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DARLINGTON, S.C. — The reveal of the 2025 NASCAR schedule last week presented a new list of tracks, playoff rounds and countries. It’s also posed a new but mundane challenge for one driver — Alex Bowman, who has never left the United States — that wasn’t fully anticipated: To obtain a passport for international travel.
“My life is pretty easy,” Bowman said. “Like, people can do a lot of things … like drivers in general, I feel like we get a little bit babied, and passports is one of those things that like I feel like we’ve got to do ourselves. So I’ve got to go do that.”
Paperwork, ID photos and forms aside, the calendar was greeted with largely positive reaction from drivers upon their arrival to Darlington Raceway, a historic standby on the schedule that plays host to Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM). The addition of the Cup Series’ first international race in the modern era — a June 15 date in Mexico City — stands out as a highlight for the sport’s growth on the global stage.
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“I think it’s neat that we’re going,” said defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney. “We’ve all been pushing to kind of go international here, to another country here for a while, and I know Canada and Mexico were on the board. I ran trucks up in Canada more than a handful of years ago, and it was great. The fans there were awesome, and I think that Mexico’s going to be no different. I think the fans are going to be super dedicated for us coming there, and that’s what happens when you bring a sport to a country that doesn’t normally have that type of sport. You look at F1, the reason why it’s so big is, OK, this race is coming to your country once a year, and they make a huge event out of it. So I feel like that is positive for our sport.”
A handful of current Cup Series drivers have raced at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez course in the Mexican capital city, notably Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. — who won Xfinity Series events there during its four-year run from 2005-08. Front Row Motorsports veteran Michael McDowell had a different experience there, running a doubleheader weekend of IMSA and IndyCar events in Mexico City back in 2005.
“It was electric. I mean, it really was,” McDowell said of the atmosphere. “When you watch a soccer World Cup or something like that, that’s the kind of feel that you have there. The fans are very loud, they’re into it. If there’s a hometown driver, you can hear when he crosses the start/finish line, right? It’s amazing.”
The Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series schedules also welcomed the return of a familiar favorite, Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway, for a Friday-Saturday twin bill April 18-19 before Easter Sunday. It’s the second resurrection for the 1.017-mile oval that hosted Cup Series stars for 40 seasons after it opened in 1965. The Xfinity Series returns to the 1.017-mile oval for the first time since 2004, and the Trucks last visited in 2013, when Kyle Larson broke through for his first NASCAR national-series win.
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“I do think it‘s awesome that we‘re going back to venues, kind of restoring venues like Rockingham, North Wilkesboro, all that,” Larson said. “So yeah, I think the schedule is pretty cool. … I think the variety and for the lower series to tie in those grassroots-style fanbases is great.”
The Truck Series is also planning its first visit June 28 to Lime Rock Park, the picturesque 1.53-mile road course in Lakeville, Connecticut. For Nutmeg State native Joey Logano, the addition is a special one — even though logistics will keep him from entering the home-state event as a one-off start, since it’s held the same day as a Cup Series race that evening at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“Outside of me running it, it’s awesome that NASCAR is going back to Connecticut and even at the Truck level,” Logano said. “I mean, there’s a lot of race fans up there. I grew up there and I remember going to so many different garages and there’s always NASCAR calendars and NASCAR memorabilia of some sort. Modified racing up there is huge. There are a ton of race fans in New England that I feel like get overlooked a lot because our sport sometimes is looked at as a Southeastern sport, but it’s so nationwide at this point and New England has some die-hard race fans. It’s cool to have some more racing up there for them for sure.”
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