NASCAR 2022 schedules: Major changes, tripleheaders and key details

By Chris EstradaSep 30, 2021, 4:13 PM EDT

With Wednesday’s announcement of the 2022 Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series schedules, all three NASCAR national series have revealed their schedules for next season.

The premier Cup Series put theirs out Sept. 15. Their 2022 docket builds upon NASCAR’s recent drive to create a more diverse calendar.

Part of that drive has included entering new markets. Next season’s Cup schedule includes the NASCAR Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and a race at World Wide Technology Raceway outside St. Louis.

NASCAR surely hopes those markets will take to Cup like Nashville and Road America did earlier this season. The inaugural Cup races at the 1.33-mile Nashville Superspeedway and the 4-mile Wisconsin road course drew big crowds that delivered a great atmosphere.

“To have a sold-out crowd (at Nashville), so much energy around that event, I think it really speaks to the decisions that were made, again, how many fans we have in that Nashville area,” Ben Kennedy, NASCAR senior vice president of strategy and innovation, said on Sept. 15. “Same thing goes for Road America, as an example. A ton of great fans out there.

“I don’t know if it is eye-opening, but one of the neatest things to see is kind of the reception we’ve had from the fan base and from the industry for a lot of these changes we’ve made within the schedule.”

More changes await across the NASCAR national series in 2022. Let’s take a look…

WHICH TRACKS ARE IN? WHICH TRACKS ARE OUT?

Cup Series

IN: World Wide Technology Raceway – The 1.25-mile oval near St. Louis, once on the brink of extinction a decade ago, completes its comeback with its first Cup race on June 5, 2022.
IN: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – The historic stadium will host the exhibition Clash on Feb. 6, 2022, two weeks before the season officially begins Feb. 20 at the Daytona 500.
OUT: Daytona International Speedway road course – The 3.61-mile circuit has hosted NASCAR tripleheader weekends (Cup, Xfinity, Truck) for the past two seasons, but was “tabled” for 2022 according to Kennedy on Wednesday. He noted that future NASCAR national series races on the circuit was “something that we’ll definitely take a look at.”
OUT: Pocono Raceway’s doubleheader – The Tricky Triangle hosted Cup doubleheaders in June the past two seasons but will be down to a lone Cup race next season (July 24).

Xfinity Series

IN: Portland International Raceway – The 1.964-mile road course will host its first Xfinity race on June 4, 2022. Kennedy said about Portland’s addition: “We’ve seen a lot of growth from a fan perspective in the Pacific Northwest. It’s important for us to get back there and do it in a meaningful way with Green Savoree (Racing Promotions) and the rest of the teams out there.”
OUT: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – Portland replaces Mid-Ohio, which has held Xfinity Series races since 2013. But the undulating road course won’t be without NASCAR next season (see below).

Camping World Truck Series

IN: Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis – The .686-mile bullring is returning to a NASCAR national series schedule for the first time since 2011.
IN: Sonoma Raceway – When the Truck Series last raced here in 1998, it was still largely based around short tracks and Sonoma Raceway was still Sears Point. Times have changed.
IN: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – With Mid-Ohio heading for the Truck schedule, you can bet ThorSport Racing, based an hour and a half north in Sandusky, Ohio, has circled this race in red.
OUT: Watkins Glen International – The Glen hosted this year’s Truck regular season finale, but with falling off the Truck schedule entirely, Pocono will take over that role in 2022.
OUT: Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – COVID-related logistics issues led to the cancellation of this race in 2020 and 2021. It’s those same issues Kennedy cited as a reason for CTMP not being on the 2022 schedule, while adding that NASCAR has kept in touch with the track’s management.

PLAYOFF CHANGES

Cup Series

The three Cup playoff elimination races will stay at Bristol Motor Speedway (Round of 16), the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval (Round of 12), and Martinsville Speedway (Round of 8) next season. But getting to those elimination races will be different.

Round of 16: Kansas Speedway replaces Richmond Raceway as the second race of the opening round. Richmond’s second Cup race moves to mid-August, joining the final stretch of the regular season.
Round of 12: Texas Motor Speedway replaces Las Vegas Motor Speedway as the opening race of the second round.
Round of 8: In a corresponding move, Las Vegas replaces Texas as the opening race of the third round. From Vegas, the playoffs will head to Homestead-Miami Speedway, which replaces Kansas as the second race of the third round.

