On Tuesday, NASCAR announced a major shake-up to its Cup Series schedule for the 2020 season, which includes a change of venues for the both the regular season finale and the title-decider in November. Read Also: NASCAR makes radical changes to schedule for 2020 Heres a look at how the tracks reacted to the news: Marcus Smith, President and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc “NASCAR's 2020 schedule is a product of unprecedented collaboration from so many stakeholders in our sport, but the most important were our fans. We’ve taken a tremendous amount of fan feedback to create a schedule that maintains the tradition of NASCAR's biggest weekends in our sport, while also adding some wrinkles the fans will love, particularly as we look ahead to the playoffs. “Starting the season in Daytona and the back-to-back May weekends at Charlotte continue to anchor the first-half of the season, followed by a two-week break mid-summer that will give drivers, crew members and teams the opportunity to recharge before a final push toward the playoffs. Fans should appreciate a historical return to Labor Day for Darlington to start the playoffs. Throw in the unpredictability of Daytona to end the regular season, the Charlotte ROVAL and two short tracks for playoff bracket-busters, plus a change in venue for championship weekend and you’ve got the ingredients for some wild NASCAR racing in 2020 that both traditionalists and fans looking for a change-up will enjoy. “From a Speedway Motorsports perspective, we’re pleased to kick off the early season ‘west coast swing’ at Las Vegas with the second race of the year, then welcome fans back to the Southeast to a warmer mid-March date at Atlanta. Texas, Bristol, Charlotte, Sonoma, Kentucky and New Hampshire continue to hold similar race weekends on the calendar through July, then we’ll amplify the intensity even more for the Night Race at Bristol as it moves to September as the cutoff in the first-round of the playoffs. Las Vegas moves later in September to a cooler race weekend in the desert, and the ROVAL returns to Charlotte’s more traditional mid-October weekend as the cutoff race of the second playoff round. Texas will cap our NASCAR SMI season with a playoff tussle a week earlier in advance of the local hunting season." Martinsville Raceway "This is a very exciting day for Martinsville Speedway,” Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell said of the race under the lights. “It’s a question we’ve gotten from fans literally every day since we installed the lights and we are now able to say, ‘May 9, 2020.’ So, this is a very exciting day for everyone involved ... Fans showed us that they support night racing here during the last two ValleyStar Credit Union 300 weekends,” Campbell said. “We hope they will enjoy the Cup Series under the lights just as much and will come see us next May.” Regarding Martinsville becoming the penultimate race of the season, Campbell added, “We are going to move to one of the most important races on the schedule, setting up the Cup Series finale. Recent history has shown us that drivers will do whatever it takes to secure a spot in the Championship Race, and now the urgency and intensity will go to another level, as it’s the last shot for teams to have a chance at the championship.” Homestead-Miami Speedway Ralph Sanchez’s vision for our track more than 25 years ago was to host spring racing and be a major part of South Florida’s March calendar,” said Homestead-Miami Speedway President Matthew Becherer. “Miami has historically hosted many popular events during March, including the Miami Open, the Florida Derby, Ultra and the Calle Ocho Music Festival, among others, and this move will integrate us into this impressive mix. A March race weekend affords us many unique opportunities to entertain the South Florida community as we host NASCAR races for many years to come.” Daytona International Speedway "The Coke Zero Sugar 400 will continue to be one of the cornerstone events on the NASCAR schedule and will now serve as the final race of the regular season,” Wile said. “Daytona International Speedway strives to deliver the most exciting racing for our fans and this date change adds another layer of drama and excitement with a potential walk-off home run moment for a driver to solidify a playoff berth." Darlington Raceway "To be able to host our Labor Day throwback weekend as the first race of the NASCAR Playoffs will create tremendous excitement and enthusiasm for our fans,” said track President Kerry Tharp. “Darlington Raceway, considered one of the toughest tracks on the circuit, will definitely challenge the drivers right from the start of the postseason. To combine our throwback weekend, which celebrates the sport’s past, present and future, with the initial start to the championship run, should provide plenty of additional excitement, and energy to the entire weekend." Texas Motor Speedway "The fall date change solves the issue we've dealt with since 2005 in that it gets us off the traditional early November opening week of the Texas general hunting season," said Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage. "That's a big issue for a key faction of our race fans so this should please all the white-tailed deer hunters who couldn't make it out to the track. Now they can so we're looking forward to them joining us for our new Oct. 25 race date." Indianapolis Motor Speedway "There's no better venue to throw a massive party for our nation's birthday than the Racing Capital of the World," IMS President J. Douglas Boles said. "Fourth of July weekend is a celebration of patriotism and getting outside in the summer with family and friends, and a Big Machine concert and NASCAR racing at the Speedway combine those two traditions, making for a special Independence Weekend celebration!