New Mexico
Iconic NASCAR Track Loses 2025 Cup Series Calendar Spot For New Mexico Race
Richmond Raceway will host just one Cup Series race weekend instead of its usual two during the 2025 season after NASCAR confirmed the introduction of Mexico City.
During the announcement, NASCAR executive Ben Kennedy revealed:
“We’re still committed to Richmond. It’s an important track, an important market certainly, as we think about where our NASCAR fans are today.
“We’ve seen some exciting story lines certainly coming out of that track over the past few years and excited to continue to be there next year, put on a great event for our fans, and put a lot of that energy and resources into that event.”
Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images
The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico is set for June 15, 2025, at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, a track with a rich history in motorsports.
Reflecting on the global vision for NASCAR, Kennedy added:
“This has been on our radar for a long time. We’ve been talking about the continued iteration of our schedule, right? You can go back a few years, went to new markets like Nashville and Austin, Texas.
“We went to the Coliseum for the Clash. … We went to our first street race in downtown Chicago, and this is going to be another first for us in a lot of ways. This is going to be certainly a monumental event for us, the first time we’re going south of the border.”
Kennedy added:
“It’s huge. When we talk as a leadership team about where we feel like our biggest growth opportunities as a sport is, international is always one of the first things that comes up.
“We brought the Craftsman Truck Series to Canada for a number of years, we’ve had the Xfinity Series in Mexico. This is a monumental moment for our sport in the sense that this is our first step of really taking the Cup Series internationally, and I think it could set us up for the future in potential new markets.
“I think we’ve been honest about our interest in taking our Cup Series abroad, whether that’s north of the border or south of the border, and then as we talk about some of our other races, there are opportunities for us to take the Cup Series even further than that.
“So, it’s going to be a big project for us. There’s a lot of questions that we have. I’m sure that the industry will have some questions as well, but excited to take this on, and to go to one of the biggest markets — not just in the country, but in the world — is going to be huge for our sport.”
NASCAR Cup Series: Current Standings
- Tyler Reddick – 823 points
- Kyle Larson – 806 points
- Chase Elliott – 805 points
- Ryan Blaney – 755 points
- William Byron – 743 points
- Christopher Bell – 737 points
- Brad Keselowski – 718 points
- Denny Hamlin – 712 points
- Martin Truex Jr – 695 points
- Ty Gibbs – 676 points
- Chris Buescher – 658 points
- Alex Bowman – 648 points
- Bubba Wallace – 637 points
- Ross Chastain – 631 points
- Joey Logano – 586 points
- Kyle Busch – 552 points
- Daniel Suárez – 527 points
- Chase Briscoe – 514 points
- Austin Cindric – 486 points
- Todd Gilliland – 480 points
- Carson Hocevar – 467 points
- Michael McDowell – 459 points
- Josh Berry – 448 points
- Noah Gragson – 426 points
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr – 404 points
- Erik Jones – 381 points
- Ryan Preece – 368 points
- Daniel Hemric – 365 points
- Austin Dillon – 360 points
- Justin Haley – 356 points
- John H. Nemechek – 343 points
- Corey LaJoie – 335 points
- Zane Smith – 316 points
- Harrison Burton – 306 points
- Kaz Grala – 166 points
- Cody Ware – 98 points
- Joey Hand – 43 points
- Jimmie Johnson – 39 points
- Derek Kraus – 32 points
- David Ragan – 17 points
- Kamui Kobayashi – 8 points
- Will Brown – 6 points
- Cam Waters – 2 points
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Some call the multi-million-dollar El Camino Real Heritage Center an architectural masterpiece. Others, however, call it one of New Mexico’s most expensive blunders. In 2021, former Speaker of the House Don Tripp weighed in on the project, “As far as benefit, it really didn’t have any benefit to anybody.”
Taxpayers paid more than $4,000,000 to build it, a few million dollars more to operate it and, now, a half million to tear it down.
The El Camino Real Heritage Center is a history museum dedicated to the historic ‘Royal Road of the Interior’. Established by Spanish conquistadores in 1598, the historic byway extended from Mexico City to north of Santa Fe. Armed with $4,000,000 from the state legislature and the Bureau of Land Management, consultants were hired to find the best place to build the new museum. After studying various locations, they chose a remote spot on the prairie 37 miles south of Socorro.
