The name Rockingham being back on the NASCAR schedule in 2025 and 2026 has been a hit among the fans. The O’Reilly race on Saturday was proof that Rockingham is a track that can not only pull out a lot of fans but also produce some interesting racing. But could the venue for Saturday’s race be back as a venue for a Sunday race in the top tier after over two decades of absence?

Rockingham is historic, but can it support Next Gen racing?

Rockingham opened in 1965 and almost instantly became a significant stop on NASCAR’s calendar. The track also witnessed some of the most iconic moments in the sport, including Dale Earnhardt winning his seventh Cup title. Even its last Cup race in 2004 was one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history at 0.010 seconds between Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne.

So when the track was announced to be making a comeback, albeit at the O’Reilly level, fans began to wonder if it should also be considered as a Cup race. But that was something which Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t sure of.

Before the announcement of the 2026 schedule, Dale Jr. claimed that Rockingham may not be a good Cup race, but fitting for the Truck or O’Reilly.

“At that racetrack, there’s really nowhere to go to get clean air. In the Next Gen car, you really can’t run behind another car. You can’t. The lead car’s got a lot of grip, but also you need that air going underneath your car to get to the diffuser, and so you can’t follow another car. How are you going to do that and go around the racetrack at Rockingham? People’s concerns about the Next Gen probably not racing well there are valid,” he explained on his podcast last year.

On the other hand, Kasey Kahne, the driver who finished runner-up in the last race at Rockingham in 2004, insisted the track deserves a Cup date. Kahne claimed the Cup race could ‘probably be really good’ at Rockingham. “Understandable at the time that they wanted to go to California or Vegas or some of those tracks more, but yeah, I think this could be a really good track for NASCAR,” Kahne said in 2025.

And just like Kasey Kahne suggested, some NASCAR fans were also in favor of swapping out some tracks to make room for Rockingham.

Fans demand changes in the NASCAR schedule to make room for Rockingham

Dirty Mo Media recently asked fans if Rockingham could put on a good show at the Cup level. This led to an almost unanimous agreement from fans, as some of them suggested how that could be done.

One fan suggested taking out a road course. “One of the road courses…there should only be 3 road course races a season…Watkins Glen, Sonoma, and rotate the third between COTA, Road America, etc,” the fan wrote. Currently, there are four road course/street course races on the 2026 calendar.

Another fan boldly demanded NASCAR give Rockingham the North Wilkesboro treatment. “Dover has put on some of the worst racing in the next gen era. give Rockingham the all star and cut dover completely,” the fan wrote. NWS was rewarded with the All-Star exhibition race dates for the 2024 and 2025 season after going through a repave. But for 2026, NASCAR decided to take that race to Dover.

A fan claimed having another race in the Carolinas with Rockingham’s inclusion would be a bit too much.”2 Charlotte, 2 Darlington, North Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray is already over-saturated for one region,” the fan wrote. They claimed that removing either a date from Charlotte (Coke 600 and the ROVAL) or Darlington (Southern 500 and Goodyear 400) would enable the inclusion of the Rock.

Another fan was in favor of removing one of the two least exciting short tracks on the schedule. “I would say either Phoenix or Martinsville. It would be nice at the playoff tracks only had one race,” the fan wrote.

A fan was ready for NASCAR to go to extreme measures to make Rockingham happen. “Yes, need to be back at Rockingham. I’m ok with going to Phoenix or Kansas once a year. I’m ok with combining both exhibition races too. We don’t need two of them,” the fan wrote. This season, the two exhibition races are the Clash at Bowman Gray and the All-Star race at Dover.

With that said, it’ll be interesting to see if the governing body listens to the fans and brings back Rockingham to the NASCAR Cup schedule for the first time since 2003.