The history of NASCAR racing on Easter

The NASCAR Cup Series will not race on Easter again this year, but the premier series has raced on the holiday across its 78-year history.

In total, the Cup Series has raced 14 times on Easter.

First NASCAR races on Easter

The NASCAR Cup Series first raced on Easter in 1953. Dick Passwater picked up his lone win at the 3/4-mile dirt Charlotte (N.C.) Speedway. The next year, Gober Sosebee picked up a win at Central City Speedway in Macon, Ga.

NASCAR held a race on Easter for five consecutive seasons from 1959 to 1963. Then, they raced on Easter again in 1965 and 1969-70.

Richard Petty picked up three wins, all on three different tracks (1960 – Wilson Speedway, 1962 – Martinsville, 1963 – South Boston Speedway), making him the winningest driver on Easter.

Junior Johnson is the only other multi-time Easter winner. He won at Wilson Speedway in 1959 and North Wilkesboro in 1965.

After Bobby Allison’s Easter 1970 win at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the series didn’t race on the holiday until 1989. Rusty Wallace won at Richmond Raceway in a race originally scheduled for February but postponed due to inclement weather.

Return of racing on Easter

2022 marked a change as they moved the dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway to primetime on Easter.

Year one featured a thrilling finish that saw Kyle Busch sneak by for the win. Meanwhile, year two saw Christopher Bell hold off a hard-charging Tyler Reddick – with a little help from a caution.

This Easter, the NASCAR Cup Series will race at Richmond Raceway again. Should Busch or Bell go to victory lane Sunday night, they would join Richard Petty and Junior Johnson as the only multi-time Easter winners.

Additionally, NASCAR has held eight races on the Saturday before Easter (1952, 1958, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1971, 1985).

Easter winners

Here are the winners from every time the NASCAR Cup Series went racing on Easter.

YEAR	TRACK	WINNER
1953	Charlotte Speedway	Dick Passwater
1954	Central City Speedway	Gober Sosebee
1959	Wilson Speedway	Junior Johnson
1960	Wilson Speedway	Richard Petty
1961	Hickory Motor Speedway	Cotton Owens
1962	Martinsville Speedway	Richard Petty
1963	South Boston Speedway	Richard Petty
1965	North Wilkesboro Speedway	Junior Johnson
1969	Hickory Motor Speedway	Bobby Isaac
1970	Atlanta Motor Speedway	Bobby Allison
1989	Richmond Raceway	Rusty Wallace
2022	Bristol Motor Speedway (Dirt)	Kyle Busch
2023	Bristol Motor Speedway (Dirt)	Christopher Bell
2024	Richmond Raceway	Denny Hamlin

The first race held on the holiday was in 1953, when Dick Passwater picked up his lone Cup Series win at the three-fourths mile dirt track Charlotte Speedway.

NASCAR held a race on Easter for five consecutive seasons from 1959 to 1963.