Xfinity Series

The Texas-Vegas date swap and addition of Homestead-Miami also impacts the Xfinity Series playoffs.

Round of 12: Texas replaces Las Vegas as the opening race of the first round.
Round of 8: Las Vegas replaces Texas as the opening race of the second round. Homestead-Miami replaces Kansas as the second race in that round.

Camping World Truck Series

The Truck Series playoffs are getting a major overhaul. Only the Round of 8 race at Talladega Superspeedway and the championship race at Phoenix Raceway will be left unchanged.

Additionally, the playoffs will start nearly a month earlier. Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis will host the opener on July 29, 2022. World Wide Technology Raceway hosted this year’s opener on Aug. 20.

Round of 10: The opening round will be completely different. Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis will lead off. Richmond will host the second race. Then comes Kansas, which replaces Bristol as the first elimination race.
Round of 8: Bristol moves one spot down the calendar to become the opening race of the second round. Following the second race at Talladega, Homestead-Miami will host the second and final elimination race before Phoenix.
Ben Kennedy on Truck playoff changes: “I think having two short tracks with Lucas Oil and Richmond, along with a mile-and-a-half track, will bring some diversity to that first portion of the playoffs. Then going from Bristol to Talladega to Miami, which always puts on a fantastic race, I think it will be a really great and interesting part of that next round of playoffs before we go to the championship at Phoenix.”

2022 TRIPLEHEADER WEEKENDS

Next season, 17 weekends will feature the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series in points-paying races:

Feb. 18-20 – Daytona International Speedway
March 4-6 – Las Vegas Motor Speedway
March 19-20 – Atlanta Motor Speedway
March 26-27 – Circuit of the Americas (Austin, Tex.)
Apr. 7-9 – Martinsville Speedway
May 6-8 – Darlington Raceway
May 27-29 – Charlotte Motor Speedway
June 4-5 – WWT Raceway (Cup, Truck) and Portland Int’l Raceway (Xfinity)
June 24-26 – Nashville Superspeedway
July 9-10 – Atlanta Motor Speedway (Cup, Xfinity) and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Truck)
July 23-24 – Pocono Raceway
July 29-31 – Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course (Cup, Xfinity) and Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis (Truck)
Sept. 9-11 – Kansas Speedway
Sept. 15-17 – Bristol Motor Speedway
Oct. 1-2 – Talladega Superspeedway
Oct. 22-23 – Homestead-Miami Speedway
Nov. 4-6 – Phoenix Raceway

Additionally, the May 20-22 weekend at Texas Motor Speedway will include the exhibition NASCAR All-Star Race for select Cup Series drivers, as well as points-paying races for the Xfinity and Truck Series.

EVOLUTION OF THE CUP SCHEDULE

Let’s go back to 2017. At that point, many elements of the Cup schedule felt sacrosanct.

The majority of venues hosted two races. Daytona had Speedweeks and the 4th of July. Sonoma and Watkins Glen were the lone road courses. Mother’s Day and Easter were spent at home.

In the five years since, all of those elements have been swept aside.

The 2022 Cup schedule includes nine tracks that will host two races: A newly reconfigured Atlanta, Richmond, Daytona, Darlington, Kansas, Talladega, Las Vegas, Martinsville and Phoenix. During the 2017 season, 13 tracks hosted two races.

Next year’s run-up to the Daytona 500 will be a mere five days with the Clash’s move to Los Angeles. Daytona moved its summer date from the 4th of July weekend to the regular season finale back in 2020.

And while the Daytona road course won’t be visited in 2022, that still leaves a healthy six road races on the schedule.

This past year at Darlington, the Cup Series raced on Mother’s Day for the first time since 2007. Next year, they’ll end an even longer absence when it comes to Easter.

The Bristol dirt race – that wasn’t on the 2017 schedule, either – will be the first Cup race on Easter since Rusty Wallace won at Richmond on March 26, 1989.

Truck starting lineup at WWT Raceway: Ty Majeski wins pole

By Dustin LongJun 2, 2023, 7:45 PM EDT

Ty Majeski will lead the Craftsman Truck starting lineup to the green flag Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway after winning the pole Friday night.

Majeski claimed his fourth career series pole and first of the season with a lap of 138.168 mph around the 1.25-mile speedway.

