{"id":160991,"date":"2025-09-16T14:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/160991\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T14:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:17:09","slug":"2026-indycar-schedule-phoenix-weekend-with-nascar-laguna-seca-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/160991\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 INDYCAR Schedule: Phoenix Weekend With NASCAR, Laguna Seca Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/personalities\/bob-pockrass\" class=\"contributor-wrapper pd-t-b-10 flex\" data-v-2958d9fc=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758032227_838_bob_pockrass.png\" alt=\"Bob Pockrass\" class=\"contributor-headshot\" width=\"36\" height=\"36\" data-v-2958d9fc=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Bob Pockrass<\/p>\n<p>FOX Motorsports Insider<\/p>\n<p> <\/a>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Three new venues \u2014 two already announced \u2014 highlight the changes in the 2026 INDYCAR schedule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Oh, and a different season finale as well. Kinda.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">The 17-race season \u2014 with each race televised on FOX \u2014 begins March 1 on the streets of St. Petersburg and then goes to Phoenix Raceway on March 7, which will be a Saturday race the day before the NASCAR Cup Series event on the same 1-mile oval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Phoenix is one of three new venues. The other two \u2014 a race on the streets of Arlington (March 15) around the complex that includes the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers stadiums and a race on the streets of the Toronto suburb Markham (Aug. 17) to replace the event at Toronto\u2019s Exhibition Centre \u2014 already had been announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">The season ends at Laguna Seca, where the series finished its season in 2019, 2022 and 2023. The race at Nashville moves to July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">In other schedule notables:<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;The Indianapolis 500 \u2014 the 110th running of the world&#8217;s most notable automobile race \u2014 is set for May 24.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;The season kicks off with three consecutive race weekends (St. Petersburg, Phoenix and Arlington), takes a weekend off and then goes to Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. That gives the start of the season four races in a five-week span, compared to 2025, where the first four races were spread across 10 weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;The Nashville race will be a night race and will follow the World Cup final July 19 on FOX. The race distance will increase from 300 miles to 400 miles. It is one of at least two night races as the race at World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) also will run at night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;The event at Milwaukee is a doubleheader weekend with races Saturday and Sunday, Aug 29-30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;Four events are not returning to the calendar: The Thermal private road course, the Iowa doubleheader weekend (two races) and the race in Toronto that moves to Markham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;While INDYCAR did try to schedule a race in Mexico City, the deal did not get done for 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;The breakdown on types of tracks are six ovals (Phoenix, Indianapolis, WWTR Gateway, Nashville and Milwaukee doubleheader), six permanent road courses (Barber, Indianapolis, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Portland and Laguna Seca) and five street courses (St. Petersburg, Arlington, Long Beach, Detroit, Markham).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">&#8211;There is no race on the Aug. 2 weekend, which also is a full off-weekend for the three NASCAR national series as well as the National Hot Road Association, a rare summer weekend where none of the three major U.S.-based racing series will be off that weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">The 2026 INDYCAR Series schedule:<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">March 1: St. Petersburg streets<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">March 7: Phoenix (oval)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">March 15: Arlington streets<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">March 29: Barber (Birmingham)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">April 19: Long Beach streets<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">May 9: Indianapolis road course<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">May 24: Indianapolis 500<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">May 31: Detroit streets<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">June 7: WWTR Gateway (St. Louis)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">June 21: Road America (Elkhart Lake, Wis.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">July 5: Mid-Ohio<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">July 19: Nashville (oval)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Aug. 9: Portland<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Aug .16: Markham streets (Toronto)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Aug. 29: Milwaukee-1<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Aug. 30: Milwaukee-2<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Sept. 6: Laguna Seca<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-f2393c96=\"\">Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bobpockrass\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bobpockrass<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n        What did you think of this story?\n      <\/p>\n<p>       <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IndyCar.vresize.160.160.medium.0.png\" alt=\"NTT INDYCAR SERIES\" class=\"team-logo\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\"\/> Get more from the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more     <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Pockrass FOX Motorsports Insider Three new venues \u2014 two already announced \u2014 highlight the changes in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-160991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}