A winter storm has delayed the exhibition event to Wednesday.

WINSTON, SALEM, N.C. (AP) — A bomb cyclone over North Carolina forced NASCAR to push its preseason exhibition to Wednesday night because the snow-covered roads are too dangerous for teams and fans to get to historic Bowman-Gray Stadium.

So, it simply makes sense to put the second race on the schedule, the date in the Chase, back on the oval. 400 miles on the oval with these Next Gen cars will be must-see TV. The action takes place on October 11 with a weekend of racing from the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series and the Craftsman Truck Series leading up to that Sunday.

There is an 82% probability that Winston-Salem will receive four-to-eight inches of snowfall from now until 5 a.m. Sunday, forecasts show.

The NASCAR season officially kicks off on Sunday, Feb. 15, with the 2026 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. William Byron enters as the defending Daytona 500 champion, while Kyle Larson looks to defend his NASCAR season championship.

Once promoted as NASCAR’s bold fix for schedule monotony, the ROVAL now exits the same way it arrived: because fans asked for something different.

The anti-trust lawsuit filed by NASCAR Cup Series teams 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against the sport’s sanctioning body has come to an end. The teams filed suit against NASCAR in September 2024 and reached a settlement in December 2025.