NASCAR prepares for a first series doubleheader feature at Homestead

A new milestone will be etched in the NASCAR history books on June 13-14 when the NASCAR Xfinity Series races twice at Homestead-Miami Speedway in south Florida. It will mark the first time in NASCAR’s modern era (1972-present) where a NASCAR national division series will race twice on consecutive days at the same venue.

Prior to the 2020 season, the NASCAR Cup Series was set to run the sport’s first division series’ doubleheader weekend at Pocono Raceway near the end of June. When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, it caused a major shakeup to the racing schedule that was in its early stages and paused all on-track racing activities for nearly two months. By the time the season returned in mid-May, a wave of NASCAR national division races were rescheduled to run not only on weekends but also on weekdays and as many as four races a week. Among the changes NASCAR made to the schedule included additional division series’ doubleheaders at the same track, most of which will make up the canceled events of this season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

For this weekend’s Xfinity Series doubleheader at Homestead, the first series race at the 1.5-mile track is scheduled to run on June 13 following the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series event at the track. The second series race scheduled for the following day on June 14 will not only occur prior to the NASCAR Cup Series’ only scheduled race at Miami. It will also serve as a replacement race for the Iowa Speedway race originally scheduled on June 13 which was cancelled when NASCAR elected not to race at Iowa for the first time since 2008. As previously announced, NASCAR races scheduled at Iowa, Sonoma Raceway, Chicagoland Speedway and the spring Richmond Raceway events were canceled for this season.

Through eight Xfinity races this season, six competitors have won a race, among which includes Chase Briscoe, who leads the series standings by four points over Noah Gragson and by 32 over rookie Harrison Burton. With an Xfinity Series doubleheader at Homestead set for this weekend, NASCAR is in for a number of treats:

• The June 13 race at Homestead will mark the only scheduled start of the season for Dale Earnhardt Jr., one of NASCAR’s Most Popular Drivers, a two-time Daytona 500 champion and a championship-winning driver and owner in the series. Since becoming a semi-retired competitor in 2018, Earnhardt Jr. has finished in the top five in his last two series starts (fourth at Richmond in 2018 and fifth at Darlington in 2019). He has also raced at Homestead in the series five times with a best result of second in 1999, which should give him a fair advantage in his one-race deal against a multitude of the sport’s future stars.
• The June 14 race will serve as the second of four Dash 4 Cash events this season. Gragson, winner of the first Dash 4 Cash $100,000 bonus last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway and AJ Allmendinger, the upset race winner at Atlanta, will contend for this weekend’s bonus along with Justin Haley and Daniel Hemric.
• This season marks the first time where Homestead will host an Xfinity race early in the season after spending the last 25 years as the series finale.
• With two series races at the same track in the same weekend, it creates more opportunities for Xfinity Series regulars to compete for race wins or gain valuable points towards the playoffs. For names like Briscoe, Gragson, Burton, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones and Ross Chastain, this weekend presents two opportunities for them to extend their strong start to this season. For names like Haley, Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg, Anthony Alfredo and Myatt Snider, this weekend presents two opportunities for them to win for the first time in their Xfinity Series careers. In 25 series races at Homestead, four competitors notched their first career win in Miami (Kevin Lepage, Kasey Kahne, Regan Smith and Cole Custer).

The Xfinity doubleheader at Homestead will serve as the first of more doubleheaders scheduled to occur this season, among which includes the Cup Series’ doubleheader at Pocono Raceway on June 27-28, an Xfinity doubleheader at Kentucky Speedway on July 9-10 and the Truck Series’ doubleheader at Kansas Speedway on July 24-25. A possibility of more doubleheaders could occur as NASCAR has yet to release the remainder of the 2020 schedule from August to November.

The first Xfinity Series race at Homestead will air on June 13 at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the second will air on June 14 at noon ET on FS1.