NASCAR unveils innovative 2026 schedules for national touring series – Speedway Digest

With what we knew about the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule last month, the song “California, Here I Come” might have been an apt anthem for next season.

The release of the full schedule on Wednesday—along with all race dates for the newly entitled NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series—brought some new competitors into the mix, notably the Robert Johnson classic “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Dover, You’re an All-Star,” to borrow loosely from the Smash Mouth hit of 1999.

The California theme refers, of course, to the July announcement that NASCAR will race on a brand new street course on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego on June 19-21. The 2026 schedule announcement shows a trip the following week to Sonoma Raceway, creating a second West Coast Swing.

After three years on the streets of Chicago, the Cup Series will return to 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway in nearby Joliet for its July 4 weekend race. Chicagoland was a staple on the schedule from 2001 through 2019.

And after three years at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the NASCAR All-Star Race will move to Dover Motor Speedway, taking the May 17 date immediately before the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte.

Because Dover doesn’t have lights, the first All-Star Race to be run in the Northeast—and the first on a one-mile speedway—will be contested in daylight, barring the unlikely possibility of temporary lighting.

Dover hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race leaves a date open for a points race, which will go to North Wilkesboro on July 19. The legendary 0.625-mile short track hasn’t hosted a race that counts in the Cup standings since Jeff Gordon won there in 1996.

“This is a landmark schedule that demonstrates NASCAR’s continued innovation with a strong mix of beloved venues and exciting new and returning race tracks for race fans from coast to coast,” said Ben Kennedy, EVP, Chief Venue & Racing Innovation Officer.

The 2026 schedule features what could be called an abbreviated Northeast Swing, with the road-course race at Watkins Glen moving to May 10, the week before the All-Star Race at Dover. The Cup Series has never raced at the Glen earlier than July.

In a Zoom video conference with reporters, Kennedy said Chicagoland will need some sprucing up before NASCAR arrives next July, but he anticipates excellent racing on the intermediate speedway.

“If you look at the racing product for our mile-and-a-half tracks with the Next Gen car, they’re second to none on the schedule,” he said. “Mile-and-a-half racing has been some of the best racing we’ve seen every single week.

“We have a little bit of dust to knock off in Joliet before we go there in July of next year, but July 4 weekend of the country’s 250th anniversary, you couldn’t ask for a better location than the Midwest and being in Chicagoland.”

The decision to make North Wilkesboro a points race is one that should resonate throughout the fan base.

“We had about 70 percent of our fans and four out of five 18-to-34-year-olds that asked for North Wilkesboro to move into a points event,” Kennedy said. “So we’re going to move that into July in TNT’s portion of the season, with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. in the booth, who I know has been a big advocate of turning North Wilkesboro into a points event.”

Weather was a consideration in moving the All-Star Race to Dover in May.

“It is hot and humid at Dover in July, so we wanted to move it closer to its traditional date in May,” Kennedy said. “And it’s also an opportunity for us to change things and move to a new location for the All-Star Race.”

The first six events of the Cup season mirror those of 2025. After the non-points Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 1, the Cup regular season begins with the 68th running of the DAYTONA 500 on Sunday, Feb. 15.

Following the Great American Race, the series will compete on consecutive weekends at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta), Circuit of The Americas (Austin, Tex.), Phoenix Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The FOX broadcast portion of the schedule concludes with the All-Star Race. Prime Video returns for a five-race stint that starts with the Coca-Cola 600 and ends with the new street course race at Naval Base Coronado.

The five-race TNT segment of the schedule, which includes the well-received In-Season Challenge, begins at Sonoma Raceway and features both the homecoming to Chicagoland and points event at North Wilkesboro before concluding at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Starting at Iowa Speedway on Aug. 9, after a week off, NBC and USA pick up the coverage for the last 14 races, including all Playoff races culminating with the Championship 4 event at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 8.

The three elimination races in the Cup Playoffs remain the same (Bristol, Charlotte ROVAL, Martinsville), with Phoenix moving into the Round of 8 and Las Vegas hosting the second race in the Round of 12.

Innovation isn’t confined to the NASCAR Cup Series. Both the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts will return to Rockingham Speedway for back-to-back races on Easter weekend (Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4, respectively), while the Cup Series has the week off.

“I think we saw an incredible fan response with the return of the Rock, coming back last year, really highlighting the drivers in those series…,” said Jusan Hamilton, NASCAR’s Managing Director of Competition Operations.

Both the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and CRAFTSMAN Truck Series will race at Naval Base Coronado as part of a tripleheader NASCAR weekend.

“With the return of Ram in 2026 to the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, being able to have them out there in that Southern California market along with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, a three-wide weekend…,” Hamilton said.

“I was just out there in San Diego last week meeting with our partners and our folks at the Navy, and the excitement level in the community, even around Coronado, just knowing NASCAR is coming to town next year has been incredible.”

In addition, the Truck Series will compete as part of a doubleheader with the IndyCar Series on the street course in St. Petersburg on Feb. 28. The Trucks also will return to the road course at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut on July 11.

“St. Pete joining IndyCar with the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, that’ll be the first street course in the 30-year history of the Truck Series when they race here, so really the first two street courses for the Truck Series will take place in 2026 between St. Pete and San Diego,” Hamilton added.

With Mexico City absent from next year’s schedule, the Cup Series will experience the net loss of one road course, from six to five. Nevertheless, Kennedy says NASCAR remains committed to establishing an international presence.

“Yeah, we’d love to be both north of the border and south of the border in the future and potentially beyond that at some point,” Kennedy said. “We’ve had a handful of conversations with a few groups north of the border interested in a national series race. We haven’t been able to deliver that yet.

“But I would say that is something that we’re taking a look at as we think about 2027 and beyond. We have some good relationships up there. I think the good news is we have experience bringing both our O’Reilly Series and our Craftsman Truck Series north of the border with a handful of promoters.

“Nothing to report today, obviously, but something that is high on our consideration set for ’27.”