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The leading NASCAR Betting Podcast, Garage Guys is your go-to podcast to help you get the bag in the NASCAR Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series throughout the racing season. Tune in each week for NASCAR betting advice, picks, and fun conversations recapping race weekends.
Welcome back to Onlydales, NASCAR content created by Dale for Dales. I’m Dale Tanhardt.
This will be the “Grinds My Gear’s” type of piece related to the 2024 NASCAR Schedule (and possibly beyond), so buckle up. NASCAR has finally released the schedule for next year and there’s not much to unpack.
The schedule is good; it’s a slight mixup of the current 2023 schedule which, in my opinion, is also good. The Olympics must play a factor in a few races being moved around, and there might be some house-divided opinions on Daytona and Atlanta being scheduled around each other. This is something I *kinda* dislike because of the over-saturation of superspeedway-style racing, but I can live with it.
Ultimately, it’s not that much. We get Iowa in June, two Bristol concrete races, the Brickyard 400 returns, and not much else really changes other than current racetracks finding different dates compared to 2023. I can’t think of a NASCAR schedule release that was more overhyped and anticipated than this one and it’s, for the most part, a major nothing burger.
Let’s focus on the playoffs. You have some slight reshaping occurring with two road courses and two superspeedway races and no Darlington (final race before the playoffs now) and Texas (thank the LORD; now only in spring). Everything else down the stretch to determine a champion remains the same.
And that’s the problem.
The playoff schedule is very good. It’s diverse, exciting, and dramatic. I’m all good with Atlanta and Watkins Glen being added to the equation. You wind down with the same popular races of Talladega, Charlotte Roval, Homestead, Las Vegas, and Martinsville.
And then you get to Phoenix.
You should be picking up what I’m putting down by now. I wrote about this before.. I think.
Phoenix is the problem.
We have such a strong, diverse schedule. We enjoy much excitement and drama throughout the season and our playoff format combined with a strong track schedule from September to November provides a lot of energy down the stretch of the championship battle.
And we cap it with a style of racing that is beyond undeserving to host the 2nd-most important race on the schedule (Daytona 500 is #1 in my opinion). Money talks.
It is a true travesty to the fans of NASCAR that we build up all this hype at exceptional events and races like Talladega, Las Vegas, Charlotte Roval, Homestead, and Martinsville (hold your breath until we fix the short-track package) only to be underwhelmed by the quality of racing at Phoenix.
Honestly, Phoenix is not terrible. It’s been a staple on the NASCAR schedule since 1988. But Phoenix is one of these “Sonoma” tracks. Let me explain.
Sonoma is Sonoma: no matter what drivers or generation of NASCAR stock cars, Sonoma is Sonoma.
New Hampshire is New Hampshire: no matter what drivers or generation of NASCAR stock cars, New Hampshire is New Hampshire.
Phoenix is Phoenix: no matter what drivers or generation of NASCAR stock cars, Phoenix is Phoenix.
Hell, even with Pheonix going through some reconfiguration to expand that dogleg and let everybody go 10-wide on restarts, Phoenix is still Phoenix.
It doesn’t matter what era it is. It doesn’t matter what car we have. Phoenix delivers the same type of race every single time; a race that many people don’t find the most entertaining. I think it’s a race that is objectively less entertaining than the racing product we had at Homestead or Atlanta when these two tracks hosted the finale in their respective eras.
Once again, money talks. Phoenix must be shipping a pretty substantial dollar amount to keep this ship running as the finale. I don’t see any other reason for NASCAR to continue using this track as it’s co-marquee event. The Phoenix era has quite frankly evolved me into a fan who wants to see a revolving finale; change up the track every year and it would be better for the sport at this point. I think a good revolving set of four alternating tracks would be Charlotte, Bristol, Homestead, and Las Vegas.
I must reiterate that the schedule is good. It’s not too much different than our current schedule, which is great! We’re in a good spot.
But for the love of Dale, get the finale out of Phoenix. The sport would be better.
The leading NASCAR Betting Podcast, Garage Guys is your go-to podcast to help you get the bag in the NASCAR Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series throughout the racing season. Tune in each week for NASCAR betting advice, picks, and fun conversations recapping race weekends.
