Tracks Off the 2024 NASCAR Schedule — What’s Their Status?

After several seasons of NASCAR schedule releases that featured major surprises and shakeups in regard to the addition and removal of certain tracks, the 2024 schedules seem relatively status quo compared to those years.

Across all three of NASCAR’s premier series, very few tracks lost their spot on the schedule. With the exception of Iowa Speedway for the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series, no new tracks were added.

So what happened to the tracks that were removed?

Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt

Series hosted in 2023: Cup, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

After three years, Bristol will no longer run its spring race on dirt and will instead go back to the pavement.

Low attendance for Bristol’s spring race compared to its summer race led NASCAR to add dirt to the half-mile track, in accordance with fans’ wishes for a dirt track on the schedule. The 2021 race was the first time the Cup Series raced on dirt since 1970. However, the race turned into a dust storm due to inadequate track maintenance (a complete reversal of the rain and mud that caused the Saturday Truck race to be postponed to just before the Sunday Cup race).

Even with more track maintenance in future years and even running at night, the attendance was still not where NASCAR or Bristol wanted it to be. Not to mention the cost of bringing truckloads of dirt in and out of the racetrack was likely more than what the track made for the single weekend the dirt would be on the track.

So NASCAR scrapped the dirt project at Bristol. For 2024, Bristol dirt will be replaced by … well, Bristol. The track will return to two concrete races. The spring race will continue to host the Cup and Truck series only.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course

Series hosted in 2023: Cup, Xfinity

Much like Bristol, dwindling attendance at the Brickyard 400 caused Indianapolis Motor Speedway to decide to move it to the infield road course for 2021. The move was met with praise from fans who were begging for a change to the race. The Xfinity Series had raced on the road course for an additional year, as in 2020, the series raced on the road course while the Cup Series raced on the oval.

The 2021 Cup race delivered, with the curb coming up and a race of attrition at the end resulted in AJ Allmendinger winning his second career Cup race. The 2022 race had just as chaotic of a finish as Ross Chastain took the access road and went from the back of the top 10 to fighting for the…