Last weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway ended in a three-car photo finish. Defending champion Ryan Blaney led a pack on the final lap, with Daniel Suárez to his outside and two-time champion Kyle Busch behind him. Busch shot through the middle, and all three rocketed past the checkered flag in unison. Suárez won by 0.003 seconds over Blaney and 0.007 over Busch, marking the third-closest finish in NASCAR history.
Atlanta was yet another barn burner for NASCAR, in a decade defined by barn burners, but can the stock-car series keep it up?
The rejuvenation of NASCAR's schedule and competition
Before discussing the future, let's rewind. NASCAR's modern "peak" was the 1990s and 2000s, which preceded a downturn in attendance and television ratings. During that time, NASCAR was competitive but repetitive: start with the Daytona 500, run the same racetracks, then end with Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The first major change of the post-peak era came in 2014, when NASCAR introduced what we now know as the "playoffs": a cutthroat postseason that quickly eliminates all but four drivers, who vie for the title at the final race. The highest finisher that day, in that race, wins.
Then came track changes. NASCAR introduced a "roval" -- an oval mixed with a road 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 dirt track in 2021, paved over the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's infield for a race in 2022, then hosted its first-ever race on a street circuit in Chicago in 2023. Atlanta got reconfigured into a drafting track for 2022, NASCAR revived the beloved-but-defunct North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2023, and this year, fan favorite Iowa Speedway finally gets a Cup race.
Amid all that, in 2022, came NASCAR's new Cup car: the "Next Gen." The car is more focused on turning left and right, making it friendlier for non-NASCAR drivers. International stars flocked in for their Cup debuts: Australian Supercars champions Shane van Gisbergen and Brodie Kostecki, Formula One champs Kimi Räikkönen and Jenson Button, IMSA champ Jordan Taylor, extreme sports star Travis Pastrana, former F1 driver and current sports-car ace Kamui Kobayashi, and more.
Meanwhile, headlines kept coming: Ross Chastain rides the wall at Martinsville Speedway to qualify for the Cup championship race. NASCAR enters the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the experimental "Garage 56" slot and steals the show. Van Gisbergen wins Chicago, marking the first time a driver won their Cup debut since 1963, then announces he'll chase a NASCAR career. Suárez noses ahead in a photo finish in Atlanta, breaking a nearly two-year winless streak.
NASCAR has a new identity, and the competition is electric. The challenge is keeping it that way.
Where NASCAR goes from here
Ben Kennedy is a member of NASCAR's founding family, a former driver and the series' senior vice president of racing development and strategy. His focus is creating race schedules for NASCAR's national touring series: Trucks, Xfinity and Cup. He spoke to ESPN a few months ago, during NASCAR's 75th anniversary, about how he envisions the future.
Moving forward, Kennedy wants NASCAR to be a blend of new and old events, emphasizing "big tent-pole events" -- the Daytona 500, Coke 600, Bristol night race, and more -- while keeping the rest of the schedule interesting. Bristol, for example, remains a playoff elimination race in 2024.
"The way we've thought about it is: How do we take things that are really special and make them a big part of the schedule?" Kennedy said. "Then on the flip side, how do we find opportunities to do something new and different?
"In the past couple of years, it's been wildly different from what we've traditionally done, whether that's celebrating our past like North Wilkesboro, or doing something that might cater to new fans like an L.A. Coliseum or Chicago street course. We've really thought about it as a blend of things our core audience loves, but also introducing new flavors to drive momentum. It's a delicate balance."
One of those tent-pole events, however, likely won't be Phoenix as the season finale.
"Phoenix is one we've talked about a lot," Kennedy said. "Obviously, we had the championship at Homestead for a number of years. We moved it to Phoenix after the redevelopment of that facility, and it's put on some exciting races.
"That said, will we be in Phoenix forever for the championship race? I'd be surprised if we were. Will we continue to have the same playoff schedule for another five years? I'd be surprised if we did."
Kennedy said the goal now is to space out changes, so NASCAR isn't taking "so many bites at the apple" and eating it too quickly. After ESPN spoke to Kennedy, a report emerged in The Athletic suggesting that the preseason Clash could move to Mexico City or Guadalajara.
"If you think about 2021, I would say it was the most bold and aggressive schedule we've had in over five decades," Kennedy said. "As we think about 2025 and beyond, I think we're going to have less changes, but still very meaningful changes. We still want to have bites of the apple and move in the right direction.
"That said, we don't want to take two steps when we're really ready for one. We want to continue to get to new markets, but we also want to make sure the timing's right: We're setting ourselves up for success, our fans are on board and the industry surrounds it, too."
With the playoffs, Kennedy said his team has the same conversation annually: "Do we need new venues? What do we think about the placement of them?"
Another consideration is that NASCAR's race and playoff formats are designed for constant excitement, so much so that people could get desensitized. In modern Formula One, for example, it's exciting when anyone other than Max Verstappen wins. In NASCAR, anyone could win on any weekend.
What happens if that's not enough someday? Will NASCAR overhaul the format again?
"We're really happy with it right now," Kennedy said. "We've been able to see this format play out for a number of years, and we hear a lot of positivity around it.
"A lot of the incentives are based on winning. If you're not winning, a lot of it's based on being consistent throughout the year. I think that makes those four [championship] drivers even more special. And ultimately, in every other sport, as you think about the championship game, you have to perform under pressure.
"Is it perfect? No. But is it accomplishing excitement and intensity as you get the championship race? I think it is. To go beyond that, I think, starts to make it -- you don't want to say 'artificial,' but almost a little bit less natural."
In the coming years, NASCAR will mostly go for tweaks over wholesale changes. That's fine with Kennedy -- and probably everyone else who saw Suárez's Atlanta win.
"The racing action is super exciting," Kennedy said. "And if you think about our schedule -- and not just the playoffs, but in its entirety -- I would say it's the most diverse in any motorsport globally."