In 2021, the race was run on the road course layout, originally intended as a temporary effort in order to have teams use a sixth-generation chassis when the seventh-generation chassis was to have debuted at the Daytona 500 that year. Teams will not have had enough seventh-generation cars available for the Daytona 500, so NASCAR intended to use the sixth-generation road course car (which can be repurposed into an Xfinity Series chassis) used at Daytona for cost savings. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and inability to secure a waiver to run at Watkins Glen International, NASCAR moved the event to the Daytona road course. Furthermore, the seventh-generation chassis launch was delayed one year by the pandemic reducing NASCAR's ability to test the new car. The race will still use the road course even with the sixth-generation chassis continuing to be used by NASCAR full-time in the Cup Series. It is expected the 2022 Clash, which will return to the standard schedule (the 2021 Speedweeks schedule was shortened because of Super Bowl LV in nearby Tampa) and take place with sixth-generation cars on the road course again to save teams money. The 2020 road course round at Daytona, for example, had only one caution flag for an incident (mechanical failure), while the Clash had four crash-inducing cautions.