A familiar NASCAR Cup Series playoff track is set to return to the postseason for the 2022 season after two years of hosting races in the regular season.
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule was confirmed on Wednesday after several months of speculation and rumors, and as we all expected, there were many changes from the 2021 schedule featured throughout the 36-race calendar.
Among those changes were three key changes in the four-round, 10-race playoffs, one of which involved the addition of a track that is not on the 2021 playoff schedule.
But this particular track, which was also absent from the 2020 playoff calendar, is no stranger to the postseason.
After hosting the season finale from 2002 to 2019, Homestead-Miami Speedway is back in the playoffs.
However, the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Homestead, Florida will not serve as the host of the season finale. That role is still slated to belong to Phoenix Raceway, which moved from the round of 8 to the Championship 4 ahead of the 2020 season.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is instead slated to replace Kansas Speedway as the host of the second of three races in the round of 8 on Sunday, October 23.
Kansas Speedway is set to become the host of the second of three races in the round of 16 on Sunday, September 11 now that Richmond Raceway, which had held that slot, has seen its second race become a regular season race scheduled for Sunday, August 14.
During its two-year regular season run, Homestead-Miami Speedway had been scheduled to host a race in mid-March 2020, but due to COVID-19-related restrictions, that race was pushed back until mid-June. This year’s race there took place in late February.
The other change to the playoff schedule saw Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway swap dates, with the former now set to host the round of 8 opener on Sunday, October 16 and the latter set to open the round of 12 opener on Sunday, September 25.
You can view the entire 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule here.
