The fans are asking NASCAR to do what no one was asking for just a few short years ago, add more intermediate tracks to the schedule. Dale Earnahardt Jr. looked at some solutions in a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download, even predicting that Marcus Smith could get rid of the Charlotte Roval. That was not the only prediction he gave on the 2025 schedule either.
I think that Marcus is smart. If I know Marcus, he’ll shelve the Roval and take advantage of this popularity that this Next-Gen car has on the mile and a halfs. I feel like that we got the Roval because of how bad the product was at Charlotte. It was terrible. He had to do something, and he comes up with this great idea. The Roval was good out of the gate in the same vein that racing at the Coliseum was cool the first time, but, for me after after one or two, I’m done.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
That’s a pretty bold prediction, but, it makes a lot of sense. The Charlotte Roval does not serve the same purpose it once did.
It was added to the schedule in 2018 because the Gen-6 car was incredible on road courses, but, NASCAR did not have the flexibility to add more road courses. Why not take a race away from a boring intermediate and do something new? Now, NASCAR has 3 other natural terrain road courses and a street race, including Watkins Glen being moved to the Playoffs. It also doesn’t help that the racing product on road courses with the Next-Gen car has been hit-or-miss at best.
That being said, Marcus Smith has publicly spoken highly of the Roval. He said during an interview with Sirius XM NASCAR Radio in the fall of 2023, “I love the ROVAL and I love that it makes Charlotte Motor Speedway the most unique venue in motorsports.”
Was Kansas enough to Change Smith’s mind?
This is where we get into more speculative territory. Dale Earnahrdt Jr. looks at another potential intermediate track to add back to the schedule, Chicagoland Speedway. He openly wonders if the Chicago Street Race is sustainable for years to come.
How long can we race in the Streets of Chicago? Is that a sustainable thing? Can you do that year over year for a long time? I don’t feel like that’s realistic. I think that it’s so expensive to do that eventually ythe crowd is going to level off right after after the first couple of years.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The Chicago Street Race has been rife with political opposition and even some local opposition. It’s easy for those opponents to tell NASCAR that there is a purpose-built race track in the area, instead of shutting down city streets during peak vacation season.
It’s also worth noting that two Chicago sports teams, the Bears and the White Sox are looking at building new downtown stadiums. That may require the city to pony up public funding, but, the city is not as willing to give them funding. If these established teams struggle to get public funding for new stadiums, how long before someone with enough power sees the Street Race as a pointless expense?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. also predicted that NASCAR would race internationally in 2025, specifically mentioning Mexico. That’s not a new report by any means, but, he brings up an interesting perspective on what racing internationally means.
More international races mean more races on road courses, which, makes it that much more important to add other types of tracks onto the schedule, specifically short tracks.
NASCAR wants to be big enough and successful enough for it and its race teams to be able to travel outside of this country and have have amazing events. That’s going to most likely be road course racing, and, man, we have enough. If we didn’t have many road courses, it wouldn’t bother me that much but we got a lot. And, what’s whittling away? One of our favorite things, short track seems to be because the mile and a half package is so great. We’re going to try to add a couple more of them somehow you you’re going to try to shoehorn one or two more of those back into the schedule…What’s got to sacrifice is our short tracks.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is right that, if NASCAR wants to race internationally, it would probably be a road course race. What would you sacrifice at that point? Intermediates put on great racing, so, short tracks may be the first ones to go.
Sure, the short-track package is not great, but, how far is too far? It’s a tough balance to strike because short-track racing is part of what makes NASCAR unique, but, it’s also not producing the best racing. Where is the balance there?
The 2025 schedule is set to be an interesting one. It could be one of NASCAR’s boldest yet, and Dale Earnahdt Jr. raises some interesting questions about the schedule.
Brad Keselowski showed he can still wheel it at Daytona, establishing that even a broken femur, one of the worst hits an athlete can take, could not keep him on the sidelines. In fact, on the final lap, he was still in the hunt, attempting to go three-wide with Elliott before Riley Herbst’s move up the track wrecked both his plans and his car, leaving him with a P5 finish. Now, while he is ready for the Atlanta race on Sunday, his planned COTA run on March 1, 2026, hangs in the air, as he is still recovering from his injury, and a road course race requires more strength and leg work than oval races. Hence, Joey Hand is lined up as the relief driver for the No. 6 Ford.
