CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR made the first significant changes to its schedule in years by shuffling the 2020 season into a freshened new sequence that tries to meet the wants of fans to the best of its current ability.

The 2020 schedule was released Tuesday at ISM Raceway outside Phoenix, which will host the season finale.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway got July 5th to give the iconic track back-to-back summer holiday weekends. Daytona gave up its traditional and often rain-wrecked July 4th weekend for the final race of the regular season, when the playoff field will be completed.

Pocono Raceway will run both its 400-mile races on back-to-back June afternoons, Martinsville Speedway got a Mother’s Day race under the lights and also a slot in the playoffs — one of three short tracks featured in NASCAR’s 10-race playoffs. Even better for Martinsville, it got the penultimate race for the championship finale.

Bristol and Richmond short tracks both joined the playoffs, as did Darlington Raceway.

The season ends one week shorter than usual, but still includes 38 events that run from a Feb. 9 exhibition race at Daytona through the finale on Nov. 8 at renovated ISM Raceway outside of Phoenix. That includes consecutive weekends off for the first time in the modern era so that NBC Sports can focus on the Tokyo Olympics.

Charlotte Motor Speedway retained the All-Star race, but Speedway Motorsports chairman Marcus Smith told The Associated Press he was amenable to moving the event to Nashville in 2021.