NASCAR’s 2027 Schedule Is Mostly Familiar. The 2027 Chase Isn’t

WATKINS GLEN, NEW YORK – AUGUST 10: Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #88 WeatherTech Chevrolet, and Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford, race during the NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 10, 2025 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

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NASCAR finally announced its 2027 national touring series schedules Wednesday, and perhaps the biggest surprise was that there were no real surprises.

That’s because most of where NASCAR will race next season was already well known. Wednesday’s reveal simply served to fill in a few holes.

Normally, NASCAR’s schedule for the following year begins with a press release, quickly followed by a parade of releases from individual tracks celebrating the dates they were awarded.

Instead, those track announcements trickled out over the past few weeks, allowing fans and media outlets to piece together a rough version of the schedule long before NASCAR officially unveiled it.

The final major piece fell into place Tuesday, when NASCAR announced it would return to San Diego to race on the street course around Coronado Island.

Beyond that, we already knew the preseason Clash would return to Daytona; North Wilkesboro would host the All-Star Race rather than a Cup Series points race; and Homestead-Miami Speedway would once again host the season finale.

Instead of Chicagoland Speedway hosting the July 4 weekend, NASCAR will race at Iowa Speedway for the holiday. Chicagoland, meanwhile, will once again serve the market rather than the Chicago Street Race.

The decision to scatter individual track announcements in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s big reveal rather than roll everything out at once was very intentional, according to NASCAR Cup Series director Brad Moran.

DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 17: NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran, who was unable to attend the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame ceremony tonight, speaks after receiving his Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame Class of 2023 medal, in a ceremony during the NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway on February 17, 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

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“We did a little different this year,” Moran said Wednesday. “We wanted to pick some of our events and give some of our tracks some time. They had the opportunity to promote their event and their week, give the media and basically everyone else a little time to chat about it.

“So it was released that way intentionally. We felt we were in a pretty good place, obviously getting the schedule out here before the end of August. It was really just to help out the media, the tracks, get a little hype rather than just get kind of buried in one big announcement.”

Among the revelations Wednesday:

• Dover Motor Speedway returns to a Cup Series points-race date Sunday, May 16, following its 2026 turn as host of the NASCAR All-Star Race.

• World Wide Technology Raceway on Aug. 22, the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Aug. 28 and the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Sept. 5 will be the final three regular-season races in the Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series leading into The Chase. Darlington swaps with Daytona as the final cutoff race to determine the Chase fields.

• Pocono Raceway will again feature all three national series during its June 11-13 race weekend.

• The Chase for the Craftsman Truck Series will begin at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 25.

• All three national series will be off during Easter weekend, March 27-28, and again for a summer break Aug. 7-8.

There’s also a bit of a nod to history.

The June race at Michigan International Speedway returns to Father’s Day weekend for the first time since 2017. It’s a spot the track occupied beginning with its first race in 1969.

The Cup Series In-Season Challenge returns with a five-race, 32-driver bracket that will visit a short track, road course, superspeedway, historic oval and military-base street course.

It starts at Iowa Speedway on July 4 and ends at Naval Base Coronado, with $1 million waiting for the winner.

But the biggest changes come in the final 10 races that will determine NASCAR’s season champions.

Instead of opening The Chase, Darlington will be the final regular-season race for the Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. That is most likely a one-off swap given that the Darlington race traditionally falls on Labor Day weekend.

Richmond Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway will replace World Wide Technology Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway in the final 10, with those latter races moving to the summer.

The biggest eyebrow-raiser, though, comes with the addition of Watkins Glen International to The Chase.

It marks the first time a true purpose-built road course will be part of NASCAR’s final 10 races. According to Moran, that is a direct result of how dramatically drivers have improved when it comes to racing on road and street courses.

“You know, over time, we’ve certainly been running more and more road courses,” Moran said. “Fifteen years ago or so, you’d bring the ringers in and they’d run up front. That really doesn’t happen much nowadays … other than we’ve got SVG, who’s just a worldwide star. One of the best drivers in the world.”

Moran said the addition of Watkins Glen is a natural extension of that evolution.

BROOKLYN, MI – JUNE 17: The start of the NASCAR XFINITY Series Irish Hills 250 at Michigan International Speedway on June 17, 2017 in Brooklyn, Michigan. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

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“We have road courses in our regular season, so it only seems fitting that we have a good historical road course, a true road course, in The Chase,” he said. “It will fit our series well and our drivers. It’s that one road course that kind of evens things up because we have some great road-course stars. And if they’re in The Chase, that’s one they can circle.”

So no, NASCAR didn’t exactly drop a bombshell Wednesday.

Most of the bombs had already been dropped one track announcement at a time.

The 2027 schedule, then, is less about where NASCAR is going than what happens when it gets there.

The regular season contains plenty of familiar stops, but the championship format has been shuffled enough to create a very different final 10.

With Watkins Glen joining The Chase and Richmond and New Hampshire moving into the championship fight, NASCAR has quietly made the road to the title considerably less comfortable and may have given its drivers one hell of a championship headache.

2027 NASCAR CUP SERIES SCHEDULE

2027 NASCAR O’REILLY AUTO PARTS SERIES SCHEDULE

2027 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES SCHEDULE