NASCAR Cup Series set to make mark in Mexico

Article posted by Coliseum, September 4^th, 2024

Image: @NASCAR on X

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) announced recently it will race South of the border in 2025 with Mexico City’s (Mexico) Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (car racing track) hosting a Cup Series race on June 15^th of next year.

‘cbssports.com’ stated that the event will mark the first Cup Series race outside the United States in NASCAR’s modern era.

Daytona Beach (US)-based the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in the world and is one of the largest spectator sports in America.

The 110,000-capacity the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is a 4.304 km motorsport race track in Mexico City, Mexico, named after the racing drivers Ricardo Rodríguez and Pedro Rodríguez. The circuit got its name shortly after it opened in November 1959 when Ricardo Rodríguez died in practice for the non-Championship 1962 Mexican Grand Prix.

The Mexican Grand Prix, currently held under the name Mexico City Grand Prix, is a motor racing event held at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. It was first held as a non-Championship event in 1962 before being held as a Championship event from 1963-1970 and from 1986-1992. The Grand Prix returned in 2015 at the Mexico City Circuit and the event was held from 2015 to 2019 and is being held since 2021.The motorsport race track is contracted to host the event until 2025. In 2020, the racing spectacle was canceled due to the global outbreak of COVID-19.

The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious Stock Car Racing Series in the United States.

‘cbssports.com’ further stated that the 2.7-mile, 17-turn road course, which has regularly hosted Formula One’s Mexican Grand Prix, will host a NASCAR race weekend from June 13^th-15^th featuring the NASCAR Mexico Series and the Xfinity Series in the lead-up to the Cup race. The circuit, a fixture in the Mexico Series since the tour was launched in 2004, previously hosted the Xfinity Series races from 2005 to 2008 with winners including the American race car drivers Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombian motorsports racing driver), and Kyle Busch (American motorsports racing driver).

The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR’s second-tier circuit to the organization’s top-level Cup Series. The NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a Cup Series event scheduled for that weekend.

The Mexico City race will mark the first Cup Series event outside the United States in NASCAR’s modern era (1972 onward) and the first overall since 1958. The last Cup race on foreign soil took place at the now closed 43,737-capacity Canadian National Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, Ontario (Canada), a race won by Hall of Famer Lee Petty (American race car driver).

A statement sent out by Ben Kennedy, NASCAR Senior Vice-President of Racing Strategy and Development, read, “This is a historic moment for our sport, especially for the NASCAR Cup, as it gets to make its mark in Mexico. We’ve been bold in our global growth strategies so there’s no better option to take the next step than racing at the iconic Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City.”

Besides bringing the highest level of stock car racing to Mexico City, the race will also mark a homecoming for the Cup Series star Daniel Suarez. Suarez, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, will race in his home country after becoming the first foreign-born champion in NASCAR when he won the Xfinity Series title in 2016. Suarez has since added two career Cup victories, including earlier this year in Atlanta (US) where he prevailed in the closest three-wide photo finish in the Series history.

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez first opened in 1959 as the Autódromo Magdalena Mixhuca but was later named for the Mexican racing brothers Ricardo and Pedro Rodríguez (Ricardo, the first Mexican driver to ever compete in F1, was killed in an accident at the circuit in 1962). In addition to F1 and NASCAR, the circuit has also hosted races in the International Automobile Federation (FIA) World Endurance Championship (WEC – an auto racing world championship), Trans-Am (a US-based automobile racing series), Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART – a sanctioning body for open-wheel car racing in the United States that operated from 1979 to 2003), and the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA – a North American sports car racing sanctioning body), among others.

London (UK)-based the Formula One, commonly known as Formula 1 or F1, is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).

Paris (France)-based the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) – popularly known as the International Automobile Federation – is an international organization with two primary functions surrounding use of the automobile. Its mobility division advocates the interests of the motoring organizations, the automotive industry and the motor car users in the fields of road safety and traffic circulation.

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