The experts said, ‘build halfway between Socorro and Truth or Consequences,’ and the museum will draw 100,000 visitors a year, bring in $10,000,000 to the region, and create 174 new jobs. Back in 2004, no one raised a red flag about putting a tourist attraction in an out-of-the-way location. It was only after construction was complete that officials learned the so-called experts were dead wrong. The project was doomed to fail before it even opened its doors. “Who the heck thought it was a good idea to build it where they built it?” State Rep. Gail Armstrong told KRQE News 13 last year.
The state’s newest museum opened in 2005. An estimated crowd of 2000 turned out for the dedication ceremony. Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was there. “We had Bill Richardson out there cutting the ribbon, and then we had the Vice President of Spain come down here with his beautiful wife, and we had dignitaries everywhere. It was exciting,” Mayor Bhasker said.
But the excitement was short-lived. Where the historic El Camino Real trail was in use for three centuries, the museum with its namesake lasted just eleven years. The remote location meant few visitors, meager revenue, inadequate staffing, expensive utilities, and maintenance.
In 2016, New Mexico’s Cultural Affairs Department pulled the plug on the El Camino Real Heritage Center, padlocked the doors, and permanently closed the museum. The parking lot is deserted, tourists are gone, artifacts are packed away, display cases vacant, exhibits dismantled, interpretive panels removed, and the gift shop is bare. All there is to show for millions of tax dollars is an abandoned building on the prairie.
“Eleven years is disgraceful. There was a real failure in this particular project,” the late State Senator John Arthur Smith said in a 2021 interview. We asked the retired Senate Finance Committee Chair, when the history of this project is written, what will it say? “They’re going to shake their head and (use this as) another example of government waste,” the retired Senator Smith said in 2021.
So what do you do with a $4,000,000 deserted building in the middle of nowhere? Time and vandals have taken a toll. The museum was closed and boarded up in 2016, and then state officials abandoned the site. Because little effort was made to secure the empty building, it is no longer habitable. Copper wiring has been stolen. There is significant structural damage, mold, a rodent infestation, and no electricity or lights. Most of the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, water, and septic systems are either obsolete or inoperable.
Faced with a whopping $3.5 million repair bill, the Museum of New Mexico’s Board of Regents made the difficult decision last year to demolish the building. Board of Regent’s President, Dr. George Goldstein, calls the building, “A loss, a huge loss.”
“What a complete waste of taxpayer dollars,” says State Rep. Gail Armstrong who’s District 49 includes the museum site. And what did taxpayers get for their $4,000,000 investment? “Nothing. It just cost them a ton of money. Nothing,” Representative Armstrong said.
This week, a state-hired demolition crew began the task of tearing down the museum complex. Tons of concrete, steel, and glass will be hauled away. The parking lot and nearby caretaker’s house will also be ripped out. The prairie will be graded, reseeded with native plants, and returned to the Bureau of Land Management in restored, pristine condition. The demolition project is expected to take four months.
The El Camino Real museum was planned and built during the Governor Bill Richardson administration. All of the State Legislators involved in the funding of the museum project have since left government service.
Soon, the El Camino Real International Heritage Center will be just a bitter memory. All clues to the existence of a pricey government blunder will have been erased. Pay a visit to the remote spot south of Socorro later this fall, and all you will find will be desert creosote, prairie dogs, and a few rattlesnakes.
CLOVIS, New Mexico (KVII) — A baby giraffe was born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis.
The city announced a male calf was born around 1 a.m. Thursday to Jerrica, a Rothschild giraffe who has lived at the zoo since she was born there in January 2012.
Zoo officials said Jerrica, a first-time mother, and her calf are doing well.
Baby giraffe born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis, New Mexico on July 9, 2026 (Credit: Hillcrest Park Zoo )
The calf will make his public debut from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment you won’t want to miss! Bring your family, your camera, and your excitement as we welcome the zoo’s newest (and tallest!) superstar!” said the zoo.
Because the calf is male, he will eventually be moved from Hillcrest Park Zoo to another zoo or facility, according to the city.
The zoo plans to ask the public to help name the calf in the coming weeks.
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