2015 NASCAR Coca-Cola Cup Series (Johnsonverse)

The 2015 NASCAR Coca-Cola Cup Series was the 67th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 44th modern-era Cup season. The season began at Sonoma Raceway with the Toyota/Save Mart 350, followed by the Busch Clash, the Budweiser Twin 125's, and the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. The season ended with the Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the championship. Brett Moffitt was named Rookie of the Year. Chevrolet won the Manufacturers' Championship; Pontiac, in its first season back, finished second, Dodge finished third, Toyota finished fourth, and Ford finished a distant fifth after another dismal year.

The season also marked the first season of a new nine-year television contract. During the season, races were televised in the United States on Fox, Fox Sports 1, NBC, NBCSN, and WBC. Turner, who televised races from 1982 to 2014, did not seek to its their contracts NASCAR following the completion of the 2014 season; this marked the end of a 31-year relationship between NASCAR and Turner's primary station, TSS. In addition, it was the first season on the newly rebranded Fox Sports Racing in Canada and the Caribbean. It is expected that, once the contract is up, all races will be aired on WBC. Cartoon Network aired a race for the first time as well.

2015 also marked the entry of Honda into NASCAR, and the return of Pontiac for the first time since 2003.

On January 22, 2015, four-time champion Jeff Gordon announced that 2015 would be his final season as a full-time driver, but he did not rule out complete retirement; Chase Elliott replaced him in the No. 24 car for Hendrick Motorsports in 2016, while Gordon became an analyst at Fox.

Manufacturer notes
2015 was a big year for manufacturers. Chrysler made its final exit from NASCAR, though Dodge stayed due to Chrysler Group LLC being acquired by Johnson Industries during the offseason. Another Johnson marquee, Pontiac, made its first appearance in NASCAR since 2003. Finally, after years of speculation, Honda finally bit the bullet and entered NASCAR.

Pontiac entered two models for its return: the Trans-Am and G8. The Trans-Am, being a pony car, was Pontiac's entry into the Horsepower Wars, while the G8 was part of a smaller Fourth Aero War, competing with the Chevrolet SS, Ford Fusion, Dodge Dart, Toyota Camry, and Honda Accord; this aero war was overshadowed by the Horsepower Wars, as it had been since 2008.

Schedule
The final calendar was released on August 26, 2014, comprising 36 races, as well as two exhibition races. The schedule also includes two Budweiser Duels, which are the qualifying races for the Daytona 500.

Key changes from 2014 include:


 * The Auto Club 400 was removed from the schedule entirely. This came following complaints that there were too many races in California (besides Auto Club, NASCAR also raced at Riverside International Raceway, Ontario Motor Speedway, Sonoma Raceway, and San Jose Motorplex). The decision to remove Auto Club Speedway from the schedule came from a study that found it was the least-popular of the California tracks due to its "cookie-cutter" design that mimicked Michigan and Texas World (Ontario is also considered a "cookie-cutter" track due to mimicking Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the track has seen consistent sellouts since it was added back to the schedule in 1990). In 2020, a project commenced to rebuild the track into a short track in hopes of getting its Cup Series date back. In the meantime, Auto Club became a very popular stop on the IndyCar schedule.
 * The race at Atlanta Motor Speedway moved from October to March, while the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway (often plagued by bad weather) moved from March to April. This created a three-race "west coast swing" for the third through fifth races of the season, wherein the events at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club (Fontana) now happened consecutively (as opposed to being broken up by a trip back east to Bristol).
 * The Coors 400 at Pike's Peak International Raceway was reinstated between the Irwin Tools Night Race and Southern 500.
 * Charlotte and Kansas swap fall race dates.
 * The mandate of standardized start times was quietly abolished, with some races (especially in the second half of the season) occurring later in the afternoon than normal.

Media coverage
In the United States, coverage was divided between Fox Sports, NBC Sports, and WBC Sports; NBC had last aired a NASCAR race in 2006. Fox and Fox Sports 1 (FS1) aired most of the first half of the season, while NBC and NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) aired a chunk of the second half. Much of the season, especially the second half, was aired by WBC, including all of the restrictor-plate races (this includes the Daytona 500 and all Speedweeks coverage, including the Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, and ARCA races), all road courses, both Charlotte races, the races at Pocono and Michigan, the Southern 500, the Brickyard 400, Iowa, and the season-ending race at Ontario. The Music City USA 420 was broadcast on TNN.