NASCAR scraps NYC ‘victory lap’ during banquet week

For the last four years, NASCAR has staged a “victory lap" in the middle of Manhattan a couple of days prior to its Cup awards banquet. It was an incredible sight for some – fans lined the sidewalks to see the top 10 Cup drivers wheel their cars on the streets around and about the Times Square area.

“After several years, it’s a wrap," NASCAR Vice President Jim Hunter said Friday. “I think we needed something new. We’re doing some things, some additional promotions that we partnered up with Sprint.

“There’s going to be billboards, additional signage, fan participation and those kind of things. It’s going to be good."

The parade of stock cars took an incredible amount of planning and cost, and NASCAR and Sprint are looking at other ways to engage fans during its championship week. Plans are still being finalized.

“There’s no way you could realize the work that our people put in to doing a parade in New York," Hunter said. “When you think of normal traffic in New York, there’s nothing normal about it. We’ll do some other things."

The Sprint Cup banquet this year is scheduled for Dec. 5th.