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NASCAR makes major change to 2026 North Wilkesboro Cup Series race

JHby: Jonathan Howard12/04/25Jondean25

The Cup Series race at North Wilkesboro is getting a major change. NASCAR is adding 50 laps to the event, pushing it to 450. More of the best short track on the schedule? Yeah, I’ll take that.

North Wilkesboro Speedway put on a show last year in the All-Star Race. The battles we saw on the track, the way the Next Gen was able to make it a multi-groove track, and race throughout the event. Now we get 450 laps of that action. Amazing!

The track made the announcement earlier today. The Window World 400 is now the Window World 450. It will be the longest Cup Series race ever held at North Wilkesboro. The previous distance had historically been 400 laps.

With how much NASCAR and Goodyear have improved the short track product in 2025, I’m very excited to see North Wilkesboro next year. Increased horsepower will be another minor change that should lend itself to being a positive on the track.

This will be the first points-paying race for the Cup Series at the track since 1996. It has been a generation in the making, and we are almost there. The last two years, the track was used for the All-Star Race. Now, it’s back on the schedule proper. Many fans will be excited to see this track for 450 laps.

Even after a repave, the track has remained racey. Whatever they did when they repaved it worked, because it was almost unanimous that the racing this year at the track was the best it has been.

North Wilkesboro was hot item amid SRX concerns

As the NASCAR lawsuit and trial have infiltrated all things in the sport, North Wilkesboro was brought up. At least, in documents that the public has seen, the track was brought up. NASCAR executives were concerned that they would not be the first to return to the historic track.

Texts between NASCAR leadership, which were made publicly available through discovery in this lawsuit, showed that they were concerned about the SRX Series making it to Wilkesboro first. They were certain that SRX was going to make a move for Wilkesboro with Dale Earnhardt Jr. being a part of the festivities. Bowman Gray also came up.

Now, NASCAR has more or less reclaimed the track as its own. It is owned by Speedway Motorsports, which works closely with NASCAR to grant access to tracks like North Wilkesboro, Atlanta Motor Speedway, and others that SMI owns. That is also the subject of discussion in this trial, as 23XI and Front Row argue their agreements restrict competition in the market.

While there is a lot of worry about this trial, the sport is still moving on. When February comes around, the Daytona 500 will happen, and so will the rest of the NASCAR season. If you’re having a hard time waiting this trial out, just think about those 450 glorious laps at North Wilkesboro we get to see next year.