Did You Notice? … Not every NASCAR top-tier division is off this weekend? The Camping World Truck Series will hold one of three standalone events this season, running the dirt at Knoxville Raceway this Saturday night (June 18).
Only two other Truck events this year are being held on their own, without support from even the NASCAR Xfinity Series: a road course event at Mid-Ohio (July 9) and a long-awaited return to Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis (July 29). Even Lucas Oil is a bit of a stretch as it’s not like the Cup Series is far away; its a few miles down the road, running the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course that same weekend.
So that leaves two — count ’em, two — opportunities for this division to establish itself with top billing in its own market. That’s still more than the Xfinity Series, whose one standalone event this year already happened (Portland International Raceway earlier this month).
The decision to merge Cup, Xfinity and Truck schedules into the same weekends isn’t new; it’s happened slowly over the last decade. But during a time NASCAR President Steve Phelps has promised to be “bold and innovative,” could we see a change in that philosophy down the road?
Phelps has already shown he’s willing to buck conventional wisdom from the Brian France era. We’ve seen that with several schedule adjustments on the Cup Series side over the past few years, from the addition of road courses like Circuit of the Americas and Road America to the debut of this year’s L.A. Clash at the Coliseum, potentially opening the floodgates for the sport to weasel its way into the middle of major cities.
However, there are a number of markets that remain underserved, living with little top-tier NASCAR racing in any form: the Rocky Mountains, the Northeast, and Seattle come to mind. So why not move some of your inventory around in the form of standalone races? To give you an idea of how much both the Xfinity and Truck series have been adjusted, take a look at their schedules from just 20 years ago.
2002 XFINITY (THEN BUSCH) SERIES SCHEDULE: 10 STANDALONE EVENTS
Nashville Superspeedway (twice), New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Nazareth Speedway (PA), Kentucky Speedway, The Milwaukee Mile, Gateway (now World Wide Technology Raceway), Pikes Peak Raceway (CO), Indianapolis Raceway Park, Memphis Motorsports Park (TN)
2002 NASCAR CAMPING WORLD (THEN CRAFTSMAN TRUCK) SERIES SCHEDULE: 14 STANDALONE EVENTS
Gateway (now World Wide…
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