The NASCAR Cup Series will make its debut at Iowa Speedway next season.
As part of a complete national touring schedule that should be revealed on Wednesday, a tripleheader has been added to the Newton, Iowa 7/8-mile short track which will take place on June 13-15 and features ARCA, Xfinity, and Cup Series races.
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The announcement was made official on Tuesday by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on the grounds of the state capital.
“As governor, I am confident that not only will we meet the expectations of NASCAR and its fans, we will exceed them,” said Reynolds, who was flanked by NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Rusty Wallace, who designed the speedway, and 2012 Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski.
NASCAR also considered an event in Montreal for 2024
Iowa is nominally a replacement for Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California which will fall off the schedule next season as it undergoes a transformation from a two-mile superspeedway into a half-mile short track.
NASCAR had targeted a new event at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada but it seems likely that an agreement could not be reached, which was the holdup in revealing the full 2024 schedule, and also resulted in the pivot to Iowa.
The Iowa Corn Growers Association will serve as the entitlement sponsor of the weekend.
Iowa Speedway was built in 2006 and has hosted IndyCar, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck Series races but never the Cup Series. The track seats just 30,000 fans in its natural configuration and the facility was never viewed as one that could support a Cup event in its heyday.
The track is located 35 miles east of Des Moines.
NASCAR hasn’t raced at Iowa since 2019 with COVID-19 canceling a scheduled race in 2020. The facility sat dormant until 2022 when the IndyCar Series returned to the track with support from grocery chain HY-VEE, which invested substantially in track infrastructure.
Wallace said today was a ‘dream come true’ for a track that he designed with the hopes of someday supporting a Cup Series race.
“Today is our day,” Wallace said. “We finally got it.”
Keselowski, for his part, called the track ‘one of the best in the country.’