NASCAR’s announcement that it will hold its first Cup race in Mexico City next season will mark the fifth consecutive year that the sport’s premier series will have at least one new points event.
To make room on the Cup schedule for Mexico City, NASCAR will drop one of the two Richmond weekends, Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president and chief venue & racing innovation officer, confirmed Tuesday. The 2025 Cup schedule has not been released yet but could come out later this week.
“We’re still committed to Richmond,” Kennedy said in response to a question from NBC Sports. “It’s an important track, important market certainly as we think about where our NASCAR fans are today.
“We’ve seen some exciting storylines certainly come out of that track over the past few years. Excited to continue to be there next year, put on a great event for our fans and put a lot of that energy and kind of resources into that event.”
Richmond has hosted two Cup races a year since 1959 with the exception of 2020 when the track held one Cup race weekend.
The Mexico City move continues NASCAR’s quest — led by Kennedy — to shake up the schedule.
Recent changes include the addition of races at Circuit of the Americas (Austin, Texas), Nashville Superspeedway, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Chicago Street Race, Iowa Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway.
NASCAR previously announced that the Clash will move from Los Angeles to Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, next year.
With such moves, some tracks have lost dates. Pocono, Dover, Texas, Richmond and California Speedway all have lost a date in the last five years.
“For NASCAR to branch out, I’ll give them a lot of credit, they’ve been really trying to switch it up over the last few years,” former Cup champion Chase Elliott said. “I don’t think all of it has gone great and that’s totally OK.
“They’ve been willing to try, and I think that’s something that we should all admire and appreciate, the effort to go to different places and try new things. It’s OK if they don’t all go perfect or go well, but, certainly to get outside of the country and just to go do something different, I think, will be fun.”
NASCAR has a multi-year agreement to run at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course, beginning next June, Kennedy confirmed. NASCAR will use 14 of the course’s 17 turns and a lap will cover about 2.5 miles.
Kennedy said he could envision a time when there are multiple international races on future Cup schedules.
“As you think about international expansion, this is certainly a big move for us,” Kennedy said. “It’s a bold move for our sport. Certainly comes with a lot of bandwidth and resources and we want to make sure that this is successful and we can have a great event here for the sport next year.”