NASCAR Announces Historic Cup Series Race in Mexico

Patrick Andres | Aug 27, 2024

NASCAR Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. / Nigel Cook/News-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

For the first time in over six decades, NASCAR is headed outside the United States for a Cup Series race.

A race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City will take place on June 15, 2025, NASCAR announced Tuesday morning.

“This has been on our radar for a long time,” Ben Kennedy, the stock car racing governing body's executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovations officer, said. “We went to our first street race in downtown Chicago, and this is going to be another first for us in a lot of ways. This is going to be certainly a monumental event for us, the first time we’re going south of the border.”

NASCAR previously ran four Xfinity Series races at the Autodromo from 2005 to 2008, and Formula 1 has staged the Mexican Grand Prix there on and off since 1962.

The most recent non-U.S. Cup Series race took place in 1958, when the Jim Mideon 500—Richard Petty's first-ever Cup Series race—was run in Toronto. Richard's father, Lee Petty, won the race.