NASCAR has released the 2014 Sprint Cup schedule and I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed. They need to change up the season a lot and once again, we have another year where the biggest change is somebody going to a night race or two tracks swapping dates. There is hope though. With the new TV deal in 2015, that leaves some wiggle room to play with the calendar and adjust the things that desperately need adjusting.
Schedule
2-15: Sprint Unlimited (Fox Sports 1
)
2-20: Budweiser Duels (Fox Sports 1)
2-23: Daytona (Fox)
3-2: Phoenix (Fox)
3-9: Las Vegas (Fox)
3-16: Bristol (Fox)
3-23: California (Fox)
3-30: Martinsville (Fox)
4-6: Texas (Fox)
4-12: Darlington (Fox)
4-26: Richmond (Fox)
5-4: Talladega (Fox)
5-10: Kansas (Fox)
5-17: All-Star Race (Fox Sports 1)
5-25: Charlotte (Fox)
6-1: Dover (Fox)
6-8: Pocono (TNT)
6-15: Michigann (TNT)
6-22: Sonoma (TNT)
6-28: Kentucky (TNT)
7-5: Daytona (TNT)
7-13: New Hampshire (TNT)
7-27: Indianapolis (ESPN)
8-3: Pocono (ESPN)
8-10: Watkins Glen (ESPN)
8-17: Michigan (ESPN)
8-23: Bristol (ABC)
8-31: Atlanta (ESPN)
9-6: Richmond (ABC)
9-14: Chicagoland (ESPN)
9-21: New Hampshire (ESPN)
9-28: Dover (ESPN)
10-5: Kansas (ESPN)
10-11: Charlotte (ABC)
10-19: Talladega (ESPN)
10-26: Martinsville (ESPN)
11-2: Texas (ESPN)
11-9: Phoenix (ESPN)
11-16: Homestead (ESPN)
The season continues to be 36 races in length and the chase lineup remains the same. Kansas and Darlington are switching dates and Kansas is becoming a night race run on Mother’s Day weekend. The spring Texas event will run on Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday night and that’s the only other altercation. Some very good news that came along with this announcement is that NASCAR is mandating that the Air Titan which saved the day at Talladega earlier this year will be at every event in 2014!
In 2015, NASCAR isn’t ruling out the possibility of an overhaul with this brand new TV deal on the horizon. My dream is that NASCAR scales back the number of mile and a half’s and adds some more road courses and short tracks. At the very least, we need a road course in the chase to give that much more credence to the eventual champion. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts on the newly released schedule and your hopes for future changes to it.
NASCAR VP Steve O’Donnell Statement
“Yes. We’re excited this morning to officially announce our 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, starting with the 56th running of the Daytona 500, which will be live on FOX Sunday, February 23rd. Once again, we’ll showcase 36 points races, two weekends of non‑points action, which will include the All Star weekend in Charlotte on May 17th, and wind up at Homestead‑Miami Speedway on November 16th, which is the final Race for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, which will be live on ESPN.
Although there are no real surprises on the schedule, we will have four spring date changes. Texas will hold its event one week earlier. They’re moving to a Sunday afternoon event on April 6th. Darlington will run on April 12th. Kansas will hold its first‑ever NASCAR Sprint Cup Series night race, and that will be shifted to May 10th. Finally Martinsville in the spring will host the series on March 30th, one week earlier than this year.
One of the things we’re excited to announce today, in addition to another great season of racing, we’re also working as hard as we can for fans in the stands and those watching on TV for them to have the best chance at each of our events to see a completed race.
We’re happy to announce that the NASCAR Air Titan drying technology will be at every Cup weekend in 2014. We all know that the time it takes to dry the track, the impact it’s had on either those watching in the stands or on TV, was the main reason Brian France tasked the R&D center to come up with a solution to reduce that timeframe.
We put the decision in the hands of the tracks for 2014. We met with a number of media members in Daytona at the beginning of the year and talked about this being Phase I of a technology. We’re happy to announce that we’ve learned a lot of things through Phase I. We’ve seen the Air Titan at a number of our tracks this year and we’ll be moving on to Phase II in 2014 as well.
You’ll see that again at all of our Sprint Cup Series weekends for 2014. We think it’s the right thing to do for the fans. We feel we’re really in a good position in terms of the technology that’s been advanced through the R&D center. We look forward to showcasing that, hopefully minimally, because we’d like to see the sun shine for each of our events.
With that, we’re headed to Talladega for the Chase. Excited about what we’ll see for this upcoming weekend. Certainly want to just remind everyone from the Air Titan standpoint, it played an important role last time being able to get those races in on time. Hopefully we won’t have to use that technology, but we’re excited to head to Talladega this weekend.”
