NASCAR has confirmed that the move to push Watkins Glen forward on the calendar to May will be reversed for 2027.

The switch to the spring was heavily criticized at the time, with fans warning that the weather would make camping at the track a real problem and be truly detrimental to race-going fans.

That appears to be the case, with campgrounds a mess of mud and people needing to be towed out after getting stuck, and floods of negative comments on social media.

It's unlikely that the decision to move the race back to the tail end of the year – it will now be held early in the Chase, so likely the start of September – was made in a matter of days in response to the issues this week, but the announcement has nevertheless been welcomed.

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Watkins Glen spring experiment over

Watkins Glen track president Dawn Burlew said on Thursday: “People actually really liked that recognition for The Glen as well as all our fans that come here. So being in [the Chase] going forward, I think they’re going to be thrilled that we’re at the first part of that and really kind of set the stage for the rest of the playoff season.

"So again, if we can be part of that and kick it off, there’s no better place than to do it at The Glen.”

She continued: “I think what we’ve done is our merchandise, we’ve looked at it when we saw the date, and we said, OK, we need to shift our merchandise from all T-shirts and tank tops to long sleeves and things like that.

"But then again, we did some really cool stuff for Mother’s Day with our merchandise, so we just took a whole different twist to it when we started getting ready and planning for this weekend.

"We’re more celebrating just a different date, because it gave us a whole different way to plan. Instead of just doing traditional flowers, we did more mulch and tulips that my team planted last fall, which normally we wouldn’t do, but we said, OK, that’s something different. So we just embraced it that way.”

Fan reactions to the track's social media post announcing the switch were overwhelmingly in favor of the move, although that was expressed about 50 per cent with praise for the decision and 50 per cent continued criticism of the choice to jump to May in the first place.

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