With the 2024 schedule being only a few weeks away from being released, NASCAR fans are getting a bit antsy. Reddit came up with some very interesting ideas/rumors for what the 2024 schedule will look like. Here are some of the best ones.
ChaseTheFalcon took a swing at most of the rumors we have hit on this website before, however, he adds the Charlotte Roval leaving the schedule in favor of going back to the oval. This has been discussed some before as the racing product on the Charlotte oval has been one of the best products with the Next-Gen car. On top of that, the road course product has been hit-or-miss with the Next-Gen car.
Something to consider with this rumor is the impact it has on the Playoff schedule. With how many road courses there are now in the regular season, does NASCAR want to take away a road course date from the Playoffs? It would be a bit odd to not have any sort of road course representation in the Playoffs with how many there already are in the regular season.
We have also discussed Atlanta moving to the regular season finale here as well, and it would be interesting to swap that date out with Daytona. That would mean the return of the traditional July 4th, or whereabouts, Daytona summer race, and it keeps the cutoff race on a superspeedway-style track.
JumboBrown wants a lot of interesting things added to the 2024 calendar. Now, the Cup Series calendar going to 40 races and Pocono going back to 500 miles are probably not going to happen. Seeing North Wilkesboro return as a points race could happen, but as a midweek race? He even suggested a midweek race for Milwaukee.
Midweek races were tried during the pandemic, but the TV ratings were just not good. As a result, NASCAR has not tried them since. It is very unlikely that NASCAR goes back to midweek racing, but, if there is a time to do it, it is a year where NASCAR has to work around the Olympics. If NASCAR wants to keep the schedule under the same footprint it currently occupies on the calendar, something drastic has to happen.
The All-Star Race is a date that is uncertain as of right now. North Wilkesboro Speedway is rumored to be a points date next year, but many, including us, have generally swapped it out with Bristol. However, swapping it out with Atlanta is an interesting idea. The All-Star Race is an SMI date, so only SMI tracks are generally eligible to take that date.
Atlanta becoming the All-Star Race would be interesting as no superspeedway-style track has ever hosted the All-Star Race. It also gives North Wilkesboro a date in the spring while also letting Bristol keep its’ spring date. Not everyone is too keen on Bristol losing their spring race date after all.
Yes, the Next-Gen product on road courses is not perfect, but there likely has to be a road course in the Playoffs. There are just too many in the regular season for it not to be somewhere in the Playoffs.
There were even a few people who discussed Kentucky Speedway. KentuckyHorsepower heard that once the Nashville Fairgrounds deal gets done, Marcus Smith would look at Kentucky. Now, that is just a rumor, and there is no real news out on that rumor.
This seems incredibly unlikely, but it could be interesting. The problem with Kentucky was that it was just a one-groove track, and that may be a struggle for the Next-Gen car. However, the intermediate track product of the Next-Gen car gives some hope to the idea, and the product on a single groove track like Pocono as well.
How many of these will actually happen? A lot of these are on the pipe dream end of the spectrum, but they would at the very least be interesting.
