Last reviewed: August 3, 2026 · By the RaceYear team
Short answer: To find races near you, don’t rely on one track’s Facebook page. Check the sanctioning bodies that run your class (DIRTcar, World of Outlaws, IMCA, USAC), pull up a track directory, and search by series, class, and driving distance. Then follow the tracks that matter so rainouts and date changes don’t blindside you.
Key takeaways
If you’ve ever spent a Thursday night scrolling a track’s Facebook page trying to figure out whether they’re racing Saturday — and what classes are on the card — you already know the problem. Finding races near me should be the easy part. It isn’t. Schedules live nine posts deep between a tire sale and a photo of somebody’s smashed nose panel.
This is a guide to actually finding every race within driving distance — by series, by class, and by how far you’re willing to tow — and following the right tracks so a schedule change doesn’t cost you a weekend.
Grassroots racing never centralized. There’s no single schedule for short-track racing the way there is for the big touring series on TV. Every track runs its own calendar, posts it in its own place, and changes it when the weather or the promoter says so.
So the info you need is scattered:
Nobody built this to be hard on purpose. It’s just that a hundred little tracks each doing their own thing adds up to a mess when you’re the racer trying to plan a season across all of them.
Here’s the honest scorecard on the usual methods. None of these is wrong. They’re just partial.
| Where you look | What it’s good for | Why it fails you |
|---|---|---|
| Track Facebook page | Last-minute rainout calls, results, drama | Schedule is buried; you have to check each track separately; no cross-track view |
| Paper schedule / flyer | The fridge magnet feel | Out of date the second a date moves; classes and paydays change |
| Word of mouth | Insider specials, “they added a race” | Unreliable, incomplete, and you hear it too late |
| Sanctioning body site | Accurate for that series’ events | Only shows that series — misses everything else near you |
Lean on any single one and you’ll miss a race you’d have run.
The Facebook problem is the big one. A track’s page is built to post, not to schedule. The date you need is a status update from two weeks ago, and there’s no filter for “show me every Saturday you’re running a 602 Crate.” You end up checking five pages one at a time, every week, and hoping you didn’t miss a special.
The fix isn’t one magic website. It’s a repeatable habit built on three filters that actually match how you decide whether to load up: what series, which class, and how far.
Work it in this order.
The sanctioning bodies publish real, maintained schedules — and some now put them on a map. If your car fits a national or regional touring series, start there:
Even if you’re a weekly racer who never chases a tour, these schedules tell you when a big-paying special is coming to a track near you — the kind of night you plan a season around.
Sanctioning sites only show their own events. To catch the independent Saturday-night shows, use a directory that lists tracks regardless of who sanctions them.
Pull up the tracks within your tow range and note which nights each one runs. Now you’ve got the weekly shows the touring schedules never mention.
Be honest about how far you’ll tow on a work night versus a Saturday. Set a realistic radius — say 90 minutes for a weekly points night, farther for a special worth the diesel. Distance is the filter that keeps your schedule real. A great race four hours away on a Wednesday isn’t a race you’re running, no matter how good the purse is.
Do these three passes once, at the start of the year, and you’ll have a fuller picture of your season than most guys in the pits.
Building the schedule is half the job. The other half is catching what changes after you build it — because it will.
Rainouts, added specials, moved dates, class changes, a purse bump that turns a normal Saturday into a must-run: these happen all season. The racer who finds out Thursday plans around it. The one who finds out when he pulls in the gate wasted a tank of fuel.
So follow the sources, don’t just check them once:
The goal is simple: never be surprised by a race you could have run, and never load the trailer for one that got rained out.
A schedule you have to go check is a schedule you’ll forget. The move is to get every race you plan to run onto the calendar that already runs your life — the one on your phone.
Some schedule tools let you export events into your phone’s calendar (Apple, Google, or Outlook), and you can always add races one at a time. Once a race is in there, it fights for your attention the same way a dentist appointment does. You get the reminder the night before. You see the conflict with your kid’s game three weeks out, while you can still make a call. And you stop keeping the whole season in your head.
If a tool supports calendar sync, use it. Manually is fine too — the point is that races live where you’ll actually see them, not on a flyer on the fridge.
Finding races isn’t only a racer problem. Your fans have the exact same one. Your family, your sponsor, the buddy who says every year “text me when you’re racing and I’ll come watch” — they’re all stuck digging through the same Facebook pages you are.
When your schedule is public and easy to follow, they find you. That’s more people in the stands cheering your number, and it’s a real, concrete thing you can hand a sponsor: here’s my season, here’s where people can come watch, follow along here. A schedule that’s easy to share is worth more than one locked in your head.
Start with a directory like RacingIn.com or DirtFan and filter by your state or by location and distance, then cross-check the sanctioning bodies that run your class — DIRTcar’s map filters by distance and timeframe, and IMCA’s directory filters by state, race night, and division. For the final rainout call, check each track’s Facebook page the afternoon of the race, since weather decisions come late.
You can, but it only covers one track, and the schedule is buried in a feed built for posts, not planning. There’s no way to filter by class or distance, and you’ll have to repeat the process for every track in your area. Facebook is great for last-minute rainout calls — bad for building a season.
That’s your call, but set a radius before you fall in love with a distant race. Many weekly racers cap a work-night points race around 60 to 90 minutes and save the long tows for specials with a purse worth the fuel and hotel. Deciding your limit up front keeps your schedule realistic.
Yes. The same directories, series schedules, and calendar tools racers use to plan a season also let fans find and follow a driver or track. Making your schedule public and shareable is one of the easiest ways to grow your crowd — and to show a sponsor exactly where their name will be seen.
You can absolutely do all of this by hand — five Facebook tabs, a couple of sanctioning-body maps, a directory, and a flyer on the fridge. Plenty of racers do. But if you’d rather not rebuild that puzzle every week, the free RaceYear Calendar puts the whole thing in one place.
Here’s how it maps to the exact steps above:
Skip the Facebook archaeology. Browse 2,500+ tracks and follow the schedules that matter on the free RaceYear Calendar.
For more on turning that schedule into a plan, read How to Plan Your Racing Season and Points vs. Purse: Which Races Are Actually Worth Running. Once you’ve found a track, the race night format tells you what the night looks like. Finding the track is half of it; the other half is the paperwork — what a dirt track racing license actually is. Finding a race near you assumes the season’s already posted — when does dirt track racing season start covers when it actually will.
Not sure what a division, a sanctioning body, or a purse sheet actually means? Look it up in the RaceYear racing glossary.
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