NASCAR has made a major change to its Pocono race schedule, and fans can’t seem to get enough of it. After all, it addresses one of their biggest complaints. As the Cup Series prepares for another regular-season race at Pocono Raceway, NASCAR has decided to move the race to an earlier start time.

The Cup Series race, which was earlier scheduled for 3 PM ET, is now set to take place from 1 PM ET instead. Fox reporter Bob Pockrass informed the fans of the same via his social media handle, “RACE START TIME MOVED: Cup race start time moved to 1 p.m. ET for Sunday at Pocono.”

According to NASCAR, the decision was made because of weather concerns that could disrupt the race at its original start time. In recent weeks, the weather has repeatedly affected the race schedule.

At Nashville last weekend, NASCAR was forced to delay the Cup race by an hour. It ultimately lasted four hours due to the delayed start and several caution flags, prompting drivers to question whether NASCAR races are becoming unnecessarily long.

Similar issues affected the Coca-Cola 600, which was cut short by 27 laps because of rain, forcing NASCAR to red-flag the event and leaving many fans and drivers disappointed. Hamlin, who finished second behind Daniel Suarez on the day, was sure he would have won had the race started earlier.

“Man, I wish there was a way we just moved everything up an hour, or, you know, not having as long of cautions for stages and just… If we could just tidy that up just a little bit,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said on his Actions Detrimental podcast.

So, NASCAR isn’t taking many chances ahead of The Great American Getaway 400 this weekend. It wants fans to have a better experience without forcing them to sit idle waiting for a race to start or ending a race early.

The schedule could only be moved up due to Prime Video’s availability and willingness to do so for Pocono. NASCAR even thanked the broadcaster on its official website for helping make the change possible. “Prime Video’s flexibility as the broadcast partner also helped create the opportunity for NASCAR to move the race up by more than an hour.”

Since the sport is trying its best to improve the viewing experience for fans, the audience couldn’t help but appreciate NASCAR for its efforts.

NASCAR fans welcome Pocono schedule change

On social media, one fan seemed rather emotional, as if they were waiting for news of this kind for ages. They posted a popular graphic of the song Dreams and Nightmares by Meek Mill, with the famous image of Michael Jordan crying over one of his NBA Championship trophies, captioned, “I used to pray for times like this.”

Opening any forum or community discussion shows that a vast majority of fans actually prefer 1 PM timings for Sunday’s races. While NASCAR faces issues with weather and caution delays, fans face issues due to the fact that evening races end up taking their entire time and leave them almost no time to tend to their daily matters.

Their collective opinion was voiced by one of the users who argued, “I remember when East Coast races were at 1 pm, West Coast were at 3 pm, and most night races were Saturday night around 7-7:30 pm. Let’s go back to that.”

It is unlikely that NASCAR will make a change to its entire schedule right after Pocono. A significant logistical obstacle comes from the fact that other broadcasters may not be as flexible, since changing a race time can affect their wider programming schedule and advertising commitments.

However, this change also brought the fans together in support of Amazon Prime. “Bravo to NASCAR, Pocono Raceway, & Prime for keeping the fans in mind,” a fan rejoiced.

Multiple others would join in claiming it was a major victory for NASCAR. “Another win for NASCAR.” “Good call, NASCAR!” “We are sooooo back.”

It appears that NASCAR’s efforts this year to reconnect with fans and boost engagement are paying off so far. The decision at Pocono is a positive step in that direction, and many fans would likely welcome similar adjustments in the future if they help improve the overall viewing experience.