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As the 2018 season approaches the halfway point, NASCAR has announced the 2019 race calendar for the Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series.
Like the Monster Energy Cup Series, the Xfinity and Truck Series will begin their respective seasons at Daytona International Speedway and conclude at Homestead-Miami Speedway. All three series will be off during the Easter weekend (April 20-21), and the new track dates will bring a measure of consistency to both series.
As announced by NASCAR in May, starting in 2019, the current Camping World Truck Series will be rebranded as NASCAR Gander Outdoors Trcks Series.
“What we’ve been trying to do the last couple years is getting the schedules out, along with the start times, as early in the process as possible,” said Steve Herbst, NASCAR vice president of broadcasting and production. “It’s just a real positive for everyone involved; (for) NASCAR in getting their plans together, for the tracks to start getting their marketing materials together and marketing their races for next year, for the fans to make their plans ahead of time as possible. So, I think the No. 1 thing is try to get it out as early as possible. We’ll follow up soon for the start times for everything and people can really lock in their 2019 plans.”
The race weekend at Eldora Speedway in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series has been moved to a later date in the season; it is now set to run on Thursday, August 1. The November Texas race in the Truck Series will be moved to Friday, March 29, shortening the long spring break for the series. The rest of the schedule will closely mirror the 2018 lineup for both series.
“Consistency over the course of a couple years is something that was also really important to us,” Herbst said. “Doesn’t mean we won’t make tweaks here and there, date switches that make sense. But we like to make some changes and let it breathe for a while.”
The sanctioning body exec continued, “It’s hard to already make changes on things before they actually breathe a little bit. We want to get people accustomed to it, test it, see how it works—does it work for the fans, does it work for the tracks? And then do a little bit more of an analysis after a couple of years of data (to figure out) do we want to keep it the same or do we want to make any further changes.”
Regardless of how the schedule is set for the 2019 season in the Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series, one aspect that Steve Herbst doesn’t expect to change is the level of excitement and the quality of racing displayed in both series.
“For the Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series, I think for us, this offers some of the best racing that we have available to us,” Herbst concluded. “Obviously we’re proud of all three series, they’ve all delivered great racing week in, week out over the course of a 10-month season.”
The entire list of races for the 2019 NASCAR Xfinity and Gander Outdoors Truck Series can be viewed on NASCAR.com.
