Iowa replaces Mexico in Nationwide

Officials confirmed the 35-race calendar for NASCAR's second-tier series, which features few other changes from this year.

"Iowa Speedway is a new facility that is already very popular with fans in that part of the country, and will be a great match for the Nationwide Series," said NASCAR President Mike Helton.

"The track has successfully hosted NASCAR Camping World Series events and we expect to see great racing there on August 1 for the inaugural Nationwide Series race."

Mexico's exclusion comes following decreasing attendances for the event, which had been held since 2005. NASCAR's Robin Pemberton said, however, that crowd numbers were not the deciding factor in axing the race from the calendar.

"I don't think we've ever said that we would be there permanently," he said. "We went down there to help establish a new series, the Mexico Corona Series, and that has taken off nicely.

"They built some new facilities and remodeled some, thecar counts are great, and their series has really had a good boost from the Nationwide cars being down there in Mexico City.

"We're not going to be global, but we'll race in and out of the United States occasionally, we've always done that, for 20 years that I know of."

The event at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was considered a logistical challenge for teams as they took their transporters south of the border. Team personnel relied on shuttles to get in and out of the circuit everyday, a rather unusual practice at NASCAR events.

The 2009 season will start the day before the Sprint Cup series opener at Daytona International Speedway, and will end in a triple-header with the other two national series in November at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The Nationwide series will run 26 companion events with the Sprint Cup, the rest being stand-alone races, including two dates at Nashville Superspeedway.

2009 Nationwide Calendar

Date         Venue
Feb. 14      Daytona International Speedway
Feb. 21      Auto Club Speedway
Feb. 28      Las Vegas Motor Speedway
March 21     Bristol Motor Speedway
April 4      Texas Motor Speedway
April 11     Nashville Superspeedway
April 17     Phoenix International Raceway
April 25     Talladega Superspeedway
May 1        Richmond International Raceway
May 8        Darlington Raceway
May 23       Lowe's Motor Speedway
May 30       Dover International Speedway
June 6       Nashville Superspeedway
June 13      Kentucky Speedway
June 20      Milwaukee Mile
June 27      New Hampshire Motor Speedway
July 3       Daytona International Speedway
July 10      Chicagoland Speedway
July 18      Gateway International Raceway
July 25      O'Reilly Raceway Park
Aug. 1       Iowa Speedway
Aug. 8       Watkins Glen International
Aug. 15      Michigan International Speedway
Aug. 21      Bristol Motor Speedway
Aug. 30      Circuit Gilles Villenueve
Sept. 5      Atlanta Motor Speedway
Sept. 11     Richmond International Raceway
Sept. 26     Dover International Speedway
Oct. 3       Kansas Speedway
Oct. 10      Auto Club Speedway
Oct. 16      Lowe's Motor Speedway
Oct. 24      Memphis Motorsports Park
Nov. 7       Texas Motor Speedway
Nov. 14      Phoenix International Raceway
Nov. 21      Homestead-Miami Speedway