Texas Motor Speedway’s spring race moves back to Sunday in 2017
Texas Motor Speedway is going back to having a Sunday afternoon race in the spring.
NASCAR released its 2017 schedule Thursday, and the change seemed to please TMS president Eddie Gossage.
“Between meetings with our fan council, feedback from season-ticket holders and Texas Motor Speedway fans in general, the overall sentiment is that they preferred a Sunday race because it provided a more expansive weekend of activities,” Gossage said in a statement.
This is great for the tourism-related businesses in Dallas-Fort Worth and a great schedule for our fans.
TMS president Eddie Gossage
The 2017 spring Cup race is scheduled for Sunday, April 9. The race weekend begins on Thursday with Xfinity Series practice. The Cup series will practice and qualify on Friday, and the Xfinity Series race will take place on Saturday.
“This is great for the tourism-related businesses in Dallas-Fort Worth and a great schedule for our fans,” Gossage said. “I would think our campgrounds will sell very quickly now. This weekend will be the biggest party in Texas.”
The spring stop at Texas had traditionally been highlighted by a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday. That had been the format from 1997 through 2010 before it switched to a night race in 2011.
The only exception had been in 2014 when it went back to Sunday to avoid a direct conflict with the NCAA Final Four that weekend at AT&T Stadium.
Another benefit to returning to Sunday is more flexibility should weather be an issue. This year’s spring race didn’t end until after midnight because of a weather delay. Coincidently, the last two scheduled Sunday starts in April — 2010 and 2014 — were both bumped to Monday because of rain.
The 2017 fall race, meanwhile, is set for Sunday, Nov. 5.
Overall, the Sprint Cup schedule will remain mostly unchanged in 2017, with one notable exception — swapping the Chase race order at Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas Speedway.
For 2017, Talladega (Oct. 15) will be the second race in the Round of 12 with Kansas becoming the third — and elimination — race (Oct. 22) for the Round of 12, according to NASCAR.com.
The release of the 2017 NASCAR schedules came months earlier than the typical fall arrival.
This story was originally published May 5, 2016 at 9:50 AM with the headline "Texas Motor Speedway’s spring race moves back to Sunday in 2017."