Nitrocross going back to its roots with new round at Richmond

Nitrocross’ announcement that it will start its 2024-25 season at Richmond Raceway is one that takes the series back to its origins.

Before Nitrocross there was Global Rallycross, which – between 2011-17 – raced at a number of NASCAR facilities, including Charlotte, New Hampshire, Bristol, Texas, Atlanta and Daytona. Until now, Nitrocross hadn’t followed the same path, instead largely adopting rallycross and off-road facilities.

Speaking of the decision to add Richmond to its roster of events, Nitrocross general manager Chip Pankow said that the venue’s existing infrastructure, along with NASCAR’s market-leading position in U.S. motorsport, made it an attractive proposition.

“NASCAR has been a mainstay in American racing, and as a part of that, they’ve built amazing facilities,” he said. “One of the things we have with Nitrocross is we don’t lock ourselves into any particular formula of track. Here [in Phoenix] we’re on mostly dirt, we’ll race on snow and ice, and Travis [Pastrana] and I traveled to a NASCAR race and we started looking around and [realized] this could be a really really cool event.