The Daytona 500 returned to President’s Day weekend, its former iconic date.
The three-quarter mile Richmond International Raceway short track will host one of the playoff races, and its spring date, now on April 21, returned to a Saturday night feature.
The traditional regular-season finale will now go from the Richmond short track to the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sept. 9.
Chicagoland Speedway was the site of NBC Sports’ 2018 season debut on July 1, just prior to the traditional Daytona International Speedway Coke Zero 400 stop a week later.
MORE: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s greatest accomplishments
Another playoff change: Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s brand new “second date” of the season will officially kick off NASCAR’s playoffs on Sept. 16. Also significant: Charlotte Motor Speedway’s playoff race will now be run on the venue’s road course instead of its 1.5-mile oval.
The opening three-race playoff round is now Las Vegas-Richmond-Charlotte. The next round starts at Dover, then heads to Talladega and concludes in Kansas. The Round of 8 again is Martinsville-Texas-Phoenix, with the championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 18.
The points system will remain the same. Drivers in all three national series will earn “playoff points” to be used in the postseason. Winners of Stage 1 or Stage 2 of a race earn one point per stage win, and the race winner gets five playoff points. Fifteen playoff points are rewarded to the winner of the regular-season championship. The playoff points are added to a championship-contending driver’s reset points total at the start of every round of the playoffs until they are eliminated from championship contention.
Here is a look at the full 2018 NASCAR race schedule with tracks, start times and TV channels.
2018 NASCAR schedule
Race — Track — Date, time, TV channel
(all times Eastern)