Speaking in the Atlanta media scrum, Keselowski said he is glad to have Hand in the wings, noting he serves as Ford’s reserve for road courses. Hand has raced and won across the globe, even finishing P4 in the Chicago Street race back in 2024 for RFK Racing. That’s why Keselowski called him “a great guy,” adding that “he’s been very helpful.”
Still, with Hand being smaller in build, fitting him into the RFK Racing co-owner’s seat could pose a risk. When Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass floated the idea of Keselowski starting the race and then handing over mid-way, the 2012 Cup champ left the door open. “No, it is possible. So we kind of run through all that. and we’ve got a lot of good options with it,” he said, keeping all cards on the table.
The team has already been laying the groundwork, and Keselowski sounds like someone bracing for a game-time call on whether he can go the distance. He admitted, “I’m going to just see how I feel. I’ve got some more stuff, tests next week to get through with medical tests and physical tests, and I’ll probably just see how those go and make a decision on what’s best for the team,” after navigating the G-forces at Atlanta and eyeing more medical checkups.
That leaves the door ajar for a split-duty play, where Keselowski could start the race to bank points and then hand over the wheel to a stand-in, most likely Hand, if Keselowski’s leg refuses to cooperate.
During the off-season, Keselowski broke his right femur in an accident while he was on a trip with his family, out skiing, in December 2025. He was cleared for the Daytona 500, but road courses like COTA demand more from the body. Even during Daytona Speedweeks, he hinted that while he could handle straight-line racing, a full road-course grind might be a different beast. Ahead of the season opener, the RFK Racing owner was seen moving through the garage with a cane, indicating that the road back still has miles left.
After Daytona’s chaotic run at the superspeedway, packed with fuel-saving, pileups, and a last-lap crash before Tyler Reddick drove it home to hand 23XI Racing, Denny Hamlin, and Michael Jordan their first Daytona 500 win, the 38-driver pack is now ready to go to the next mini superspeedway stop, EchoPark Speedway. But rain and lightning have already pulled the plug on Cup Series qualifying on Saturday morning, so the metric will set the grid. Here’s where the field will roll off for the Autotrader 400.
The formula previously relied on four criteria: the car’s rank in owner standings (35%), the driver’s finish in the last race (25%), the car’s finish in the last race (25%), and the driver’s fastest-lap rank (15%). For full-time pairings, the two 25% chunks often merged into one 50% slice. But for 2026, NASCAR trimmed the math. Now it will all come down to the car’s place in owner standings (30%) and the entry’s finish in the last race (70%).
By that yardstick, Reddick seizes pole for Sunday and the first pit box of the season’s second round. If 23XI keeps him in the hunt through the draft at Atlanta, he could go back-to-back and start the year two for two.
Team Penske will get another chance at a superspeedway-style track. Joey Logano, who finished the Daytona race last weekend in P3 and won his Duel, will line up alongside Reddick on the front row. The former Atlanta resident will return to the ground he knows well, and if the calendar keeps its rhythm, his even-year run could start early.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., runner-up in the 500, will start from the third.
On his outside will sit hometown hope Chase Elliott, who came within a turn of stealing Daytona before Herbst tagged the rear of the No. 9 and sent it into the wall, leaving him fourth. But given that he still showed he can slice through traffic on a drafting track and be there when it counts, it might pay off very well at Atlanta. He left Florida without the trophy but with points in hand, two wins on the track, and an average finish of 11.4. He might just be the fan-favorite in Atlanta.
Rounding out the top five is Brad Keselowski, who opened the points season in P5. It is not a bad way to kick off the year, and the former EchoPark winner and last summer’s runner-up understands how to stay in the fight here.
Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Bubba Wallace, and Josh Berry fill out the top ten on the grid.
Casey Mears in the No. 66 Garage 66 Ford will sit this one out after the team pulled the entry due to damage from Daytona Speedweeks.
Meanwhile, open teams JJ Yeley in the No. 44 for NY Racing and BJ McLeod in the No. 78 for Live Fast Motorsports raced their way in. However, the Austin Dillon and BJ McLeod entries failed inspection twice, leading to the ejection of their car chiefs and the loss of pit stall selection.
Joey Logano could break Richard Petty’s 47-year-old record for the most consecutive drafting-track races led this weekend at EchoPark Speedway. After leading laps in the Daytona 500, Logano has now led in 19 straight drafting-track races, dating back to 2023, tying a mark The King set from 1974 to 1979.
Logano now has a clear opportunity to move past Petty and claim sole possession of one of NASCAR’s longest-standing superspeedway records, and considering his and Team Penske’s history of dominance in this style of tracks, it seems that he is poised to break it.
