Final weekend, the NASCAR Cup Collection race at Atlanta Motor Speedway resulted in a three-car picture end. Defending champion Ryan Blaney led a pack on the ultimate lap, with Daniel Suárez to his outdoors and two-time champion Kyle Busch behind him. Busch shot by means of the center, and all three rocketed previous the checkered flag in unison. Suárez received by 0.003 seconds over Blaney and 0.007 over Busch, marking the third-closest end in NASCAR historical past.

Atlanta was one more barn burner for NASCAR, in a decade outlined by barn burners, however can the stock-car sequence stick with it?

The rejuvenation of NASCAR’s schedule and competitors

Earlier than discussing the long run, let’s rewind. NASCAR’s fashionable “peak” was the Nineties and 2000s, which preceded a downturn in attendance and tv scores. Throughout that point, NASCAR was aggressive however repetitive: begin with the Daytona 500, run the identical racetracks, then finish with Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The primary main change of the post-peak period got here in 2014, when NASCAR launched what we now know because the “playoffs”: a cutthroat postseason that rapidly eliminates all however 4 drivers, who vie for the title on the remaining race. The very best finisher that day, in that race, wins.

Then got here observe adjustments. NASCAR launched a “roval” — an oval combined with a street course — at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2018, then elsewhere. The season finale moved from Homestead-Miami to Phoenix Raceway in 2020. NASCAR turned Bristol Motor Speedway into a dust observe in 2021, paved over the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum’s infield for a race in 2022, then hosted its first-ever race on a avenue circuit in Chicago in 2023. Atlanta bought reconfigured right into a drafting observe for 2022, NASCAR revived the beloved-but-defunct North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2023, and this 12 months, fan favourite Iowa Speedway lastly will get a Cup race.

Amid all that, in 2022, got here NASCAR’s new Cup automotive: the “Subsequent Gen.” The automotive is extra targeted on turning left and proper, making it friendlier for non-NASCAR drivers. Worldwide stars flocked in for his or her Cup debuts: Australian Supercars champions Shane van Gisbergen and Brodie Kostecki, Components One champs Kimi Räikkönen and Jenson Button, IMSA champ Jordan Taylor, excessive sports activities star Travis Pastrana, former F1 driver and present sports-car ace Kamui Kobayashi, and extra.

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In the meantime, headlines stored coming: Ross Chastain rides the wall at Martinsville Speedway to qualify for the Cup championship race. NASCAR enters the 24 Hours of Le Mans within the experimental “Storage 56” slot and steals the present. Van Gisbergen wins Chicago, marking the primary time a driver received their Cup debut since 1963, then publicizes he’ll chase a NASCAR profession. Suárez noses forward in a photograph end in Atlanta, breaking a virtually two-year winless streak.

NASCAR has a brand new id, and the competitors is electrical. The problem is conserving it that manner.

The place NASCAR goes from right here

Ben Kennedy is a member of NASCAR’s founding household, a former driver and the sequence’ senior vp of racing growth and technique. His focus is creating race schedules for NASCAR’s nationwide touring sequence: Vehicles, Xfinity and Cup. He spoke to ESPN just a few months in the past, throughout NASCAR’s seventy fifth anniversary, about how he envisions the long run.

Shifting ahead, Kennedy needs NASCAR to be a mix of latest and previous occasions, emphasizing “large temple occasions” — the Daytona 500, Coke 600, Bristol night time race, and extra — whereas conserving the remainder of the schedule attention-grabbing. Bristol, for instance, stays a playoff elimination race in 2024.

“The way in which we have considered it’s: How will we take issues which are actually particular and make them an enormous a part of the schedule?” Kennedy stated. “Then on the flip facet, how do we discover alternatives to do one thing new and completely different?

“Up to now couple of years, it has been wildly completely different from what we have historically completed, whether or not that is celebrating our previous like North Wilkesboro, or doing one thing that may cater to new followers like an L.A. Coliseum or Chicago avenue course. We have actually considered it as a mix of issues our core viewers loves, but additionally introducing new flavors to drive momentum. It is a delicate steadiness.”

A kind of temple occasions, nonetheless, possible will not be Phoenix because the season finale.

“Phoenix is one we have talked about rather a lot,” Kennedy stated. “Clearly, we had the championship at Homestead for plenty of years. We moved it to Phoenix after the redevelopment of that facility, and it is placed on some thrilling races.

“That stated, will we be in Phoenix ceaselessly for the championship race? I might be stunned if we had been. Will we proceed to have the identical playoff schedule for one more 5 years? I might be stunned if we did.”

Kennedy stated the objective now could be to house out adjustments, so NASCAR is not taking “so many bites on the apple” and consuming it too rapidly. After ESPN spoke to Kennedy, a report emerged in The Athletic suggesting that the preseason Conflict may transfer to Mexico Metropolis or Guadalajara.

“If you concentrate on 2021, I might say it was probably the most daring and aggressive schedule we have had in over 5 a long time,” Kennedy stated. “As we take into consideration 2025 and past, I feel we will have much less adjustments, however nonetheless very significant adjustments. We nonetheless wish to have bites of the apple and transfer in the best course.

“That stated, we do not wish to take two steps once we’re actually prepared for one. We wish to proceed to get to new markets, however we additionally wish to be certain the timing’s proper: We’re setting ourselves up for fulfillment, our followers are on board and the trade surrounds it, too.”

With the playoffs, Kennedy stated his crew has the identical dialog yearly: “Do we want new venues? What will we take into consideration the position of them?”

One other consideration is that NASCAR’s race and playoff codecs are designed for fixed pleasure, a lot so that individuals may get desensitized. In fashionable Components One, for instance, it is thrilling when anybody apart from Max Verstappen wins. In NASCAR, anybody may win on any weekend.

What occurs if that is not sufficient sometime? Will NASCAR overhaul the format once more?

“We’re actually proud of it proper now,” Kennedy stated. “We have been in a position to see this format play out for plenty of years, and we hear lots of positivity round it.

“Plenty of the incentives are based mostly on profitable. For those who’re not profitable, lots of it is based mostly on being constant all year long. I feel that makes these 4 [championship] drivers much more particular. And in the end, in each different sport, as you concentrate on the championship recreation, you must carry out below strain.

“Is it excellent? No. However is it engaging in pleasure and depth as you get the championship race? I feel it’s. To transcend that, I feel, begins to make it — you do not wish to say ‘synthetic,’ however virtually just a little bit much less pure.”

Within the coming years, NASCAR will largely go for tweaks over wholesale adjustments. That is positive with Kennedy — and doubtless everybody else who noticed Suárez’s Atlanta win.

“The racing motion is tremendous thrilling,” Kennedy stated. “And if you concentrate on our schedule — and never simply the playoffs, however in its entirety — I might say it is probably the most numerous in any motorsport globally.”