All Confirmed Dates on the 2027 NASCAR Schedule (So Far)
What’s Happening? Throughout 2026, NASCAR will announce dates for its 2027 schedule. Though the sport drops the full schedule in bulk,…
For the first time in over a decade, NASCAR will host its Preseason Thunder test at Daytona International Speedway ahead of the 2027 season, with the sport aiming to improve racing at superspeedways.
NASCAR fans often complain about the lack of testing in the sport’s modern era, but in 2027, NASCAR plans to address it with the return of the popular Preseason Thunder testing session at Daytona International Speedway.
For the most part, the retraction in testing by the sport has come about via cost-saving and competition-related initiatives from the sport over the past two decades.
While NASCAR tightened the rules on testing in the 2010s, one of the few remaining sessions was Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway.
However, this session, which NASCAR’s TV partners often broadcast, met its own fate in the latter half of the decade.
Over the years, NASCAR fans have clamored for the sport to return to a preseason test at the track, something that NASCAR EVP Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst says will finally happen in 2027.
In an appearance on NASCAR’s in-house podcast Hauler Talk, Probst says that, as part of a broader effort to minimize the pack racing created by fuel-saving at superspeedways, Daytona is planning to host a test in January 2027 to evaluate different power levels and packages.
“When it comes to car changes, we will likely, right now, [are] planning to have a test in Daytona in January, kind of how we used to do it in the past, where we’ll go down there, and try some different power levels and spoilers, and maybe some other car type things, to see what we can do there, to mitigate it [fuel saving] further.” — John Probst
For the most part, Probst hinted that NASCAR would like the test to feature groups and different on-track times for different packages, as officials are aiming to try out “pretty significant car stuff.”
“Given the fact that we’ll be trying some pretty significant car stuff, we’d probably do those in organized groups like we’ve done in the past, where [we] run package A for this amount of time, package A out, see what it looks like, run package B, and so on so forth,” Probst said.
Of course, one major factor that comes with testing, or even practicing at superspeedways, is the fear of a multicar crash, something not uncommon during the old days of Preseason Thunder. Given the nature of that style of racing, it will be interesting to see how large these groups are during the 2027 test.
While Probst did not confirm a set date for this test, he said that NASCAR would like to get it in as early as possible, likely ahead of the 2027 Rolex 24 at Daytona, scheduled to start on January 30, and IMSA on-track testing scheduled for January 22-24.
If NASCAR were to find itself needing to host the sessions prior to the Rolex 24 but after the Daytona 500, the new race weekend for the 500 in 2027, February 17 to February 21, gives NASCAR a little more wiggle room.
What’s Happening? Throughout 2026, NASCAR will announce dates for its 2027 schedule. Though the sport drops the full schedule in bulk,…
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