"There might be an opportunity for us" - NASCAR wants to leave American shores and go overseas soon

NASCAR has grown rapidly over the past few years, from new racing cars to new venues. It opened in 2022 with a historical exhibition, Clash at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, where the Next Gen cars made their debut.

Aside from introducing the Next Gen cars, it has expanded its territories by inaugurating new tracks for a wider audience and new experiences. The sport recently made a major move after introducing the Chicago Street Race in the 2023 schedule, something that has never happened in its history.

With all these major moves, many wonder what’s next for NASCAR after accomplishing the street course. Well, it seems the next move might be expanding its territories beyond American shores and heading overseas.

In a recent interview, Ben Kennedy, NASCAR's senior vice president, hinted at plans to go outside the country to explore new markets for the sport where he thinks there might be an opportunity for them. Kennedy said:

“We want to continue to explore new markets. We’ve talked a lot about the Pacific Northwest. We’ve talked a lot about the Northeast area. That’s an important market for us. Even internationally as well.”

He went on to say:

“I don’t know that there will be a day, at least in the short term, that we’ll go necessarily overseas. But there might be an opportunity for us, sometime in the future, to go north of the border up to Canada or to go to Mexico.”

In the last couple of years, NASCAR has experienced massive growth and transformation that has improved the quality of racing. With the Cup Series being a top tier series, most of the transformation has impacted the series.

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NASCAR moves in the direction of introducing road courses

In 2021, NASCAR worked really hard and increased the number of road courses, introducing Road America and Circuit of The Americas. It added another 1.333-mile track, Nashville Superspeedway, on the calendar as well.

This year its has taken the same direction and introduced the LA Coliseum, which was a great success. It also launched the World Wide Technology Raceway, which also turned out to be a success. With enough road courses on the schedule, the sport eventually decided to add another unique course, the 2023 Chicago Street Course, which will head to downtown Chicago City.

However, the new street course will put the lid on one road course, Road America, which was inaugurated in 2021. However, Ben Kennedy confirmed that the move to abandon Road America for the Chicago Street Race wasn’t a financial move but a significant investment. NASCAR will be the official promoters of the race, sell tickets directly, and bag a portion of the television revenue for the race.