NASCAR season unofficially begins with Las Vegas race

Not to the east side, but on NASCAR’s evolving schedule.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s spring Cup Series race comes a week earlier this year, and track president Chris Powell admitted he was initially apprehensive about switching from the traditional first weekend of March to the last one in February.

But after taking a look at the long-range weather forecast — it’s supposed to be 70 degrees with mostly sunny skies and no chance of rain when the green flag falls Sunday — most of those second thoughts have been pushed to the back of the starting grid.

“It looks favorable right now,” said Powell, who has been LVMS president for all 22 spring Cup Series races and two in the fall during the NASCAR playoffs. “For many years we have had great weather on the weekend before our (spring) event. Last year when it snowed, that was not the case.”

There is a chance of early showers Saturday, which could dampen the Boyd Gaming 300 Xfinity race and Cup Series qualifying. But at least no one is expecting a Snowball Derby on Sunday.

Piggybacking Daytona

By moving from the traditional March date and becoming the first race after the Daytona 500, the Pennzoil 400 may attract a bigger spotlight this year following Denny Hamlin’s exciting victory in the Great American Race, during which Ryan Newman was seriously injured in a harrowing crash.

While Daytona is considered the NASCAR Super Bowl, its style of racing, in which the cars run in packs and try to avoid big wrecks, usually is not indicative of the rest of the season.

Most drivers say the real season doesn’t begin until the cars are rolled off their haulers at LVMS.

“That’s spot on,” said William Byron, the only driver to be named rookie of the year in all three NASCAR racing series (truck, Xfinity and Cup), who starts his third season in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet still seeking his first win in NASCAR’s marquee division.

“The team that won Vegas last year (Team Penske with driver Joey Logano) did not win the championship. But it does put you in the right position and gets you off on the right foot.”

Las Vegas’ Kyle Busch raced to his second series championship during last year’s playoffs but has just one victory in 17 starts on his hometown track, while Logano and fellow Penske driver Brad Keselowski have won three of the past six LVMS races.

Those two are expected to be among the ones to beat again Sunday in what is shaping up as a transitional season in NASCAR, beginning with the cars themselves.

More changes coming

The “Next Gen” car that will debut in 2021 and is expected to reduce costs for Cup Series teams is one of many storylines that will develop during 2020.

There have been other Cup Series schedule tweaks, such as the two races at Pocono taking place on a doubleheader weekend and the season-ending championship race moving from Homestead, Florida, to Phoenix. Additional schedule changes are expected next season.

On the driver front, seven-time series champion and four-time Las Vegas winner Jimmie Johnson will retire as a full-time competitor after the 2020 season. Keseloswki, Alex Bowman at Hendrick, Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson are potential free agents.

Even the name of the series is different. It’s no longer the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The title sponsor format has been scrapped for a new model consisting of corporate premiere partners Busch beer, Coca-Cola, Geico and Xfinity.

With all those changes and more coming down the road, what should prove to be an interesting season in NASCAR begins in earnest this week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.