NASCAR adds Iowa Speedway to 2024 Cup Series schedule

NASCAR’s Cup Series is coming to Iowa Speedway.

NASCAR announced Tuesday that its top series would run at the track June 16, 2024. NASCAR’s Xfinity and Truck Series began racing at the track in 2009 but haven’t been back since 2019 after the 2020 races were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 0.875-mile track located approximately 30 miles east of Des Moines was designed by former NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace and opened in 2006. Its first major race was an IndyCar race in 2007 before NASCAR brought its Nos. 2 and 3 series there two years later.

After it faced financial issues in the early 2010s, NASCAR purchased the track in 2013. But the sanctioning body never added a Cup Series race in the years after buying the track.

“Today’s announcement is an exciting one for NASCAR and for race fans in the state of Iowa,” NASCAR vice president Ben Kennedy said in a statement. “They have long sought a NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway, and we’re happy to deliver that for them."

The Xfinity Series will also return to Iowa in 2024 and run a day before the Cup race.

According to Fox Sports, Iowa Speedway is expected to be the only new track on the 2024 Cup Series schedule. A Cup race in Montreal had long been rumored, but that race doesn’t appear to be a reality. The Xfinity Series raced at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve from 2007-12. Iowa is set to replace Auto Club Speedway. The 2-mile oval in Fontana, California, could be reconfigured into a short track after NASCAR sold off much of the facility's land earlier this year.

NASCAR’s full Cup Series schedule is expected to be released in the near future. The confirmation of a race at Iowa joins Bristol’s announcement that its spring race will be on concrete and not dirt while the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be the Brickyard 400 again after a three-year run on the track’s road course.