With the offseason upon us and 88 days until the 2024 season kicks off in Los Angeles, why not have a little fun and speculate about what NASCAR’s seemingly imminent international expansion could look like.
Europe
The clear and obvious choice for international expansion is Canada or Mexico, but that’s too easy. Let’s look at Europe. Europe is home to some of the most legendary tracks in the world, Silverstone, Spa, Le Mans, etc. While I wouldn’t complain about going to any of those tracks, NASCAR’s bread and butter is ovals, and believe it or not, Europe has a couple incredibly unique ovals that would make a fun stop for any of NASCAR’s top three series’.
The European oval that I want to focus on is the Lausitzring. Located in the Brandenburg region of Germany, the Lausitzring bears a striking similarity to Pocono Raceway with its triangular shape. However, it sits at only 2 miles compared to Pocono’s 2.5 miles. The track held CART Championship races in the 2000’s on the main oval, but the infield road course has stood the test of time. With a capacity of 120,000, the Lausitzring would immediately become one of the highest capacity tracks on the NASCAR calendar.
Australia
There is a legendary oval track down under called the Calder Park Thunderdome. There is a caveat though. It would need the North Wilkesboro treatment. But, we are not here to be realistic, we are here to fantasize about NASCAR’s International future. It might be a pipe dream right now, but as we saw with Wilkesboro, anything can happen.
In all seriousness, how could you pass up Bathurst, Sandown, or Wanneroo? As I have found myself getting more and more into the Australian Supercars Championship this past year, I have learned about quite a few Australian tracks. These three are my favorites. Bathurst is self-explanatory, it’s one of the most iconic racing circuits in the world. Sandown is a fairly flat, fast circuit. Its 13 corners stretch 1.9 miles around a horse track on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia.
On the other side of the country on the outskirts of Perth sits Wanneroo Raceway. Wanneroo is a small and simple track, on paper, with just 7 corners over about 1.4 miles. But what makes Wanneroo so interesting to me is what you can’t see on paper, the elevation. Wanneroo has some of the most dramatic elevation changes I’ve seen in a racetrack, specifically between turns 6 and 7, the longest straightaway on the track. It starts by going steadily uphill before dropping out from under you, sending you down a very steep decline at about 150 MPH into the heaviest braking zone on the track.
Asia
I gravitate towards Japan. NASCAR already has a history of racing in Japan and Japan has a rich racing and car culture. I find myself coming to 2 Japanese tracks, in particular, Suzuka and Tsukuba. I am going to focus only on Suzuka due to the previously mentioned history between NASCAR and the Suzuka Circuit.
Simply put, Suzuka is one of the finest and most unique racetracks in the world. If you’re unfamiliar, let me try to paint the picture for you. Suzuka is a beautiful circuit that flows up and down through the hills of south-central Japan, which were once covered by dense rice fields. The course starts with one of the most incredible sections of racetrack on earth, the iconic esses. Up the hill to the hairpin, down towards the spoon curve. Followed by the circuit’s defining feature, the overpass that creates the circuit’s immediately recognizable figure eight layout. The track ends with the 130R corner before one of the track’s hardest braking zones into the final chicane before the sweeping downhill run to the start/finish line.
NASCAR’s expansion to an International market seems to be imminent. These are just some things that I would like to see. Only time will tell if any of these will come to fruition.
