Motorsport.com’s Top Stories 2020 NASCAR Season
Bowyer, 41, waited until late in the year to announce his decision to make the 2020 Cup Series season his final one as a full-time competitor. But he’ll remain in the sport, moving to the Fox Sports broadcast booth beginning with the 2021 season, joining fellow former driver Jeff Gordon.
Austin Cindric, who began his racing career in sports cars, earned his first oval track wins in 2020 as the 22-year-old racked up six victories and captured his first Xfinity Series championship. Fellow up-and-comer Sheldon Creed entered the 2020 Truck season without a career win but ended it with five victories and his first series title. Both drivers are remaining in their respective series in 2021.
NASCAR had begun making changes to its Cup schedule in recent years but promised a lot of change in 2021 and the sanctioning body delivered with a 36race schedule that features more road racing, less races on intermediate tracks and its first race since 1970 on dirt. Included in the changes are several new venues – Nashville Superspeedway, Circuit of the Americas, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, Road America and Bristol Motor Speedway transformed into a dirt track.
While Johnson’s Cup Series career was filled with enormous accomplishments, including a NASCAR record-tying seven championships and 83 wins, his final fulltime season as the driver of Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 Chevrolet was a difficult one. Johnson failed to score a win in his final year or make the playoffs and he even missed a race after testing positive for COVID-19.