Mission accomplished. For the ninth straight year, ahead of the Coca-Cola 600 and Memorial Day Weekend, Charlotte Motor Speedway\u2019s Mission 600 set out to honor the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces by pairing Coca-Cola Racing Family and other drivers alongside units from different branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Defending Coca-Cola 600 winner Ross Chastain and Coca-Cola Family Racing drivers Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Daniel Suarez and Joey Logano visited with and trained alongside military to educate the NASCAR community about the day-to-day lives of the men and women who serve. This year\u2019s campaign included a mix of in-person and virtual visits spanning from Arlington National Cemetery outside of Washington D.C. to military installations in North Carolina, South Carolina and as far away as Lithuania.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on the eve of Memorial Day, it\u2019s never lost on us the significance of the Coca-Cola 600 and our opportunity to honor everything that the military does,\u201d said Charlotte Motor Speedway President and General Manager Greg Walter. \u201cThe impact we make when we bring these drivers out for Mission 600, it\u2019s really special to see how these interactions can reshape their perspective. Drivers who may only see the military during pre-race, are able to interact with them on a more personal level and see how they work to protect our freedoms; it\u2019s a special connection point for our sport to the military.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a recap of the 2026 Mission 600 campaign:<\/p>\n
April 22: Chase Elliott visited Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort<\/p>\n
Elliott toured the flight line and was treated to an aerial demonstration of the famed F-35B. He took part in a hands-on demonstration on loading inert ordnance onto the cutting-edge machines and saw first-hand how crews work together \u2013 like a NASCAR pit crew. Following lunch with Marines in the Officers\u2019 Club, Elliott climbed into the cockpit of a state-of-the-art F-18 simulator to try his hand at a series of maneuverability and dogfighting exercises.<\/p>\n
April 29: Defending Coca-Cola 600 winner Ross Chastain lays a wreath of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier<\/p>\n
Continuing its annual tradition for the defending Coca-Cola 600 race winner, Charlotte Motor Speedway hosted Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain, team owner Justin Marks and a group of Coca-Cola partners and supporters to kick off Military Appreciation Month with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery<\/p>\n
May 7: Austin Dillon and teammate Tyler Rader trained alongside members of the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg<\/p>\n
Dillon and Rader took part in live-fire exercises with a variety of weapons systems, including SIG Sauer pistols, M4 carbine rifles and an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). They also fired an M119 Howitzer and simulated paratrooper drills at the installation\u2019s 34-foot jump tower before testing their aviation skills in high-tech simulators used to train pilots to fly AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters.<\/p>\n
May 12: Joey Logano connected via zoom with U.S. Army V Corps\u2019 Project Flytrap, based in Lithuania<\/p>\n
While separated by more than 4,800 miles \u2013 or roughly the distance of eight Coca-Cola 600 races \u2013 Logano and the unit found a lot of common ground in discussing technology, teamwork, the power of preparation and leadership.<\/p>\n
May 14: Daniel Suarez and crew chief Ryan Sparks wrapped up this year\u2019s Mission 600 visits with a trip to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base<\/p>\n
During the visit, Su\u00e1rez and Sparks visited the Aircraft Maintenance Qualification Program, trained on F-35 Stealth Fighter and F-22 Raptor virtual reality simulators, discussed physiology and training for fighter pilots and drove an Explosive Ordinance Disposal robot. The pair also visited with more than two dozen airmen at Seymour Johnson AFB\u2019s USO center.<\/p>\n
CMS PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mission accomplished. For the ninth straight year, ahead of the Coca-Cola 600 and Memorial Day Weekend, Charlotte Motor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-679030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}