DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR announced on Wednesday the full 2019 schedules for both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series.
Both divisions will start their season at Daytona Int’l Speedway in February and will conclude their championship campaigns at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November, just as the premier Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series does each year.
All three series will be off on Easter weekend, while in between the Florida bookends, a full run of diverse tracks and locales will ensue for both series.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will contest a 33-race schedule that is identical to its calendar this season, save for the move of the spring races at Texas Motor Speedway, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and Richmond (Va.) Raceway ahead one week each due to Easter.
The Xfinity Series playoffs will again begin at Richmond on Sept. 20, just as in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Truck Series – which assumes new sponsorship from Camping World partner brand Gander Outdoors beginning next year – will move into the new season with two minor changes to its 23-race lineup.
First, the tour’s annual dirt track race at the Eldora Speedway half-mile will move back from mid-July to Thursday, Aug. 1 – placing it just ahead of the doubleheader weekend at Watkins Glen Int’l on Aug. 3-4 that features the Xfinity Series and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Second, the traditional November Truck Series date at Texas Motor Speedway will move to March, creating a tripleheader weekend from March 29-31 featuring all three of NASCAR’s national touring series.
Texas Motor Speedway track president Eddie Gossage noted Wednesday that the move in scheduling was made to help ease the long spring break that the Truck Series has endured for the last several years.
“The JAG Metals 350 race was shifted to the spring to assist NASCAR with race scheduling in the early part of the season, as well as to help FOX Sports 1 with television programming in that time frame,” explained Gossage. “NASCAR asked if we could help and we wanted to be a good partner to the sanctioning body, network and the sport as a whole.”
With the change to Texas’ second date, the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series regular season will end at Michigan Int’l Speedway on Aug. 10 next year and the playoffs will begin at Bristol on Thursday, Aug. 15.
The opening round of the Truck Series playoffs – the Round of 8 – will consist of races at Bristol, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, while the Round of 6 features events at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Martinsville (Va.) Speedway and ISM Raceway in Arizona.
To view the full schedules for both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series, advance to the next page.