MORE: Truck starting lineup at WWT Raceway

Ben Rhodes, who won last week at Charlotte, qualified second with a lap of 137.771 mph. He was followed by Christian Eckes (137.716 mph), Carson Hocevar (137.057) and Stewart Friesen (137.007).

The series races at 1:30 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1.

Saturday Portland Xfinity race: Start time, TV info, weather

By Dustin LongJun 2, 2023, 1:00 PM EDT

There have been different winners in each of the last nine Xfinity Series races this season. Will the streak continue Saturday at Portland International Raceway?

Those nine different winners have been: Sammy Smith (Phoenix), Austin Hill (Atlanta), AJ Allmendinger (Circuit of the Americas), Chandler Smith (Richmond), John Hunter Nemechek (Martinsville), Jeb Burton (Talladega), Ryan Truex (Dover), Kyle Larson (Darlington) and Justin Allgaier (Charlotte).

Details for Saturday’s Xfinity race at Portland International Raceway

(All times Eastern)

START: The command to start engines will be given at 4:38 p.m. … The green flag is scheduled to wave at 4:46 p.m.

PRERACE: Xfinity garage opens at 10 a.m. … Practice begins at 11:30 a.m. … Qualifying begins at 12 p.m. … Driver introductions begin at 4:15 p.m. … The invocation will be given by Donnie Floyd of Motor Racing Outreach at 4:30 p.m. … The national anthem will be performed at 4:31 p.m.

DISTANCE: The race is 75 laps (147.75 miles) on the 1.97-mile road course.

STAGES: Stage 1 ends at Lap 25. Stage 2 ends at Lap 50.

STARTING LINEUP: Qualifying begins at 12 p.m. Saturday

TV/RADIO: FS1 will broadcast the race at 4:30 p.m. ... Coverage begins at 4 p.m. … Motor Racing Network coverage begins at 4 p.m. and can be heard on mrn.com. … SiriusXN NASCAR Radio will carry the MRN broadcast.

FORECAST: Weather Underground — Sunny with a high of 73 degrees and a zero percent chance of rain at the start of the race.

LAST TIME: AJ Allmendinger won last year’s inaugural Xfinity race at Portland by 2.8 seconds. Myatt Snider finished second. Austin Hill placed third.

NASCAR Friday schedule at WWT Raceway, Portland

By Dustin LongJun 2, 2023, 7:00 AM EDT

Craftsman Truck Series teams will be on track Friday at World Wide Technology Raceway to prepare for Saturday’s race. Cup teams will go through inspection before getting on track Saturday.

Xfinity Series teams will go through inspection Friday in preparation for their race Saturday at Portland International Raceway.

Here is Friday’s schedule:

World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (Cup and Trucks)

Weather

Friday: Partly cloudy with a high in the low 90s.

Friday, June 2

(All times Eastern)

Garage open

1 – 8 p.m. — Craftsman Truck Series
4 – 9 p.m. — Cup Series

Track activity

6 – 6:30 p.m. — Truck practice (FS1)
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. — Truck qualifying (FS1)

Portland International Raceway (Xfinity Series)

Weekend weather

Friday: Mostly sunny with a high of 77 degrees.

Friday, June 2

(All times Eastern)

Garage open

6-11 p.m. — Xfinity Series (no track activity on Friday)

Friday 5: NASCAR’s $1 million question is can the culture change?

By Dustin LongJun 2, 2023, 6:00 AM EDT

NASCAR Cup teams have paid nearly $1 million in fines this season, more than triple what they paid last season for inspection-related infractions.

The money — $975,000 after just 14 of 36 points races — goes to the NASCAR Foundation. While the fines help a good cause, it is a troubling number, a point that a senior NASCAR official made clear this week.

Stewart-Haas Racing was the latest Cup team to be penalized. NASCAR issued a $250,000 fine, among other penalties, for a counterfeit part found on Chase Briscoe’s car following Monday’s Coca-Cola 600. The team cited a “quality control lapse” for a part that “never should’ve been on a car going to the racetrack.”

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said this week that if violations continue, the sanctioning body will respond. NASCAR discovered the infraction with Briscoe’s car at the R&D Center. Series officials also discovered a violation with Austin Dillon’s car at the R&D Center after the Martinsville race in April.

“If we need to bring more cars (to the R&D Center), we’ll do that,” he said. “Our part of this as the sanctioning body is to keep a level playing field for all the competitors, and that’s what they expect us to do and that’s what we’ll continue to do. … Whatever we need to do, we will do that.”

