NASCAR Draft Kit: What's New for 2025

Before we can fill out our cheat sheets or prepare our draft strategies for the upcoming 2025 NASCAR season, there are many changes that we need to take into account in order to be prepared for any fantasy racing league. We're going to take an in-depth look at some of these changes that we'll see and some that aren't so apparent when the engines fire up at Daytona in February.

Driver Changes

Thanks to the usual silly season movement and free agent driver signings, we have several different drivers that have moved to new teams in 2025. There are a handful of teams that are shutting down and some that are starting new. There are a few teams that have merged or contracted in order to stay competitive. Also, a handful of driver/team swaps have taken place along with a few rookie driver promotions.

2025 Schedule Changes

The schedule has a number of tweaks and new events added for the 2025 season. It starts at the very beginning with a change of venues for the Busch Light Clash. The past three seasons NASCAR has competed on a purpose-built small oval in the LA Coliseum. This season the sanctioning body has moved venues to the historic oval at Bowman Gray Stadium. This is only an exhibition race, but it does show the commitment by NASCAR to keep shaking things up and trying new tracks. As for the regular season, we get a new event for 2025 as NASCAR takes us south of the border to Mexico City for Father's Day weekend racing at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. That will be a new event for the season and causes the Sonoma Raceway event to be shuffled down into the July calendar and the second of two Richmond dates to be dropped to make room. As far as the layout of the schedule is concerned, we have multiple dates/tracks shuffling in the order compared to last season. It will be difficult to get a handle on where the Cup Series is going week-to-week due to these changes, so we suggest keeping a 2025 schedule handy. The historical norms of where and when NASCAR races used to be set in stone, but they're really shuffling the deck this season with multiple changes. As for the playoffs, NASCAR has moved Daytona back to being the cut-race to make the 10-race playoff, replacing Darlington. The playoffs will now commence at Darlington rather than Atlanta as last season. World Wide Technology Raceway replaces Watkins Glen in the opening round of the playoffs and Loudon, New Hampshire makes a return to the postseason in the second round of the playoffs. The season will once again conclude with the championship round at Phoenix Raceway and that is one spot that remains unchanged over recent seasons.

As NASCAR continues to change and evolve, so does the Cup Series schedule. The upcoming season offers some new events and some returning old events in a jam-packed 36-event calendar, plus exhibition races. Unlike 2024, there will be just one-off weekend, which will make the rest of the schedule unbroken and grueling. The ironman-type slate will prove to be very challenging for the competitors as they race nearly uninterrupted from February to November. 

Busch Light Clash – New Track

NASCAR announced The Clash will come to historic Bowman Gray Stadium for the first-time as the opening exhibition event for the 2025 season on February 2. This will mark the first NASCAR Cup Series event at the racetrack in 54 years. The Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium will be broadcast live on FOX. Built in 1937, Bowman Gray Stadium, a quarter-mile short track, holds a special place in NASCAR history as the longest-running weekly racetrack. In 1949, Bill France Sr. and Alvin Hawkins, two founding fathers of NASCAR, brought motorsports to the facility as the first weekly racetrack and first paved racetrack that NASCAR competed on. During 2024, NASCAR took over the long-term management of racing operations at Bowman Gray Stadium in partnership with the City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The racetrack hosted 29 NASCAR Grand National, now NASCAR Cup Series, races from 1958 to 1971. Bowman Gray Stadium has hosted many NASCAR legends including Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, Glen Wood, David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Richie Evans, Jerry Cook, and others. Petty won his 100th NASCAR Grand National race in the 1969 Myers Brothers 250 at the racetrack.

After three seasons of racing on the temporary track at the LA Coliseum, the sanctioning body have decided to return the action to a more historic and iconic venue for 2025. The move is hoped to spur a little bit of nostalgia and return to the roots of NASCAR racing. Bowman Gray's limited facilities were a bit of a challenge, but upgrades and improvements have been made specifically to hold this Busch Light Clash event. The track has installed new lighting and SAFER barriers to bring the facility up to modern day standards. Also, less obvious improvements are being made to parking and the facilities to improve the fan experience. It remains to be seen if NASCAR will continue racing at Bowman Gray Stadium in the future, but the amount of investment seems to indicate that is the intent.

