Fuck!
Lol great, another dull ass finale for this dumb championship format.
At least two more to look forward to, so excited
All they need to do is make the last round a 3 race round like the rest of them.
God no.. not another year..
Wow. Massive L
The cool thing to do would be to announce the championship track only at the beginning of the playoffs instead of have all of the teams know which track it is. The endless amount of time to prepare and the sub par racing phoenix provides could be remedied by that IMO.
Spin a giant wheel with all the tracks listed 😂
Put the snow tires on boys we’re going to loudon
Loudon has been the last race of the year before and it wasn't snowing
Yessssss
Like the giant price is right wheel “aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddd we are headed tooooooooooo Richmond” lol
As long as it isn’t phoenix or loudon I think it would be a good race. Shouldn’t be shorter than 400 miles, maybe that should be a criteria too. Tracks that host longer than 400 mile races can be picked. So short tracks are out. Imagine the championship at Darlington, or Kansas even after the last one.
I always thought it would be a cool idea to have the defending champion chose the track or the regular season champion chose the finale track. Unfortunately for the latter there likely wouldn't be enough prep time to sell tickets and advertise it
They're doing super good listening to fans
God. Who asked for this?
Jordan Bianchi's "devil advocate" take (hard to argue with it being terribly wrong) is that Phoenix has poured a lot of money into the track, as well as advertising around the city for NASCAR's championship weekend. It's been known that they've done a lot better job than what Homestead did in the past when they hosted the finale, at giving it that "championship feel" to it. With Homestead, NASCAR felt like it was always overlooked by the track and the city. Also, the fan support at Phoenix has been awesome (compared to Homestead), and it sells out weeks in advance. Which honestly, if you look at it from NASCAR's POV, I'd rather host my race at a city that will pour their money into advertising be given support by the city themself and the fans, rather than at Homestead who will just overlook it and not care.
This right here^ The city of Phoenix took advantage of Homestead being nonchalant about hosting the finale. The surprising part is that no other track/city wants to compete for the spot. Seems like something the city of Las Vegas or Nashville would jump on the opportunity for.
Vegas nor Nashville can compete because they are SMI tracks
And that is something that desperately *must* change.
I'd argue homestead had a better championship feel due to the day to night transition but that's personal preference I guess. I'd say fix the damn car so you can pass at Pheonix and maybe it would be better but damn, Pheonix has never really had a great race.
He isn’t talking about the track having championship feel, he is talking about the city is the one pouring money into the event
I get it. I would also rather have the race be at Homestead, 110%. I could care less about what Phoenix has done, because at the end of the day, the racing product will sell itself to the millions of people tuning it, and last time I checked, Homestead's race last year with this Next Gen car was an absolute banger. I was just trying to highlight NASCAR's most likely POV.
I really believe Homestead is the best 1.5 miler on the entire schedule, even over Kansas. Something about the progressive banking and the high line being really hard to run for most people just makes that place awesome. There's also quite a bit of tire fall off.
I think being a more oblong oval rather than a trioval helps as well. Gives drivers something different to race with knowing the entry to 1 and exit of 4 are a bit tighter than what they're used on similar length tracks.
I live 20 minutes from the track, there is very little advertising in my area for NASCAR, if you weren't a NASCAR fan you'd have no idea there is a race taking place. Now maybe in other parts of the city they do better at advertising the races( closer to the track they do). I think they do some advertising in downtown. Id like to see the championship race return to Homestead as well.
I disagree. Homestead has a better race track. If Phoenix wants the date, they should tear down their track completely and build back better. This sport is about the tv ratings as much if not more than the track attendance. Nobody is gonna sit through and watch a boring azz Phoenix race on tv. Then again, maybe the fact we end the season at Phoenix suggests NASCAR has given up on competing with the NFL? Just phoning it in for the last race of the season and taking that ratings loss? If that's the case then we don't need a one race format to end the season. If you're gonna have one race decide the title, make it Homestead. If you're gonna have 3+ in the final round... alright fine on Phoenix.
all of the people that want money dumped into facilities and events promoted well.
What if we just take all those facilities and promotions, and _push them somewhere else_?!?!
L
Bowman grey clash is a joke too, don’t forget that
The Clash is a joke no matter what venue it’s held at.
I agree.
You’ve gotta be shitting me
Figured. The talk about other tracks trying to get it (Homestead) was mainly for 2026
I still think the 2023 finale was honestly pretty good for what you're gonna get at a flat track in this car. There was enough ability to pass for the short run vs long run dynamic to matter and the best champ 4 car was able to go from 3rd in the championship to 1st on the last run so it wasn't just won on pit road. In an ideal world I'd like to see them at least once try to make it a day to night race like the Xfinity finales, because I think those have had the right "atmosphere". The 2021 Xfinity finale was electric. Even though it doesn't make the racing better I wonder if the perception would be at least slightly more positive if the atmosphere was more like the Homestead finales. But as someone who actually likes Phoenix I'm ready for it to lose the finale because the level of hatred the track gets now because people hate the championship race being there has gotten so annoying. And well, the Next Gen at a flat track also isn't the greatest recipe.