Sawyer also noted that the “culture” of race teams needs to change with the Next Gen car.

“From a business model and to be equitable and sustainable going forward, this was the car that we needed,” Sawyer said. “To go with that, we needed a deterrent model that would support that.

“We’ve been very clear. We’ve been very consistent with this … and we will continue to do that. The culture that was in our garage and in the race team shops on the Gen-6 car was more of a manufacturing facility. The Next Gen car, that’s not the business model.

“The race teams, they’re doing a better job. We still have a lot of work to do, but they have to change that culture within the walls of the race shop.”

While NASCAR has made it clear that single-source vendor parts are not to be modified, teams will look for ways to find an advantage. With the competition tight — there have been 22 different winners in the first 50 races of the Next Gen car era — any advantage could be significant.

Twelve races remain, including Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway, before the playoffs begin. The pressure is building on teams.

“Some race teams, at this stage in the game, their performance is not where they would like for it to be and they’re going to be working hard,” Sawyer said. “If they feel like they need to step out of bounds and do things and just take the risk, then they may do that. That’s not uncommon. We’ve seen that over the years.

“The one thing that we have to keep in mind is we’ve raced the Next Gen car for a full season. We’re in year two, just say 18 months into it. So last year, they were just getting the parts and pieces, getting ready, getting cars prepared and getting to the racetrack.

“Now they’ve had them for a year. They’ve had them for an offseason. It’s given their engineers and the people back in the shop a lot more time to think, ‘Maybe we could do this, maybe we could do that.’

“By bringing these cars back (to the R&D Center) and taking them down to basically the nuts and bolts and a thorough inspection — and we will continue to do that — I believe we will get our message across. We’ll have to continue to do this for some period in time, but I have great faith that we will get there.”

A similar message was delivered by Sawyer to drivers this week when NASCAR suspended Chase Elliott one race for wrecking Denny Hamlin in retaliation for being forced into the wall.

Sawyer told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that “in the heat of the battle things happen, but (drivers) have to learn to react in a different way.”

Sawyer also noted that the message on how to race wasn’t just for those in Cup.

“We have to get that across not only to our veterans, guys that are superstars like Denny, like Bubba (Wallace) and like Chase and all our of national series Cup drivers, but also our young drivers that are coming up through the ranks that are racing in the Northeast in modifieds and in short tracks across the country,” he said. “That’s just not an acceptable behavior in how you would race your other competitors.

“There are a lot of things you can do to show your displeasure. That’s just not going to be one of them that we’re going to tolerate.”

2. Special ride

Corey LaJoie gets to drive a Hendrick Motorsports car this weekend due to Chase Elliott’s one-race suspension.

“It’s a far cry difference from when I started my Cup career six years ago,” LaJoie said on his “Stacking Pennies” podcast this week. “There was a Twitter page “Did Corey crash?” … Going from that guy just trying to swim and stay above water and trying to learn the ropes to filling in for a champion like Chase Elliott for Hendrick Motorsports, it feels surreal.”

It was a little more than three years ago that LaJoie gave car owner Rick Hendrick a handwritten note to be considered to replace Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 car after the 2020 season.

“This was the first time I’ve gotten a letter from the heart,” Hendrick told NBC Sports in February 2020 of LaJoie’s letter. “I’ve gotten letters and phones calls, usually from agents. It was really a heartfelt letter and it was really personal.

“I was impressed with him before and am more impressed after.”

LaJoie admitted on his podcast this week that he wouldn’t have been ready to drive the No. 48 car then.

“I wouldn’t have been ready, whether it be in my maturation, my game, my knowledge of the race cars,” he said. “The person that I was wasn’t ready for the opportunity like that.”

Now he gets the chance. He enters this weekend 19th in the season standings, 38 points behind Alex Bowman for what would be the final playoff spot at this time.

“It’s an opportunity to hopefully show myself, as well as other people, what I’ve been thinking (of) my potential as a race car driver,” LaJoie said on his podcast. “But I also think you have to just settle in and be appreciative of the opportunity.”

3. Special phone call

With Corey LaJoie moving into Chase Elliott’s car for Sunday’s Cup race, LaJoie’s car needed a driver. Craftsman Truck Series driver Carson Hocevar will make his Cup debut in LaJoie’s No. 7 car for Spire Motorsports.

Once details were finalized this week, the 20-year-old Hocevar called his dad.

