Watch NASCAR Racing All Season Long with DISH

With the 2024 NASCAR season off to a fast start (pun intended!) let’s take a look at some of the top storylines of the year. We know the on-track action will keep us on the edges of our seats all season long, but what other drama is coming at us at 200mph? Find out below, but first, here’s a look at how to watch NASCAR all season long with DISH!

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The NASCAR Cup Series TV schedule is split between two networks: FOX and NBC. FOX and its cable counterpart, FS1, broadcast the first half of the season, which include the season-opening Daytona 500, the Richmond 400 on Easter Sunday, the All-Star Race from North Wilkesboro Speedway, and the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Weekend.

Midway through June, NBC takes over and broadcasts the second half of the season, with select races appearing on its cable counterpart, USA. Big races during NBC’s schedule include the Chicago Street Race, the second Daytona race in August, and the entire 10-race Playoffs beginning in September, including the Championship Race on November 10.

Here’s a full look at the 2024 NASCAR schedule.

Now here’s a look at the biggest storylines.

Denny Hamlin just beat your favorite driver, but can he win the championship?

We’ve already heard his oft-uttered catch-phrase (“I beat your favorite driver)” once this season, after Hamlin won the NASCAR non-points paying exhibition race at the LA Coliseum. But can he do more than just beat people’s favorite driver in a couple races? Hamlin, now NASCAR’s most hated driver, has 51 wins in NASCAR’s top series – good enough for sole possession of 13th place on the all-time NASCAR win list. There’s only one active driver with more wins than him, and everyone around him on the list is either already in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, or is a lock to get inducted. Is Denny a lock for the HOF? Maybe, maybe not – but the one thing that’s eluded him so far in his career, a NASCAR Cup Series Championship, would go a long way to ensuring he gets in. In fact, Hamlin has the most wins of any driver who hasn’t yet won a championship. Sure, he just beat a lot of people’s favorite driver, but can he win where it counts most and take the trophy home when the season wraps up in Phoenix this fall? You’ll have to tune in to see. And to hear the boos rain down when Hamlin finds victory lane.

Out with the old, in with the new at SHR

Stewart Haas Racing (SHR) saw one of the sport’s winningest and longest-tenured drivers, Kevin Harvick, retire at the end of the 2023 season. On top of that, long-time SHR member Aric Almirola announced that he wouldn’t be returning to the Kannapolis, North Carolina-based outfit. The four-car team retained Ryan Preece and Chase Briscoe, but needed to find two new drivers for 2024.

Harvick’s vacated seat is being filled by 33-year-old Josh Berry, a rookie in the Cup Series. An unconventional pick by many standards (33-year-old rookies are uncommon to say the least), Berry comes to SHR with a wealth of experience in lower series, but with a comparatively late start in NASCAR’s premier series, there are questions as to how he’ll be able to perform at the highest level. Joining him as a new driver under the SHR banner is Noah Gragson, signed to fill the seat opened up by Almirola’s departure. A controversial hire, Gragson may be most famous for being suspended by NASCAR in August of 2023 for an off-track incident. His suspension was lifted after the completion of diversity and inclusion training, and Gragson gets a second chance in a previously top-tier outfit that’s looking for a return to glory. Can an elder rookie and second-chance youth help propel SHR to the top of NASCAR once again?

Chasing a Championship, not broken bones.

NASCAR’s most popular driver, Chase Elliott, would like to put the 2023 season as far in his rear view mirror as possible. What many had hoped would be a return to glory for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Champion turned out to be a season that went off the rails almost before it began. Just two races into the season, Elliott was forced to sit out six starts after breaking his tibia in a skiing accident in Colorado. While he was gone, the team was penalized 100 driver and owner points and 10 playoff points for failing pre-race inspection. Upon his return, Elliott’s temper uncharacteristically got the better of him and he intentionally wrecked another driver (Hamlin, originating the catch-phrase) and was subsequently suspended by NASCAR for one race. It was all too much to overcome, as the 9 car and Elliott missed the NASCAR Championship playoffs for the first time in his career. Elliott looks to bring his Hendrick motorsports machine back to the front – hopefully while starting every race – and the 18-time winner is hungry for more Victory Lane as well as another championship.

The tracks they are a changin’

After a three-year hiatus, NASCAR returns to one of the most famous motorsports venues in the world, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. NASCAR switched to running the Indy road course in 2021, but this year will be the 30th anniversary of NASCAR first kissing the bricks, so a return makes sense. Fans often derided the racing as boring, as passing is difficult and track position is exceptionally important at the four turn, 2.5 mile superspeedway. But there’s just something about Cup cars on the Brickyard that’s too good to turn down.

The Cup Series also makes its first visit to fan-favorite Iowa speedway, which replaces Fontana, California on the schedule. Lower series in NASCAR have raced at Iowa for years, and the quality of racing and the demand of the fans made its eventual appearance on the Cup schedule inevitable.

NASCAR has traditionally brought the Cup series to the famed Bristol bull ring twice every year, and in recent years one of those stops has seen the high-banked oval covered in dirt. Largely considered a gimmick by fans and mostly disliked by the drivers, NASCAR officials read the writing on the wall; dirt won’t make a reappearance and instead Bristol will be back to its standard concrete surface both times Cup drivers come calling, first with a new spring date in March, and then again in September.

Double Duty: Working for the weekend

2021 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Kyle Larson, a Hendrick teammate to Chase Elliott, will do something that no driver has attempted in 10 years: Running the famed Memorial Day Double, where a driver attempts to complete all 500 miles of the Indianapolis 500 before jetting to Charlotte, North Carolina to run all 600 miles of the Coca-Cola 600, the longest race on the NASCAR schedule. Originally attempted in 1994, the most famous, and only successful, attempt was by Tony Stewart (of Stewart Haas Racing ownership) in 2001 where he finished 6th in the Indy 500 and 3rd in the Coke 600. This still stands as the only time a driver successfully finished all 1,100 miles of racing. Can Kyle Larson finish all 1,100 miles and 800 laps of the toughest single day in racing? NASCAR sure hopes he can, announcing that they’ll amend the rules and allow Larson to skip the standard pre-race driver’s meeting before the night race in Charlotte. Normally missing the meeting means drivers have to start from the rear of the field, but Larson will be exempted.

The only sure thing in the 2024 NASCAR season is that there are no sure things. From 200mph on the high banks of Daytona and Talladega, to the sharp hairpins of Martinsville, and through the esses and elevation changes of road courses like Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and Circuit of the Americas, this season will be full of unpredictable action. High speeds, hot tempers, and heart-pounding action await fans as NASCAR gets ready to drop the green flag on the 2024 season. – Jason Jewett