NHRA Sets 2023 Schedule

Just before the final rounds of the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, NHRA delineated the full 2023 Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule. Featuring the return of the 23rd annual Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK Performance in May and a swap of races between Seattle and Sonoma, the straight-line racing set will have 21 events on the calendar, including the final run at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, as already announced.

The season’s first four contests are already known, with the tour opening at Gainesville, followed by a three-race initial Western Swing in late winter, early spring. After racing in Phoenix for the 38th and final time, NHRA goes to Pomona for its 63rd Internationals, followed by the Las Vegas Four-Wide Nationals. After traveling cross-country, Charlotte will be next with its four-wide challenge.

There’s a three-week gap between Charlotte and the return of Chicago and another gap until the early June visit to Epping, N.H., but Bristol is a week later and Norwalk two weeks after that. Denver will, as is customary, start the mid-summer Western Swing in mid-July, but the following week will see the Camping World set head to the Pacific Northwest and Seattle, followed one week later by Sonoma. There’s a two-week hiatus to Topeka, while Brainerd is set for a week later, before the regular season ends at the 69th U.S. Nationals in Indy on Labor Day week.

The Countdown to the Championship next year will be somewhat familiar, starting in Reading two weeks after Indy, then going to Charlotte and Gateway on succeeding weekends, then it’s off to Dallas and finishing with NHRA’s third set of West Coast races in Las Vegas and Pomona. Class schedules will be released at a later date.

There will be a pair of the popular Pep Boys All-Star Callout races next year, at Gainesville and in Indianapolis. That wasn’t the plan this year, but the weather in Gainesville brought that special race-within-a-race to Indy. The sponsor liked it well enough to consider having two for 2023. As ever, all races will be shown on the FS1, FS2 and FOX networks.