“I don’t know if he really believed it,” Hocevar said.

He told his dad: “Hey, this is actually happening.”

His father owns a coin and jewelry shop and is looking to close the store Sunday and have someone watch his two puppies so he can attend the race.

For Hocevar, it’s quite a turnaround for a driver who has been at the center of controversy at times.

Ryan Preece was critical of Hocevar’s racing late in the Charlotte Truck event in May 2022. Preece said to FS1: “All you kids watching right now wanting to get to this level, don’t do that. Race with respect. Don’t wreck the guy on the outside of you trying to win your first race. It doesn’t get you anywhere.”

NASCAR penalized Hocevar two laps for hooking Taylor Gray in the right rear during the Truck race at Martinsville in April.

Hocevar acknowledged he has had to change how he drives.

“Last year was really, really tough for me and that’s no excuse,” Hocevar said this week. “I just was mentally wrong on a lot of things, had the wrong mindset. I wanted to win so badly that I thought I could outwork stuff and it kind of turned some people away. … I wasn’t enjoying the time there. I was letting the results dictate that.

“I was taking results too personal. If we were going to be running seventh, I took it as I was a seventh-place driver and I wasn’t good enough. So I started making desperate moves. I did desperate things at times, even last year, that I’ve been able to calm down and look myself in the mirror and had a lot of heart-to-heart conversations.”

He called the Martinsville race “a turning point” for him and knew he needed to change how he drove. He enters this weekend’s Truck race with three consecutive top-five finishes.

4. Moving forward

In a way, Zane Smith can relate to what Carson Hocevar will experience this weekend. Smith, competing in the Truck Series, made his Cup debut last year at World Wide Technology Raceway. Smith filled in for RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, who missed the race because of COVID-19 symptoms. Smith finished 17th.

“That one that I got for RFK Racing was a huge opportunity,” Smith said of helping him get some Cup rides this season. “I was super thankful for that. I think that run we had got my stock up and then, honestly, getting the Truck championship helped that rise as well.

“I think just time in the Cup car is so important, and I think once that new Cup car came out, people realized that you don’t have to do the route of Truck, Xfinity, Cup. The Cup car is so far apart from anything, though it does kind of race like a truck, so I don’t think you need to go that round of Truck, Xfinity, Cup. I think a lot of people would agree with me on that.

“I’m happy for these Cup starts that I’m getting. I’m happy for that one that I got last year at a place like Gateway. I think every time that you’re in one you learn a lot.”

Smith has made five Cup starts this season, finishing a career-best 10th in last week’s Coca-Cola 600 for Front Row Motorsports. The former Truck champion has two Truck series wins this year and is third in the season standings.

5. Notable numbers

A look at some of notable numbers heading into this weekend’s Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois:

5 — Most points wins in the Next Gen car (William Byron, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott)

7 — Different winners in the last seven points races: Christopher Bell (Bristol Dirt), Kyle Larson (Martinsville), Kyle Busch (Talladega), Martin Truex Jr. (Dover), Denny Hamlin (Kansas), William Byron (Darlington), Ryan Blaney (Coca-Cola 600).

17 — Points between first (Ross Chastain) and sixth (Christopher Bell) in the Cup standings

88 — Degrees at Kansas, the hottest temperature for a Cup race this season (the forecast for Sunday’s race calls for a high in the low 90s)

100 — Consecutive start for Austin Dillon this weekend

500 — Cup start for Brad Keselowski this weekend

687 — Laps led by William Byron, most by any Cup driver this season

805 — Cup start for Kevin Harvick this weekend, tying him with Jeff Gordon for ninth on the all-time list.

WHICH TRACKS ARE IN? WHICH TRACKS ARE OUT?

PLAYOFF CHANGES

2022 TRIPLEHEADER WEEKENDS

EVOLUTION OF THE CUP SCHEDULE

Read More About NASCAR

MORE: Truck starting lineup at WWT Raceway

Read more about NASCAR

Details for Saturday’s Xfinity race at Portland International Raceway

(All times Eastern)

Read more about NASCAR

World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (Cup and Trucks)

Weather

Friday, June 2

(All times Eastern)

Portland International Raceway (Xfinity Series)

Weekend weather

Friday, June 2

(All times Eastern)

Read more about NASCAR

2. Special ride

3. Special phone call

4. Moving forward

5. Notable numbers

Read more about NASCAR