<doc-sep>You probably know by now, but the NASCAR Cup Series schedule underwent a major change for 2020. Featuring a revamped NASCAR Playoffs schedule — including a new finale at ISM Raceway and the inclusion of the Southern 500 and Bristol Night Race, for starters — Tuesday’s news had NASCAR Nation hyped for what’s sure to be an intriguing 2020 season. Drivers and teams took to Twitter immediately to give their thoughts and, needless to say, they’re excited. Awesome job @nascar on shuffling that schedule around for next year. Now that y’all got that done and announced, let’s get back to the drawing board for the future (preferably including @FGSpeedway among others) #MoreShortTracks — Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) March 26, 2019 Bravo @NASCAR. Love the 2020 schedule. — Michael Waltrip (@MW55) March 27, 2019 Change is always good. The new #NASCAR schedule is going to provide our fans with an incredible season in 2020. I’m up for the challenge! — Aric Almirola (@Aric_Almirola) March 26, 2019 Appreciate everyone’s feedback and thoughts on the schedule. It will never be perfect but a lot of input and collaboration to get to the final schedule. Neat to be a small part of the team and watch it unfold. Now #letsgoracing — Ben Kennedy (@BenKennedy33) March 27, 2019 Great job @NASCAR I like the double at @poconoraceway I like the spring date at @amsupdates I like that @TooToughToTame is a playoff race and kept the Labor Day weekend slot. And I love the short tracks in the playoffs! 🏁🏁 https://t.co/vDchwx2Pl8 — David Ragan (@DavidRagan) March 26, 2019 Pumped about the 2020 schedule it looks crazy pic.twitter.com/SAKW1BxKIm — Austin Dillon (@austindillon3) March 26, 2019 This is what I’m talking about! Schedule changes to refresh our sport. Everybody will be booking their @NASCAR races in advance! Applause… Cheers… 🌟 Let’s double down on military tickets now! — Kurt Busch (@KurtBusch) March 26, 2019 Those cut-off races tho 👀🔥 https://t.co/EnLQdQJdQl — Corey LaJoie (@CoreyLaJoie) March 26, 2019 Big changes to the 2020 schedule can’t wait to see this in action next year. #NASCAR https://t.co/edjlKnmnCR — Ben Kennedy (@BenKennedy33) March 26, 2019 How about my hometrack @ISMRaceway getting the @NASCAR Championship race in 2020! Congratulations. — Michael McDowell (@Mc_Driver) March 26, 2019 Liking the new 2020 schedule and all those short tracks in the playoffs 😍 https://t.co/0CMBbeQrFP — Joey Gase Racing (@JoeyGaseRacing) March 26, 2019 I like it. Nothing I see bothers me on this 2020 schedule…. And if this is only the beginning of what’s to come for the 2021 schedule then I applaud those who made this happen. https://t.co/nQVbH6fMlM — Regan Smith (@ReganSmith) March 26, 2019 This is going to be fun! Who else is excited for all of the new schedule changes we'll see in 2020?? https://t.co/VBBpsv4GVx — JTG Daugherty Racing (@JTGRacing) March 26, 2019 Things just got interesting… https://t.co/YbpW9qcNEB — Germain Racing (@GermainRacing) March 26, 2019 Nice job everyone @NASCAR making changes on the schedule very refreshing to see! — Jeb Burton (@JebBurtonRacing) March 26, 2019<doc-sep>No less than six major changes were announced to the 2020 schedule with one of the most surprising being the season finale being moved from Homestead-Miami Speedway to ISM Raceway near Phoenix. Homestead has hosted the final race of the season since 2002. “I think first it's important to note Miami/Homestead has been a terrific host for the championship, but I think equally as important has put on tremendous racing,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “Having full confidence that that will continue allowed us to make a change in the championship. “Fox was very interested in having Miami as part of their schedule of events as well. We're really able to enhance the spring portion of our schedule, also rotate the championship, more driven from a competitive standpoint.” Another notable change is the move of Daytona from its July 4 weekend spot to become the finale of the regular season. The second Daytona race was held every July 4 from 1959 until 1988 and then held the weekend day closest to July 4 ever since. “When we talked to the industry, the industry, really drivers and teams, wanted Daytona to end the regular season,” said O’Donnell. “They thought that was the best date to open up the season with the Daytona 500, then end the regular season with that last chance to get into the Playoffs. “Everyone felt Daytona belonged there and that track deserved to potentially be on that date. Then as you look at July 4 being a traditional