The smoke from the fireworks following NASCAR’s first ever race in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum had barely even cleared before Ben Kennedy was being asked what other big ideas he had for a stale and predictable Cup Series schedule.
Kennedy, the great-grandson of NASCAR’s founder and now the racing series’ executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovations officer, didn’t miss a beat.
He wanted to take NASCAR international.
Kennedy will fulfill that vision three years after he made his intentions known when the Cup Series races in Mexico City in 2025 for the first points-paying international race in modern history.
The June 15 race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez — one of the most popular stops on the Formula 1 calendar — will be the first time since 1958 and only third time in 77 years that NASCAR’s top series will run an event that counts in the championship outside the United States.
NASCAR’s two previous points-paying international races were in Canada, while the Cup Series also has held exhibitions in both Japan and Australia.
“Our biggest opportunity to grow as a sport is international,” Kennedy said. “The U.S. is always going to be our mainstay and our next opportunity was to expand internationally. We said we’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but also needed to make sure it was the right time, the right partners and the right location.
“Mexico City checked every box. To be in one of the biggest cities globally — over 20 million people that live in the city — is a massive opportunity for us to bring the sport.”
The race announced Tuesday at the storied Mexico City permanent road course is a multi-year deal and will replace the spring race on the short track at Richmond International Raceway. The Mexico City weekend will include the second-tier Xfinity Series and the very popular NASCAR Mexico series.
Mexican driver Daniel Suarez, who raced in the NASCAR Mexico race that was part of the Clash at the Coliseum event in February, was a featured part of Tuesday’s announcement. When the website for the race went live, it featured a video narrated by Suarez, who was the star attraction at a news conference that drew several hundred media outlets.
“It’s been unbelievable. There are a lot of people excited here in Mexico today, it’s already a day we’re going to remember for a very long time,” Suarez said. “This, for me, is like a dream. A real dream come true. Exactly 10 years ago I was here racing NASCAR Mexico in 2014 and I won a race here before quitting NASCAR Mexico and moving full-time to NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2015.
“I remember thinking how cool it would be to come back and race here in the Cup Series one day. I am just super excited to be part of this journey.”
Kennedy has been making bold moves with NASCAR’s schedule since he was tasked with the assignment. He was part of NASCAR leadership that agreed to transform Bristol Motor Speedway into a temporary dirt track, he put a temporary short track inside the L.A. Coliseum, and created NASCAR’s first-ever street race in downtown Chicago.
To take the Cup Series international, Kennedy turned to a former partner with a proven record of success. The Xfinity Series successfully ran in Mexico City from 2005 to 2008 and current Cup Series stars Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. were winners during the four-year stretch.
Those races were promoted by OCESA, which also promotes the Mexico City Grand Prix and other large-scale entertainment events across the country. OCESA will retain that role for the Cup races.
“As we look at scheduling just in totality, we’re always looking at a plethora of different venues and now that we’ve been on street courses, frankly, just markets anywhere in the world,” Kennedy said. “We vetted a number of markets internationally. Naturally, this one was the best fit for us.
“They put on massive events here with huge crowds. We have experience racing here. It’s a track that is in really good condition and meets all of our standards. It was kind of the perfect place for us to land.”
What are the details?
Not long after Kennedy and Suarez left Tuesday’s announcement to return to the U.S., other NASCAR executives remained behind and immediately began a logistics meeting.
Among the topics were what time of day to be on track — June is Mexico’s rainy season, and the rain typically is late afternoon, and evening traffic around the venue can be brutal — as well as where team haulers will be parked and other operational concerns.
The course has been largely decided upon and although F1 uses a 17-turn layout that runs 2.674-miles long, NASCAR will only use 14 turns. NASCAR will eliminate Turns 5 and 6, and while F1 turns left in Turn 4, NASCAR will turn right.
The straightaway will be used, as well as the beloved stadium bowl portion of the circuit.
But race length is still being decided, as is ticket pricing. OCESA said it wanted to get the race announced and then gauge fan interest before settling some of those issues.
Those decisions aren’t expected until early next year but crowd size is not among OCESA’s concerns: the F1 race for October has long been sold out and Mexico City was consistently voted by F1 fans as the most popular race on the calendar. NASCAR believes it could be a destination event for American fans.
“I’ll give them a lot of credit, they’ve been really trying to switch it up over the last few years,” driver Chase Elliott said. “They’ve been willing to try. I think that that is something that we should all admire and appreciate is the effort to go to different places and try new things.
“To get outside of the country and just to go do something different, I think will be fun.”
Can Kyle Busch compete?
Busch, who won the 2008 Xfinity Series race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez, posted on social media Tuesday he was “excited to race for another win in Mexico in 2025!”
NASCAR then immediately said it had already researched Busch’s eligibility to return to Mexico following his 2023 arrest for having a handgun and ammunition inside his luggage at a Mexican airport.
Busch was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. The federal Attorney General’s Office said the judge allowed a conditional punishment and Busch was permitted to leave Mexico after paying a bond.
NASCAR said any remaining legal issues involving Busch in Mexico have been resolved and he’s able to enter the country for next year’s race.
When is the rest of the NASCAR schedule coming out?
Kennedy said he’d have the entire Cup Series schedule ready to release “soon” but all the major changes have already been announced with Tuesday’s reveal of Mexico City.
The L.A. Coliseum event isn’t returning after a three-year run and NASCAR will instead run the exhibition Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, next season.
Richmond will have just one race, in the fall.
“We’re still committed to Richmond,” Kennedy said. “It’s an important track, important market. We’ve seen some exciting storylines certainly come out of that track over the past few years.”
Among scheduling already announced is that the all-star race will be at North Wilkesboro Speedway for the third consecutive year; Atlanta will move from the playoffs to open an in-season tournament on June 28; Phoenix will be the Nov. 2 season finale and Homestead-Miami Speedway’s playoff race will move to the regular season in March.
Easter weekend is expected to be the only Cup off-weekend during the 38-race season.
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
