2014 NASCAR Cup Series (Simpsonverse)

The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series was the 66th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 43rd modern-era Cup season. The season began at Daytona International Speedway, with the Budweiser Shootout, followed by the Daytona 500. The season ended with the Oral-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

This season was the final year of broadcasting for the ESPN family of networks. ESPN had covered the second half of the Sprint Cup season since 2007. For 2015, their portions of the season were divided between Fox Sports, MGM, Turner Sports, and NBC.

Tony Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing claimed the drivers' championship and owners' championship, while Chevrolet won the manufacturer's championship. In one of the largest rookie classes in recent history, Kyle Larson was named the Junie Donlavey Rookie of the Year.

Manufacturer changes

 * Ford began fielding the Shelby GT500 for Wood Brothers Racing, marking Shelby's NASCAR debut.

Rules changes
One major change was the banning of coil-binding, and a rigid inspection process to ensure crew chiefs weren't cheating the system by binding the coils.

Body rules were tightened to ensure teams weren't trying to create artificial aerodynamic advantages. Bodywork was required to be symmetrical, with no flaring; teams managed to exploit a loophole saying the front fenders couldn't be flared, as nothing in the rulebook mentioned the rear fenders.

Finally, the field was expanded from 43 to 46 cars, after NASCAR introduced the Local Leasing Program, allowing one-off and local entries into races. These homegrown entries often use cars straight from the showroom, as well as older car models, since there are no rules mandating that Local Leasing teams use the SSC; the rules forbid the use of hatchbacks, vans, minivans, SUVS, pickup trucks, convertibles, cars with a rotary engine, hybrids, electrics, open-wheeled cars like IndyCars or Formula 1 cars, Daytona or Le Mans Prototypes, Whelen Modified cars, dirt stocks, super stocks, mini stocks, supercars, exotics, really old cars (the rulebook specifically calls out the Ford Model T and any AMC cars), steam-powered cars, horse-drawn chariots (a rule added after an amusing incident at the 2015 Southern 500 where a driver attempted to enter a replica Roman chariot drawn by a horse, which was rejected on animal welfare grounds; the incident quickly became an internet meme, with many fans jokingly calling for a "NASCAR Chariot Series"), race horses in general, anything remotely resembling a go-kart (several ignorant drivers tried entering go-karts with nitrous bottles attached so they could remain competitive; all were rejected on safety grounds), drag racers (again, ignorant drivers have tried entering ex-NHRA and NASCAR DieHard Drag Racing Series cars, all of which were rejected for having absolutely no handling to speak of at speed, and having an unfair aerodynamic advantage over the SSC), and anything remotely resembling a potential lemon. This also meant the return of the older-style car to Cup Series competition for the first time since 2002.

Schedule
The final calendar was released on October 15, 2013, comprising 38 races, as well as two exhibition races. The schedule also includes two Gatorade Duels, which are the qualifying races for the Daytona 500.