H2H: What's on your NASCAR bucket list?

NASCAR fans, check your calendars.

Sure, it’s hot and humid outside — it is August, after all — but this week feels a lot like Christmas, doesn’t it?

Saturday marks one of the premier days of each year in motorsports — we’ll be runnin’ ’em under the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway in the Irwin Tools Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).

For many, the night race at Bristol is the most-anticipated event of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, even ranking ahead of the Daytona 500.

Seeing that race live is something special, something sure to be on every fan’s ultimate bucket list.

So that has us wondering — what’s on your bucket list?

NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola and Jessica Ruffin offer their personal ones, and you should feel free to list your own down in the comments section.

DeCola: My NASCAR bucket list? Man, that’s a tough one. The sport has so much history at so many different tracks for so many different reasons, it’s hard to narrow it down. For starters, I think I’d want to knock the Brickyard 400 at Indy off my list. The Brickyard is arguably the most famous track in the world — certainly in the United States — and I have a sneaking feeling the history runs so deep there that you can breathe it in just as easily as the exhaust from 43 cars running around a 2.5-mile rectangle at 200 mph. Indy’s an obvious bucket list item.

Ruffin: Stepping on those celebrated bricks and looking up at the famed pagoda is nothing short of a NASCAR dream, Pat. Indy definitely makes my list, too. And while it’s much smaller and less glamorous than Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I’m going to throw Martinsville Speedway on my NASCAR bucket list. As the oldest track on the circuit, Martinsville takes you back in time to the roots of racing. All the greats from Fireball Roberts to Junior Johnson to Richard Petty to Dale Earnhardt have wheeled race cars around the paperclip oval. Watching old-school short-track racing from the grandstands — which all have a spectacular view — while munching on a legendary Martinsville hot dog is a must-do for any diehard fan.

DeCola: Tell me about it. Much to my cholesterol-level’s dismay, Martinsville probably makes my bucket list for the hot dog, alone. Continuing down the history trail here, another one any fan would be thrilled to cross off their list is Darlington Raceway, especially for this year’s Labor Day Throwback race. Sure, the summer trips to Myrtle Beach are great, but driving along the outside of the landmark track along the way only makes me wish I could be standing in the infield, watching those killer throwback schemes race to take home the biscuit race for one of NASCAR’s majors — the Bojangles’ Southern 500.

Ruffin: This year’s throwback schemes at Darlington are going to be incredible — fans can bet they’ll be transported back to another age of racing when they watch Kevin Harvick‘s old-school Budweiser scheme turning laps around the speedway Labor Day weekend from the infield. Another place that makes my bucket list possibly for the infield alone is a “Big One” — good ole Talladega. Located in the heart of Dixie, the larger-than-life tailgating — which includes everything from mud wrestling to weddings — and passionate fans make ‘Dega a must-stop on the circuit. The racing’s pretty awesome, too, with the superspeedway-style drafting, high speeds and crazy, multi-car pile-ups. And if someone like Junior — the ‘Dega fan favorite — takes the checkered, the contagious post-race excitement is bound to leave you singing “Sweet Home Alabama” all the way home.

DeCola: Home, you say, eh? Well, there’s no better place to call home than Daytona International Speedway, which may as well consider itself the flagship track of our entire sport. Sure, I’ve been there before, but guess what — the annual season-opening Daytona 500 should be on every NASCAR fan’s bucket list … every year. One of the most unpredictable, enthralling races of the entire season, there’s no reason to “cross it off” if you’ve been there before. Once is surely not enough.

Ruffin: Daytona International Speedway isn’t called the World Center of Racing for nothing, that’s for certain. It’s an iconic track and the Daytona 500 — NASCAR’s Super Bowl — is the perfect way to open up the NASCAR season. Let’s fast forward from the first race to the last race now: The season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. While it’s not considered a NASCAR Major in everyone’s book (see what we do consider the four NASCAR Majors here), the final race of the season is a bucket list item simply for the sake of it being the race that ultimately decides the NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. Judging by the exciting, nail-biting atmosphere it created last season with four drivers all vying for the title, Homestead’s popularity and hype is bound to increase. Not to mention its located in beautiful south Florida — so why not make a vacation out of it?