Since it was announced in August of 2024 that the NASCAR Cup Series would be paying a visit to Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on June 15 for the series' first international points event of the modern era, there has been a lot of excitement, but also endless preparation to ensure the weekend goes as smooth as possible.
Before cars take their first laps on the track for practice on Friday, the logistics from this past weekend's race at Michigan leading up to Mexico City have been unlike anything most have experienced before.
Travel arrangement for NASCAR in Mexico City are a new challenge
After each race is complete and cars have been inspected post-race and loaded into their haulers, teams will make their way back to their shops and finish preparing their cars for the following week. Depending on the location of the track, the haulers will usually depart at various times during the week to ensure the cars arrive ahead of the next race.
Instead of going back to the shops from Michigan, reserve haulers delivered the cars and equipment necessary for Mexico on Sunday morning before the race in the Irish Hills even took place. Once the race concluded, the Michigan cars were loaded into the reserve haulers while the primary haulers departed for Mexico prior to 8 p.m.
From there, the convoy of Cup Series haulers had a 24-hour trek to the border in Laredo, Texas on Monday night, with the intention of crossing the border Tuesday morning and arriving in Mexico City on Wednesday.
Through tireless planning and preparation from NASCAR's vice president of racing operations, Tom Bryant, and managing director of racing operations, Steve Beres, there has been a lot of contingency planning to ensure everything is in place to make the long trip across the border as seamless as possible.
There is one specific method that Bryant, a 21-year United States Army veteran from 1993-2014, has used during the lengthy process.
"We use the PACE method of planning," he said, per NASCAR.com, "meaning we have the Primary plan, an Alternate plan, a Contingency plan and an Emergency plan. So we've got three backups to the primary plan for everything we're doing. The reality is I believe that most of the things we've planned will go off roughly how we've planned them. But there are going to be unforeseen incidents and things that occur that are going to force us to adjust. But we try to think through all of what those things could possibly be as well in advance and plan for how we're going to react to that so when it comes time to execute, we're just performing."
Beres, a 28-year veteran of the Daytona Beach Police Department, with 13 years as a SWAT team member and seven as deputy chief of police, has been in charge of ensuring all 137 trucks, 284 drivers and almost 2,400 documents make it across the border. He touched on the time-consuming process of getting everything into Mexico.
"Everything on-truck has to be documented in a manifest, and then it has to be documented both on a temporary form and a consumable form and a race-car form," Beres said. "Everything has to be separate. We can only bring in stuff that's coming back out. In other words, a pit box - we list that on one section of the manifest, and it comes out on that same section. A consumable - if I have a Sharpie marker or roll of tape, that has to be listed separately on different documents.
"It's a very tedious and a very time-consuming process. And then dealing with every single team with their questions, trying to figure out what they can and can't take and just working on it day in and day out, sometimes till midnight, every single day."
In addition to the Cup Series, the Xfinity Series returns from its off-week to race in Mexico City for the first time since 2008. Since the series was off at Michigan, its haulers headed out a little earlier and were scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.
Drivers will have extra track time to get acclimated to the new venue
In recent years, teams will typically have one practice session and then go straight into qualifying. With so many unknowns surrounding Mexico City this weekend, each series will have a pair of practices on Friday before qualifying on Saturday.
The Xfinity Series' Chilango 150 will take place on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET (The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), while the Cup Series will take the green flag on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET (Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The last time the Cup Series ventured outside the United States for a points-paying race was in 1952 at Stamford Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. While Bryant acknowledged that "I'll be able to take a breath and say, 'Wow, that was cool' " once teams get back across the border, the historic nature of the event and new fan base in Mexico was certainly not lost on him.
After the long hours leading up to this historic weekend, the hard work will be rewarded when cars turn laps on the Mexico City circuit and cross a modern day international points-paying race for the Cup Series off the list as one of NASCAR's latest bold moves.