![\"display](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2025-may20-hof-scenes-main-922x489-695d22eb92e51.jpg\" "\\"NASCAR")
<\/p>\nEngines aren\u2019t being fired in anger across the major-league stock car landscape. Penalties aren\u2019t announced every week. Stage racing is a thing only in sometimes fierce radio debates.<\/p>\n
The Cup Series, idle on track since Kyle Larson won the 2025 championship November 2 at Phoenix, returns February 1 with the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina. The first point race will be the Daytona 500 February 15.<\/p>\n
Related Story<\/p>\n
The news so far this month has been highlighted by Tuesday\u2019s NASCAR announcement that commissioner Steve Phelps has resigned in the wake of controversy sparked by testimony and texts revealed during a federal trial as a result of an antitrust lawsuit filed by team owners Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin, and Bob Jenkins.<\/p>\n
On a much quieter note, Kurt Busch, Harry Gant, and the late Ray Hendrick will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame January 23 in Charlotte in an evening event that annually brings together many of stock car racing\u2019s best and brightest. NASCAR figures also will be involved January 24 when the National Motorsports Press Association inducts its newest Hall of Fame members\u2014as-yet unannounced\u2014in a ceremony at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
After a difficult December that included the deaths of former NASCAR champion Greg Biffle, his family, and several others in a plane crash, and the death of Dennis Hamlin, Denny Hamlin\u2019s father, in a house fire, the sport is ready for a time of good news.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Krista Jasso<\/p>\n
NASCAR is expected to announce soon a new format for its end-of-season playoffs after repeated criticism of the system that has been in place for years. And the sanctioning body announced Monday that it has scheduled a five-hour test session for Cup Series teams January 13 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. North Wilkesboro is scheduled to host a Cup point race July 19.<\/p>\n
For many years, the first month of the year had quite a different flavor for NASCAR.<\/p>\n
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From 1970 to 1981, the first point race of the Cup season was held in January on the Riverside International Raceway road course in California. A storied venue that eventually fell victim to development in the area, Riverside hosted Cup races from 1958 to 1988, and its Cup victory lane welcomed motorsports superstars like Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, and Mark Donohue.<\/p>\n
Virtually from its beginning in 1959, the Daytona 500 was celebrated as NASCAR\u2019s biggest race, but the 500 didn\u2019t become the spotlighted season-opener until 1982, when it was held on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
![\"1982](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/daytona-500-bobby-allison-in-action-during-race-at-daytona-news-photo-1767712511.pjpeg.jpeg\" "\\"1982")
Eric Schweikardt\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
1982 Daytona 500.<\/p>\n
Although January Cup racing eventually disappeared, the month was significant in NASCAR circles for many years because of two major events\u2014preseason Cup Series testing at Daytona International Speedway and the annual Charlotte Motor Speedway media tour.<\/p>\n
Daytona hosted testing\u2014sometimes known as Preseason Thunder and generally held over two days\u2014in January as dozens of Cup teams put new cars through their paces and worked with new driver-crew chief-team combinations. The testing provided hints at how Daytona speeds might differ from previous visits to the track (although top teams generally avoided revealing their best stuff during tests). Dozens of journalists typically attended the Daytona tests, often providing the first real \u201cnews\u201d after a long off-season.<\/p>\n
Related Story<\/p>\n
The Charlotte media tour began in the early 1980s and lasted more than 35 years until expense and inconvenience eventually brought its end. More than 200 journalists from across the country\u2014and sometimes beyond\u2014arrived in Charlotte for several days of interviews with drivers, team owners and crew chiefs. For most of its existence, the media tour included visits to the race shops of major teams.<\/p>\n
![\"Lettermark\"](\"https:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/autoweek\/static\/images\/logos\/lettermark.de67f45.svg?primary=%2523000\")
<\/p>\n
Mike Hembree has covered auto racing for numerous media outlets, including USA Today, NASCAR Scene, NBC Sports, The Greenville News and the SPEED Channel. He has been roaming garage areas and pit roads for decades (although the persistent rumor that he covered the first Indianapolis 500 is not true). Winner of numerous motorsports and other media awards, he also has covered virtually every other major sport. He lives near Gaffney, South Carolina and can be convinced to attend Bruce Springsteen concerts if you have tickets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Engines aren\u2019t being fired in anger across the major-league stock car landscape. Penalties aren\u2019t announced every week. Stage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,167390,784,1642,634,167389,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-395826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-content-type-news","11":"tag-contentid-ff4d6036-5864-4c4a-b617-91429f8d72c6","12":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","13":"tag-locale-us","14":"tag-nascar","15":"tag-shorttitle-january-is-nascars-silent-month","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}