Huge NASCAR changes discussed as playoffs get underway

Huge changes to the NASCAR schedule have been discussed right as the Cup Series playoffs are set to get underway in Atlanta.

The Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway marks the beginning of the NASCAR post-season this weekend, with 16 drivers now set to battle it out for the Cup Series championship.

READ MORE: 2024 NASCAR Cup Series at Atlanta: Quaker State 400 start times, schedule and TV

This comes after the regular season finale at Darlington last weekend saw Tyler Reddick claim the regular season crown.

NASCAR's schedule for 2025, including the playoffs, has already been confirmed. However, an interesting revelation has been made regarding future changes the schedule could see.

READ MORE: NASCAR champ questions INTEGRITY of playoffs after Daytona shock

Major NASCAR changes discussed

On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour show, NASCAR scheduling executive Ben Kennedy was grilled by the NASCAR legend regarding a potential change to the schedule.

Harvick put to Kennedy: "When you look at going and doing — well, let’s just take the special event races, the All-Star Race and The Clash. Do you ever see a time where you combine those?”

Kennedy revealed that talks about doing so have been held and that he feels there is an opportunity there to potentially make a change.

“You know, we’ve talked about it,” Kennedy explained. “I think The Clash in particular being two weeks before the Daytona 500 makes sense on many levels. It’s an exhibition race,"

"I think we’ve always said to ourselves, and we’ve heard from our fans, that we want our first points race to be at Daytona, to be at our biggest event of the year. So, kind of keeping that in mind, if you have any of these exhibition races, like The Clash, I think that’s a huge opportunity for us, to promote the Daytona 500.

“To that point, I think the All-Star Race has taken on so many different evolutions over the past few years. We were at Charlotte. Eventually we went to Bristol, went to Texas, and now we’re at North Wilkesboro. So, something we also talk about with Speedway Motorsports is what does the future evolution of the All-Star Race look like? I think there’s a theory around the All-Star Race, every weekend is the All-Star Race. We have our biggest names and our biggest drivers on all of these races. It’s a different format, and it’s a format similar to The Clash.

“So, you know, we’ve talked about all sorts of different concepts of, you know, do you continue to have the exhibition race? Do you look at something different? We’ve still got to work on what that’s going to be, but I do think that there’s an opportunity we could look at with SM.”

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