New Race – Mexico City

In one of the biggest NASCAR schedule developments in years, NASCAR confirmed last August that it will bring its premier NASCAR Cup Series to Mexico City, Mexico in the upcoming season to headline a triple-header weekend at the famed Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez road course. The NASCAR Cup Series race is slated for June 15, 2025, with NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Mexico Series races during the weekend as well in what is a multi-year deal with the venue. This marks the first points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race held outside the United States since July 1958 when the series raced in Toronto, Canada. NASCAR did hold three exhibition races in Suzuka City, Japan from 1996-1998.

The 2.674-mile, 17-turn road course has hosted Formula 1 since 2015 and will now host a NASCAR Cup Series event in 2025. NASCAR raced four Xfinity Series events at this same track between 2005 to 2008, so some of the drivers shouldn't be entirely unfamiliar with the layout. Mexican driver Daniel Suarez is really excited to be a part of NASCAR's move back to Mexico and ticket sales have been very robust since the announcement. This will be a sixth road racing event in the 2025 calendar and the second of the two Richmond dates was dropped in order to make room for Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez.

Team Changes and Closures

Stewart Haas Racing announced mid-year last season that 2024 would be their final NASCAR Cup Series campaign. Their four Cup Series teams (Josh Berry, Chase Briscoe, Noah Gragson and Ryan Preece) would be closed and only a Xfinity Series commitment would remain of SHR. In addition, co-owner of SHR Gene Haas, announced that a new team would rise up out of the closure of the old operation (Haas Factory Team) and would be driven by Cole Custer. This major shakeup changed the landscape of NASCAR's top division and gave the field of teams four skilled drivers to absorb. This major news story along with a heavier than usual amount of free agent moves made the 2024 silly season pretty epic. It will take some time to get used to all the new faces in new places, but the season will prove very interesting to see how all these moves settle out.

Practice & Qualifying Procedure Changes

NASCAR announced that its three national touring series – the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – will adjust the practice and qualifying procedures for the 2025 season. The updated P&Q schedule will include more practice time, consistency in procedure across all three series and a return to simplified starting lineup rules. With the exception of the superspeedway events, each qualifying session will be one round, with each vehicle's starting position determined solely by its qualifying results.

NASCAR also announced that a practice session prior to Daytona 500 qualifying has been added to the Daytona International Speedway weekend schedule. The 50-minute pre-qualifying practice is scheduled for Wednesday, February 12. The annual DAYTONA 500 Media Day will also take place that same day and ending at 7 p.m. ET. Daytona 500 Busch Light Pole Award Qualifying will follow at 8:15 p.m. ET.

The revised format for practice and qualifying is as follows:

Standard P&Q

• 25-minute practice for Group 1; 25-minute practice for Group 2
  • Groups and qualifying order are determined by metrics (70% based on previous race finish by owner; 30% based on owner points position. The best scoring cars in metrics will be placed in Group 2.)
• Qualifying will be one lap, one round
• Tracks: Las Vegas 1-2, Phoenix-1, Miami, Darlington 1-2, Texas, Kansas 1-2, Charlotte, Nashville, Michigan, Pocono, WWTR, New Hampshire

Short Track P&Q

• 25-minute practice for Group 1; 25-minute practice for Group 2
• Qualifying will be two laps, one round
• Tracks: Martinsville 1-2, Bristol 1-2, Dover, Iowa, Richmond

Superspeedway Qualifying

• Qualifying will be one lap, two rounds
• Fastest 10 cars in first round advance to final round
• Starting positions 1-10 will be based on fastest qualifying time in final round; remainder of field will start based on qualifying results in first round.
• Tracks: Atlanta 1-2, Talladega 1-2, Daytona-2

Road Course P&Q

• 25-minute practice for Group 1; 25-minute practice for Group 2
• 20-minute qualifying for Group 1, multi cars on track; 20-minute qualifying for Group 2, multi cars on track
• One round of qualifying
• Tracks: Chicago Street Race, Sonoma, Watkins Glen, Charlotte Roval