NASCAR Announces 2027 O’Reilly Cup Series and Trucks Schedule

NASCAR unveiled the 2027 schedules for the Cup Series, O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, and Craftsman Truck Series. The Cup Series maintains its 36 points-paying races, with 26 regular-season events and ten Chase races under the same elimination-free format that debuted in 2026, but changes three of the ten tracks that make up that postseason. The schedule also answers several questions that remained open during the construction of the previous season, including how permanent the experiments are that the organization tested for the first time last year.

Photo By Carlos Castillo

Richmond Raceway, Watkins Glen International, and New Hampshire Motor Speedway enter the Chase in place of Darlington, Gateway, and Bristol. None of the three tracks leaving the Chase lose their Cup date. Darlington retains the Southern 500 and becomes the regular-season finale on September 5, thus determining the 16 playoff qualifiers. Bristol reclaims its August date for its night race, the slot it held for more than four decades before being used as a Chase event. Gateway moves to August 22, closing the regular season. Watkins Glen is the only road course among the ten races that decide the championship, a spot NASCAR had been looking for since it eliminated the elimination-round playoff system and now tests with a different track than the one used in 2026.

Dover Motor Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway also swap roles compared to 2026. Last year Dover hosted the All-Star Race, and North Wilkesboro held its first points-paying Cup race since 1996, a revival that was part of NASCAR's push to bring back historic venues. For 2027, Dover regains a points race on May 16, and the All-Star Race moves to North Wilkesboro on May 23, a weekend that adds the first tripleheader of national series in the oval's history and coincides with its 80th anniversary.

Photo By Carlos Castillo

Naval Base Coronado will host a second edition of NASCAR, with the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series racing on July 31 and the Cup Series on August 1 at the Qualcomm Circuit. The first edition, in 2026, was NASCAR's inaugural race on an active military installation, and the question ahead of this announcement was whether the organization would consider the experiment a success or if San Diego would remain a one-off event. NASCAR and the Department of War have already agreed to rotate this racing format at military installations to another base starting in 2028, so the 2027 date is, in principle, the last at Coronado before the project moves to a new location.

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is once again left off the Cup Series schedule. The absence is best understood by recalling where it came from. In 2025, NASCAR took the Cup Series to Mexico for the first time in its history, the series' first points-paying race outside the United States since 1958, a milestone the organization presented as part of a broader plan to open international markets. The date disappeared from the 2026 schedule not because of a rift with the Mexican market, but due to a scheduling conflict with the FIFA World Cup and the availability of the track itself. At that time, NASCAR left open the possibility that Mexico could return in 2027 or later. That possibility did not materialize in this announcement, leaving Mexico without a date for the second consecutive year and with no clear signal of when it might return. The only international date among the three national series for 2027 goes to the Craftsman Truck Series, which returns to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on September 5, its first visit to Canada since 2019 and the final race before its own Chase.

The Chicago Street Race also does not return to the schedule, and its case runs parallel to Mexico's as another market where NASCAR decided not to repeat a recent experiment. The street race was held between 2023 and 2025 before NASCAR moved to Chicagoland Speedway in 2026 without abandoning the market. During 2026, there were reports of advanced negotiations to return to the downtown streets. Julie Giese, NASCAR's vice president of market development, said that conversations with the city, the mayor's office, and the city council are ongoing, and that time ran out to close a deal before the schedule was published. She also said that the result at Chicagoland in 2026 showed that the street race audience and the oval audience are distinct from each other, leaving the door open for the market to sustain both events in the future. Chicagoland repeats on June 27.

Photo By Carlos Castillo

Homestead Miami Speedway repeats as host of the Championship Weekend for the second consecutive year, on November 14. NASCAR had presented the move of the finale from Phoenix in 2026 as part of a rotation scheme among different venues, which raised expectations of a change for 2027. That did not happen, although NASCAR had already anticipated early in 2026 that the intention to rotate the finale remained without a new venue being likely for the following year. The oval is undergoing a $20 million renovation of access roads and hospitality areas, with the intention of completing it before the championship weekend. Ben Kennedy, NASCAR's senior vice president of racing development, said the schedule is the result of months of consultation with teams, drivers, tracks, and broadcast partners.

The season opens with the Wheatley Vodka Clash on February 13, back at the Daytona International Speedway oval after five editions away, and continues with the 69th running of the Daytona 500 on February 21.