CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Blog by Managing Editor Jacob Seelman for Race Chaser Online — Brian Lawdermilk/NASCAR via Getty Images photo — After three days it’s finally time to discuss the big boys.

We’ve hashed through the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule changes that I would like to see for the upcoming year, and now, on the eve of the scheduling announcements by NASCAR, I’m bringing my look at the Sprint Cup schedule to the table.

For starters, all that discussion I brought up about moving Daytona Speedweeks up a week in 2015? Here’s why. Put the Sprint Unlimited the Saturday following the Super Bowl. There is no reason why we should have to wait until Valentine’s Day to start racing again — we used to run that early in February for years, there were times when the 500 itself actually FELL on Valentine’s Day back in the 80s and 90s. In fact, Jamie McMurray’s triumph in 2010 was on Valentine’s Day — it’s been done. Let’s move Speedweeks back to a sensible time in February so we can have a quicker start to the season, the week after the Super Bowl.

I know some people are going “well, what if the NFL goes to an 18-game schedule and the Super Bowl falls on that weekend?” News flash, people: they haven’t, have they?? I’ve not even heard a rumbling about it. We need to stop worrying so much about the NFL and start worrying about what’s going to help the sport — NASCAR fans will watch the Daytona 500. I don’t care what you put in their way.

So, you’ve got Daytona Speedweeks the two weeks immediately following the Super Bowl. Then what? Here’s a bright idea. Let the shop crews breathe and not freak out and take a week off following the 500! Give them a week to repair all the crap we know they’re going to break and then turn them loose. I know it bothered NASCAR to have an early off week before now, but I DID put a Truck race at Homestead on that Saturday, so all is not lost.

Then, let’s take a cue from the NHRA and have ourselves a “Western Swing”, shall we? Let’s hit all our early season western tracks in one blast in March — Texas, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Fontana — all in a row. It’s economical and it cuts down on travel miles for the rigs (providing you don’t tear up your stuff of course, but that’s what second crews at the shop are for).

Then we get a break for Easter (two weeks, actually, but I’ll explain that in greater detail in a bit) before we have some fun. Short track central — Martinsville, Bristol and Richmond back-to-back-to-back in mid-April.

You think the shop crews will have fun with that one? Plus, it lets the drivers get all their aggression out in one big chunk before we continue with normalcy.

Next we’ll have a short mid-South excursion in May with Talladega and Atlanta before we roll into our traditional two-week Charlotte stretch with the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600. Mostly normal. I know people are fussing about me putting Atlanta on Mother’s Day, but here — it’ll be a night race, and we DO already race on Father’s Day. Why can’t we race on Mother’s Day?

Following Memorial Day weekend, we’ll go on a Midwest jaunt and hit Kansas, Iowa (yes, Iowa), Michigan, Road America (yes, I said that too) and Kentucky through the end of May and the month of June. Here’s what I did. I tossed out a Dover date to add Iowa and moved Sonoma later in the season to put Road America in Sonoma’s spot on the schedule. More on that a bit later.

Then we hit Independence Day weekend, and of course — Daytona (which actually falls on July 4th this year for the first time in a while). Stay in Florida an extra week and head to Homestead before taking a weekend off to prep for the Brickyard 400 at the end of July. It is tradition after all.

After Indy, we’ll head to the north side of town and roll through Pocono (which only gets one stop on my schedule), Watkins Glen, Michigan and Bristol — that’s exactly like it is on the current schedule. Totally normal.

I moved Richmond up because Labor Day is late in 2015, so it becomes the race after Bristol — one more time for drivers to get their tempers out all at once.

Then, we hit Labor Day weekend, and the return of the Southern 500 to its rightful place on the circuit after 12 years of nonsense with it being everywhere from November to Mother’s Day weekend. (Which, by the way, Bruton Smith confirmed earlier today that according to what he heard from NASCAR, this little nugget is actually happening — YAY!) I also made Darlington my regular-season finale, because who doesn’t love prestige combined with drama?

Now, here’s where I’m going to make some people go, “wait, what?”

Take a week off after Richmond. The drivers have said for about two years now (most notably Jimmie Johnson) that they would love a weekend to recharge before the Chase starts. I’m going to give them that weekend off, but not a full two week span to prep for the race to the Chase…

This part was inspired by a blog from Brad Keselowski on his website a couple of weeks ago and made me think….you know what, that might actually work.

Move Loudon’s date up, and since it’s been widely speculated for a while that they want to add lights in New England, add lights and make it a Wednesday night race in primetime.

You heard me. That would shake the landscape up, there’s very few sports that I can think of that play games on national television on Wednesday night — it’s a perfect storm for NASCAR to control the sports landscape for a night.

Brad’s second idea was doubleheaders in the same week. I liked that too, so I’m borrowing a piece of it. Go from Loudon Wednesday night to Dover on Sunday afternoon, and let the Cup cars practice and qualify on Saturday so they don’t have to panic about a 24 hour turnaround.

Then from there, hit Chicagoland, Kansas and Charlotte as your next three races in the Chase before going to Talladega for the sixth race in the Chase. Sounds familiar, right? Kansas, Charlotte, Talladega is exactly what races 4-6 (the Contender Round) are in this year’s Chase.

Then go to Martinsville for Race 7 of the Chase before we head west to stay for the finale run. That’s the same as 2014 as well, except we would come back east for Homestead.

Not in my world.

Race 8 goes to the Sonoma event that I moved from the heat of the summer, putting a road-course race into the Chase for the first time and eliminating the second Texas event. Race 9, the penultimate race of the season, is awarded to Phoenix just as in 2014.

And of course, just as the previous two blogs I wrote did, I’m sending the Cup Series to Las Vegas for a tripleheader championship finale in Sin City November 13th to the 15th.

If you’ve been keeping count, that’s 35 races — one less than in 2014 — and the season ends a week earlier. How’s that for some good news?

My plans were simple — regionalize the schedule so you can promote NASCAR by region instead of all this bouncing around and unnecessary extra traveling and put one of every track type in the Chase. I did that with a Western segment, an Eastern segment, a Midwest segment, a Northern bounce, a fairly reasonable Chase first half and then a second Western swing to close it out.

And then with the Chase? I hit the superspeedway (Talladega), the short track (Martinsville), the road course (Sonoma), the miles (Dover, Phoenix and Loudon) and the intermediates (Kansas, Charlotte, Las Vegas, and Chicagoland). Even with the mile-and-a-halfs, you’ve got a quad-oval, a D-shaped oval, and two tri-ovals. I like that mix.

Here’s a recap to the changes I made: I removed second dates from Texas, Pocono, Dover and Loudon. I added dates to Las Vegas, Iowa and Road America (yes, I understand I messed up the SMI balance by one, but if you want to invent a place for that second Texas date, be my guest).

Am I right? Probably not with a lot of it. I doubt Iowa or Road America gets a slot on the schedule, despite how much I want one or both of them to be on there. But it’s a nice thought.

The other nice thought? We find out what’s really happening tomorrow.

Keep it off the wall race fans, until we find out what NASCAR’s got in store for us at 5 PM tomorrow on NASCAR Race Hub and NASCAR America.

REVISED 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Schedule