weekend around NASCAR in general, obviously needed an iconic venue to fill that slot.” The iconic venue will be Indianapolis Motor Speedway which will take over the date during the nation’s holiday weekend. O’Donnell also discussed the other big change in the schedule and a first in the history of NASCAR’s top division - a doubleheader weekend at one facility. Pocono Raceway, which historically held both of its Cup Series dates within five or six weeks of one another every summer, will now become the first track to host back-to-back races over the same weekend. “Our TV partners have wanted to look at the concept of a doubleheader,” said O’Donnell. “We obviously talked to a number of our venues to see what may or may not work. Nick Igdalsky was very willing to take a shot at this. “We thought it was a terrific venue to pull this off in terms of the number of folks that not only attend that race, but go and camp, make a three‑day weekend out of it. If we could provide some more content, we thought it would be great.” The schedule changes also include a two-week summer break for the Cup series in 2020, during which NBC will be televising the Olympics. The calendar movement will also have the season conclude on Nov. 8, about two weeks earlier than in recent seasons. From the editor, also read: NASCAR makes radical changes to schedule for 2020 While the changes may be considered drastic, O’Donnell said this could just be the beginning. The 2020 season is the final year of the five-year sanctioning agreements, which could open the door for even more changes in 2021. “I think some of the moves were made thinking ahead,” said O’Donnell. “We still have a lot to look at for 2021. I think a lot of the tracks with kind of the iconic dates or if we move some of those, we want to try to stick with as much as possible. “We did make some of these moves in anticipation of where could we be in the future, for sure.”<doc-sep>NASCAR announced Tuesday major changes to its Cup Series schedule for the 2020 season, seeing a shakeup in which tracks are in the playoffs and in what order. While there were plenty of shifts in the schedule, the 11-race stretch from the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway to the new Championship race location at ISM Raceway at Phoenix may be the most impactful for winning a championship. Which dynamic will have the greatest influence on shaping the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs: the four cutoff races (Daytona, Bristol, Charlotte’s road course, Martinsville) or the new championship battle in the desert? MORE: NASCAR reveals 2020 schedule | Photos: Major changes NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola and Jonathan Merryman debate. Pat DeCola: First thing’s first: Homestead-Miami Speedway has put on some incredible championship races. ISM Raceway will have to raise its bar to a whole new level, and I think it will. Let’s recap just a few wild things that have happened out west in this decade alone. Fall 2012: After an on-track dispute, Clint Bowyer sprints through the garage area to confront Jeff Gordon — sparking one of the biggest fracases the sport has seen in some time. The incident likely took Bowyer’s shot at the title away. He finished second to Brad Keselowski that year, 39 points down. Fall 2014: Kevin Harvick walks off with a victory in a must-win situation, launching him to the Championship 4 where he won his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title. Ryan Newman punts Kyle Larson out of the way in a last-ditch effort to make the Championship 4. RELATED: Memorable moments at ISM Raceway Fall 2015: Dale Earnhardt Jr. inherits the lead late as a caution falls one lap after he pits … and then the skies opened up — again, in the desert! — to end the race and give Junior one final win in what wound up being his last trip to Victory Lane. Spring 2016: In what was a preview to come in a battle of two of the season’s best contenders, Kevin Harvick held off Carl Edwards at the start/finish line for a 0.010 margin of victory. It was the seventh-closest finish in NASCAR history. Spring 2019: Following a disagreement on the track during Busch Pole Award qualifying, a heated Daniel Suarez approached Michael McDowell and the two wound up coming to blows. Now, I’m not saying I want to see the title decided by fisticuffs, but Phoenix has offered plenty of sparks in recent years; maybe more so than any other track. I only expect that intensity to heighten and the penchant for the memorable moments that happen when the pressure is dialed up to 11 to increase at ISM. Jonathan Merryman: Au contraire — there has been no race track with more dramatic moments and more story lines over the past few years than Martinsville Speedway. In 2015, Jeff Gordon got his 93rd and final win, screaming the instant Victory Lane catchphrase, “We’re going to Homestead!” The following year, Jimmie Johnson won and locked himself into the Championship 4 on his way to a historic, record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup Series title. And how can we forget about 2017? Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott may want you to, but in reality, we will never forget what was on the line and just how much it hurt Elliott to get dumped from the lead and miss out on racing for his first Cup Series title. It doesn’t end there, either. Last year, coming to the start/finish line we had no idea who would win that race between Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr., and that is why I think moving this race to the cutoff for the Round of 8 is genius. Now, instead of kicking off the Round of 8, it will be the final race. That means you know if you have to win … and you know if you have to move someone. You know exactly what you have to do to get out of Martinsville with an opportunity to go to ISM Raceway and race for a championship. Add in the fact that we’ll likely see dramatic finishes at all three of the previous cutoff races, too, and you’d better buckle up. The dramatic, winding path that runs through Martinsville is going to be hotly contested and fun as hell to witness.<doc-sep>
NASCAR unveiled a retooled 2020 NASCAR Cup Series schedule on Tuesday, releasing a 36-race slate that includes a reimagined Playoffs and new locations for both the Championship Race and the regular-season finale among several other changes. For the first time since 2002, the premier series finale will have a new host track – the 1-mile ISM Raceway at Phoenix, which recently completed a $178 million renovation project designed to improve the fan experience, and one which included a reconfiguration for the track’s start/finish line. ISM Raceway has hosted the Round of 8 finale since the introduction of the NASCAR Playoffs elimination format in 2014, and it has served as the penultimate race of the season every year since 2005. To get to the title race in Phoenix, though, NASCAR Cup Series drivers must navigate a 10-race postseason that will see short tracks and a road course host the elimination races. RELATED: More on ISM hosting Championship Race The Playoffs will open Sept. 6 at historic Darlington Raceway, whose throwback weekend has become a staple of late summer. The opening round ends at Bristol Motor Speedway under the lights, with one of the most anticipated races of the year moving from its traditional August date to Sept. 19. The Charlotte road course remains an elimination race after its thrilling debut last year, but in the Round of 12 instead of the Round of 16. With ISM Raceway moving to the championship race, the vacancy for the Round of 8 finale slides to Martinsville Speedway. The shortest and oldest track on the NASCAR circuit has a history of producing plenty of drama in its previous high-stakes Playoffs races, something sure to amp up even more with drivers having just one final chance to clinch a spot in the Championship 4. “The fans and the industry as a whole have been vocal about the desire for sweeping changes to the schedule, and the 2020 slate is a reflection of our efforts to execute against that feedback,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “These changes are the result of unprecedented consensus-building with our race tracks and broadcast partners; something we look to continue into 2021 and beyond.” MORE: Daytona brings ultimate wild-card Before the postseason, the Playoffs field will be fully set and finalized in the new-look regular-season finale at historic Daytona International Speedway, a race sure to throw a dash of unpredictability into the postseason picture. Known for close-quarters racing and dramatic finishes during its second race of the season under the lights, the World Center of Racing has had a number of underdog winners in its history. Drivers could see their postseason standings drastically improve — or falter — at the 2.5-mile superspeedway in a prime-time Saturday night race on Aug. 29. RELATED: Playoffs rebuilt for 2020 “Quite fittingly, the birthplace of NASCAR will host the bookend races to the 2020 regular season,” O’Donnell said. “Racing in Daytona – particularly in the summer under the lights – never fails in delivering intense and unpredictable action. There’s no question this venue will create some incredible drama as drivers make one last push for a playoff spot.” Other notable changes to the 2020 schedule are: • A summer stretch includes a doubleheader weekend at Pocono Raceway that will see back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series races on the same weekend. The first such instance in the NASCAR modern era, this doubleheader on Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28, also ensures the season ends one week earlier on Nov. 8. RELATED: More on doubleheader weekend Additional summer changes include a Cup Series race on Father’s Day, which recently has been an off weekend for the premier series. Chicagoland Speedway hosts the event, the first in the NBC portion of the schedule. With the Daytona summer race moving to the end of the regular season, Indianapolis Motor Speedway will serve as host of the July 4th weekend, a cornerstone on the NASCAR schedule. It hosts the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday, July 5. “We enjoyed collaborating with NASCAR and their track partners to create what we think will be our most exciting schedule yet in 2020,” said Jon Miller, President, Programming, NBC Sports and NBCSN.