2016 NASCAR Coca-Cola Cup Series (Johnsonverse)

The 2016 NASCAR Coca-Cola Cup Series was the 68th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 45th modern-era Cup series season. The season began at Sonoma Raceway with the Honda/Save Mart 350, followed by a two-week stop at Daytona International Speedway with the Busch Clash, Budweiser Twin 125's, and the 58th running of the Daytona 500. The season ended with the Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway. Tony Stewart of Stewart-Haas Racing won his fifth drivers' championship. Pontiac won the manufacturer's championship.

The season also marked the second season of a new television contract. During the season, races were broadcast in the United States by Fox Sports, NBC Sports, and WBC Sports.

The season also saw the addition of a newly-built track in Kantō on the Japanese Isles, Tokyo Superspeedway.

Schedule

 * The Hellmann's 500 was delayed due to heavy rains all week, and had to be moved to December 18

Changes

 * The new Tokyo Superspeedway was added to the schedule.
 * Kentucky Speedway was completely removed from the NASCAR schedule and lost its NASCAR sanctioning, due to Tim Johnson deeming the speedway "the single-worst track on the schedule". Its date became Tokyo's summer date.
 * Rockingham Speedway, after years of failing to sell out its two races, gave up its fall date to Tokyo. The remaining spring date has consistently sold out since 2016.
 * Denver's spring date was placed late-March between Darlington and Martinsville, instead of mid-April between Martinsville and Texas as in recent years.
 * The Coke Zero 400 at Daytona returned to its usual Saturday night date.
 * The spring race at Richmond moved from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon.
 * Michigan and Bristol swap their August race dates to avoid a scheduling conflict with the 2016 Summer Olympics being hosted on NBC.
 * The first race at Dover and the Memorial Day week swapped dates, so the last race before the All-Star Race is Dover instead of North Wilkesboro.