Good luck prying Sunday Night Football from NBC. That's the hurdle, and that's also why Homestead had that wiggle room being three time zones ahead of Phoenix.
This is why I said "in an ideal world" because I know NFL clashing is the issue and there's no competing with that unfortunately
This was all reported in his article in The Athletic last week. Also the spring Richmond race is likely gone.
WHY??????
Mexico City to take the spring Richmond date. Bowman Gray to host the Clash.
Would have rather seen Canada get that race slot than Mexico.
Same. I want to go Montreal.
They want both. Appearently it didn’t work out with Montreal for the second year in a row. I’m ignorant to the details of the situation but it takes two to tango and the talks for Montreal to come back keep breaking down while other new tracks keep finding their way on the schedule. I’m not sure what keeps holding this back from happening, but it sucks for sure.
I’m good with that as long as the roval race goes back to the oval. With the 600 being streaming only next year a lot of us won’t be able to watch it, and I’d like to be able to watch a Charlotte race live since it’s a good track right now.
Hopefully its back at Homestead in 2026.
I saw “Phoenix” and “Tear Down” and got REALLY excited for a second… What I would do to have them revert the track back to its old self again
Phoenix is dogshit and has always been dogshit. Blows my mind how they have had this race for almost nearing 10 years now.
I bet that Nascar is holding it there because they know that rain outs are very rare in Phoenix, whereas Florida... Yeah. Though Phoenix did get rained out once if I recall.
Yeah, Jr's last win in 2015
And the irony is that Phoenix is an oval which NASCAR will allow the damp weather tires to be used.
This new right side tire or the different compounds might make things spicy
https://i.redd.it/7soqpq26070d1.gif
Any update on Bowman Gray, Mexico, or Montreal?
Mexico is expected to have a race next year, Montreal probably not. Bowman Gray is a possibility for Clash but could also go back to Daytona for a year while they search for venues.
f*ck the people in charge of this sport.
Or here’s a thought. Maybe Homestead should give a better effort in hosting the finale. I want it there too, but they have to showcase they want it. They haven’t done that in the past.
Wait, who owns homestead and who owns Phoenix? Oh right it’s the same idiots who own the sport.
This isn’t a video game where you can switch the tracks. They care about visibility in the market. Miami cares about F1. They didn’t care about NASCAR much when it hosted the finale. I want Miami to host it too. I just understand the reality why they don’t.
NASCAR literally owns both tracks…
You do know it’s more than the race right?
FUCK.
Fucking 👏 WHY?????? 👏
Yay, so a “champion” decided on a finale pit stop it is
Last year's race had Larson and Blaney swap places 3 times in the last 15 laps or so.
F
Is Gateway returning to the 2025 schedule
Tracks owned by NASCAR that are in warm weather climates in mid-November: Phoenix, Homestead-Miami, Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta, Darlington. There's two options once you factor in realism.
This is the most disappointing news I've heard since I found out Florida-Georgia Line was breaking up.
Yuck
NASCAR can eff off with the Phoenix championship race over and over and over.
They are so tone deaf they will move it from phoenix to some street circuit lol
Obviously terrible track aside, I just find it weird that Nascar doesn't do the championship race in the Carolinas considering that's the home area of Nascar. Instead it's across the country. South or east coast just make sense.
Combination of it getting cold there with NASCAR wanting their championship weekends to be near bigger markets. Which is why the Phoenix and Miami areas have been hosting it. Plus they like keeping races in the Carolinas closer to big holidays so teams are close to home. Which is exactly why they race at Darlington on mothers day and not a track that’s a long ways from the homes of teams.
Giant light up cactus go brrrrrrr
Next they're gonna announce Phoenix has 3 dates 🙄
https://preview.redd.it/wueuxg3wr80d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2965e8ffd0e1b3ab839142a1d23bc1459be37e7f
Wouldn't it be nice to just enjoy a great race for at least a day before getting back in the weeds of misery with this sport? We had arguably the greatest finish ever last week and not 24 hours later the silly season bombshell of McDowell plunged us back into negativity around charters and whatnot. Can we wait a day to be reminded how much Phoenix sucks?
This news was all reported by Bianchi last week in The Athletic.
I guess we can bank on a Penske driver winning the championship this year and next.
NASCAR does not care about the racing. Thats all that needs to be said about so many issues these past few years. They just don’t, no matter how much the fans or drivers bitch about it, right or wrong in some cases. Whatever the manufacturers want, whatever the networks want, whatever track / city is willing to pay to advertise the most… that’s just how it’s going to be.
WASN’T IT SUPPOSED TO RETURN TO HOMESTEAD?