NASCAR Driver Welcomes Circuit Shuffle Amid Talks of Racing Outside USA
NASCAR Cup Series driver Alex Bowman has applauded the sport for dropping old tracks from the race calendar to make way for new ones in recent years in a bid to keep the excitement alive.
Through a rotational system, NASCAR has broken the monotony that drivers experienced racing on the same tracks twice a year. The sport held its first-ever Cup Series street race in Chicago in 2023, a venue that continues to be a part of the calendar this year. Discussions are also underway for a potential street race in San Diego in 2026.
Bowman welcomed the idea of further track additions and encouraged the sport to expand its reach to international destinations. Speaking on Chasing Checkers, he said:
"I think that's a really good thing. I think our schedule was the same for so long that I guess you could say it got a little bit stale. So, I think just continuing to change it up, go to new places, kind of rearrange it a little bit, I think it's a really good thing.
Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Best Friends Chevrolet, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 22, 2025 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Best Friends Chevrolet, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 22, 2025 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania."Hopefully, we continue to add more new places going forward. I think that's important for our sport to go to new places and not go to the same 15 tracks twice a year forever, right? Like we want to go to different places and kind of change it up. There's so many great racetracks in the country and around the world. So, there's definitely a lot of cool places that we can go race."
Speaking of racetracks outside of the USA, former NASCAR driver, commentator, and analyst Kyle Petty proposed races in Canada and Europe after NASCAR successfully held its first international points race in Mexico recently. Newsweek Sports reported his comments:
"Obviously, if we're opening up Mexico, then I think we should take a look at Canada. I would like to see that. There are so many race fans. If you go to Michigan, Watkins Glen, you're right along the Canadian border. There's so many Canadian fans that come over. ... So I look at that and I say, Yeah, those are no-brainers to me.
"I would love to see us land somewhere in Europe, at least once. I've been going to Goodwood [in England], places like that. There are so many NASCAR fans, so many stock car fans, and it's just a totally different form of racing than Formula One or sports cars or Le Mans and that type of racing.
"It's just a totally different form. It's not better, it's not worse, it's just different, that's just the way it is. I think it would be interesting to see the type of crowd that we could draw over there on an oval, or on a road course, because we have opened ourselves up with this car to be in a road course-type series. I know it's never gonna go to full road courses, but there will be a lot more of them that add on."
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