After months of preparation and anticipation, NASCAR is all packed up and on its way south of the border for the Cup Series’ inaugural visit to Mexico City.

Haulers hit the road from the Michigan International Speedway garage Sunday night at approximately 7:30 ET, loaded with what they’ll need for Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the series’ first international points race since 1958. But in reality, this journey started months ago.

Since 2001, the Cup schedule has featured 38 races, a traveling circus moving week to week from race shops in North Carolina to race tracks across the United States and back again like clockwork. The routine became just that — routine — and can be taken for granted at times. Count this an exception.

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Immense numbers of people throughout the NASCAR industry have been working tirelessly to properly coordinate a unique international effort.

NASCAR’s vice president of racing operations Tom Bryant and Steve Beres, managing director of racing operations, have been working full speed on this endeavor since February, though planning even began earlier. And while teams ultimately remain responsible for bringing their necessities, it’s the sanctioning body that must ensure everything goes as anticipated.

“We’re responsible for everything,” Bryant told NASCAR.com. ”It’s people. It’s equipment. It’s all the logistics to support all that. It’s security. It’s a ton of contingency planning because, hey, we are going to be way far away from our home base here, right? We’re not at North Wilkesboro, where we can run back down to Charlotte and grab pieces and parts. That’s not possible. So every aspect of the event weekend has to be planned for, coordinated, resourced and ready to go.”

This is where Bryant’s 21 years in the United States Army come in most handy. Serving from 1993-2014, Bryant was deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I like to think that the experience I had in moving a brigade from the 101st Airborne from Fort Campbell (in) Kentucky to Iraq, there were definitely some lessons learned during that that I was able to apply to this operation,” Bryant said. “And that’s been our approach to this. My approach to this, from a racing-ops standpoint, is this is an operation. It’s not an event. It’s not a race. It’s an operation. I’ve used a lot of the elements of the military decision-making process and the military planning process to put all this stuff together. It works really well. It’s proven and I just had to change a few words and back off some acronyms.”

One acronym that has remained relevant is PACE.

“We use the PACE method of planning,” he said, “meaning we have the Primary plan, an Alternate plan, a Contingency plan and an Emergency plan. So we’ve got three backups to the primary plan for everything we’re doing. The reality is I believe that most of the things we’ve planned will go off roughly how we’ve planned them. But there are going to be unforeseen incidents and things that occur that are going to force us to adjust. But we try to think through all of what those things could possibly be well in advance and plan for how we’re going to react to that so when it comes time to execute, we’re just performing.”

While Bryant headed planning, Beres has had his hands full handling all things related to teams’ haulers. A 28-year veteran of the Daytona Beach Police Department with 13 years spent on SWAT teams and seven years as deputy chief of police, Beres knows the coordination necessary to pull off significant feats — and significant it’s been.

“It’s been a fun project,” Beres said, “but then again, it’s been a stressful project because of the all the unknowns and just putting a little stuff together. We have 137 trucks going across, 284 drivers, and having to keep track of almost 2,400 different documents has been a challenge. It’s really been something that I don’t think NASCAR has ever taken on, but it’s been fun, and it’s going to be really exciting to see the final product.”

Beres, seen Sunday morning at Michigan with arms folded as he oversaw the first actions on-the-ground, has taken one day off since March 1 — his birthday in late March — in preparation for this weekend’s upcoming event. He is responsible for bringing every truck across the border efficiently, he said, working with customs to ensure all permits are in order. What might be most arduous, though, are the manifests necessary for each and every hauler.

“Everything on-truck has to be documented in a manifest, and then it has to be documented both on a temporary form and a consumable form and a race-car form,” Beres said. “Everything has to be separate. We can only bring in stuff that’s coming back out. In other words, a pit box — we list that on one section of the manifest, and it comes out on that same section. A consumable — if I have a Sharpie marker or roll of tape, that has to be listed separately on different documents.

“It’s a very tedious and a very time-consuming process. And then dealing with every single team with their questions, trying to figure out what they can and can’t take and just working on it day in and day out, sometimes till midnight, every single day.”

One team with fewer questions than most is Hendrick Motorsports. In addition to its four-car Cup program, the organization fielded the Garage 56 entry in 2023 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, meaning they needed to get the vehicle, parts, pieces, tools and more to France in order to compete.

“I think some of the shock of manifests and carnets and insurance stuff was probably slightly subdued for us just because of doing Garage 56, which was like almost identical, with having to have everything filled out in advance,” Ryan Glenn, Hendrick Motorsports’ team operations manager, said. “So truthfully, it wasn’t a big deal for us. We’re just not used to it collectively as an organization. Garage 56 was a smaller project. Mexico’s involving all four of our teams, right? So, little bit of a learning curve, but not a whole lot, just because our support team has already done it.”

At Front Row Motorsports, No. 4 crew chief Drew Blickensderfer carries previous experience with him into Mexico City. Blickensderfer served as crew chief for RFK Racing (then Roush Fenway) for three (2006-08) of the four years the NASCAR Xfinity Series raced in Mexico City.

“From my memory when I did it 19 years ago, we didn’t leave the week before like we are now,” Blickensderfer said. “We flew our own planes down there. It wasn’t chartered as a group. I think NASCAR has done a good job, and maybe it’s because it’s the premier series in the country versus the support series. But a lot more has gone into making sure we the teams stay together and get down there.”

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Because the NASCAR Xfinity Series is also competing in The Chilango 150 on Saturday, June 14 (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the unified journey to and across the border truly began Saturday. Since they were off last weekend, Xfinity teams departed from their shops Saturday, June 7, to arrive in Laredo, Texas on Sunday. Those 50 or so vehicles — race team, Champion and series haulers — crossed the border Monday morning and were planned to arrive in Mexico City on Tuesday.

On race-day morning at Michigan, Cup Series cars and equipment necessary to compete at Mexico were delivered to the track on reserve haulers. By 8:30 a.m., the haulers were parked and teams began the swap, rolling their Mexico primary cars, backup cars, spare tractor-trailer tires and more to the primary haulers while the Michigan backups were delivered to the reserve haulers. That meant teams’ Mexico cars had to be completed and ready for transport before Michigan.

“The last two weeks were definitely busier than normal,” Blickensderfer said. “The days off were limited for the road crew. They normally have a Monday off and then come in and work and load on Wednesday night or Thursday at noon. Now, it was come in on Monday all day, work more till 6 at night instead of 4:30 at night. And then on Thursday, show up and work some more to make sure we can get it out.

“But they’ll be able to get some of that back next week because the Mexico car is gone and maybe get ahead of Pocono, which will ease the next three weeks and kind of get some of that time back.”

After the checkered flag at Michigan, the cars that competed were loaded onto the reserve haulers and sent on their way back to North Carolina. The primary haulers — once cleared of any personal belongings from Michigan — began their journey southbound before 8 p.m.

The Cup convoy was set for a 24-hour drive to Laredo, arriving Monday night before crossing the border Tuesday morning and arriving in Mexico City in the early hours of Wednesday.

Unity has been imperative on all fronts. Longtime partners of the sport like Goodyear and Featherlite offered additional support, as did Stepp’s Towing Service.

“We’ve had so many folks who are a part of the industry who have been so helpful, who stood up and said, ‘Hey, how can we assist?’” Bryant said. “For instance, Goodyear is going to have a mobile maintenance team at our staging area in Laredo. So as we receive trucks from North Carolina and Michigan, if somebody’s got a tire issue, anything of that nature, they can fix it right there on-site before we cross the border. Featherlite is making the trip with us. They probably supplied 90-some-odd percent of the trailers that we’re hauling down there — we and the race teams.

“If there’s an issue, Stepp’s Towing (is) actually going to have a recovery vehicle in the very last convoy in case some catastrophic breakdown occurs. They can hook up a trailer and keep on rolling so we can make sure we get everybody to Mexico City. So really great collaboration amongst really important partners to make this happen.”

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Because of the flashy nature of a traditional hauler — and dozens traveling together at once — these trailers tend to draw plenty of attention. Drivers are always prepared for those who want pictures or desire to get up close and personal with the haulers, dolled up with colorful sponsors and schemes visible on the road from afar. But precautions have been made to ensure everyone’s safety as well.

“I’ve made a few trips down to Laredo and met with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and with ANAM (the National Customs Agency of Mexico) and coordinated for that crossing,” Bryant said. “They’ve been just fabulous in trying to help expedite that process to get everyone across the border so we can get down there.”

The industry has also been helped immensely by partnering with Rock-It Cargo, a logistics company that specializes in big-time events like Formula One and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts, which accounted for 200 tractor-trailers worth of equipment.

This endeavor is guaranteed to be one for the history books. NASCAR’s premier series hasn’t competed for points outside the United States since 1958 at the Canadian National Exposition Speedway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. That will change Sunday afternoon after a months long, exhausting but collaborative effort to see the NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series stars shine on foreign soil.

“Knowing that we’re delivering NASCAR racing to this entirely new fan base in Mexico City and knowing that all the people back in the states who are fans are going to be watching this, that’s really cool,” Bryant said. “It really is a historic event. And at some point — I think probably after we’re done and we get that last vehicle back across the border — I’ll be able to take a breath and say, ‘Wow, that was cool.’ ”