{"id":31833,"date":"2025-07-23T18:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/31833\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T18:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:32:13","slug":"san-diego-fills-one-spot-on-2026-nascar-cup-schedule-but-questions-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/31833\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego fills one spot on 2026 NASCAR Cup schedule but questions remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR\u2019s announcement Wednesday that it will race on a military base in 2026 filled one spot on next year\u2019s Cup schedule.<\/p>\n

But many questions remain. <\/p>\n

Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president, chief venue & racing innovation officer, said Wednesday that the 2026 Cup schedule should be out in \u201cthe next few weeks or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series will race on a military base in 2026.<\/p>\n

Here is what has been announced or revealed about the 2026 NASCAR Cup schedule:<\/p>\n

Feb. 1 \u2014 Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium<\/p>\n

Feb. 15 \u2014 Daytona 500<\/p>\n

May 24 \u2014 Coca-Cola 600<\/p>\n

June 21 \u2014 San Diego\/Naval Base Coronado<\/p>\n

Nov. 8 \u2014 Homestead-Miami Speedway (championship race)<\/p>\n

NASCAR recently announced that it will \u201cpause\u201d the Chicago Street Race and not hold it next year. NASCAR hopes to run that event again in 2027 but its absence next year leaves the July 4 weekend spot open on the NASCAR calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve looked at a handful of options for the July 4 weekend,\u201d Kennedy said in response to a question from NBC Sports. \u201c \u2026 Not sure exactly where it\u2019s going to land yet, but it is an important part of our schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

NASCAR will begin rotating sites for the championship race in 2026.<\/p>\n

The summer Daytona race had been the traditional home for the event on or near July 4 until that race was moved to the regular season finale in 2020. Since then, the July 4 weekend race for Cup has been at Indianapolis (2020), Road America (2021-22) and the Chicago Street Race (2023-25).<\/p>\n

Another key element with the schedule is how many street and road course races there will be.<\/p>\n

There are six this year: Circuit of the Americas, Mexico City, Chicago Street Race, Sonoma, Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps told drivers before the race: \u201cTogether, we are doing something that will be remembered in the history of our great sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2021, there have been at least five road course events on the Cup schedule. In 2021, there were seven such races. The Cup Series had two road course events (Watkins Glen and Sonoma) before the Charlotte Roval was added to the schedule in 2018.<\/p>\n

Brad Keselowski has been vocal in the sport having too many road course races, stating on social media earlier this month: \u201cWe went from 2 to 6 Road course races, Possibly 7 next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR was successfully built as a primarily oval racing series. IMSA was built as the primary road course series in North America. IMSA will always do road racing better than NASCAR and that\u2019s ok.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, TOO Many Road courses in NASCAR.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Cook<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This will mark the second year in a row that the exhibition event will be held at the historic track. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone in that feeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to do a couple a year,\u201d Erik Jones said this month on the optimal number of road course races in a season. \u201cI was totally happy running (Sonoma) and Watkins Glen. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m probably not the right guy to ask. I grew up as an oval racer. I didn\u2019t race a road course until 10 years ago for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opinion is \u2013- this car is not, just hasn\u2019t put on as good of a show on road courses that the old car did, to be frank. I think it is fun to go to different places, but I could see us doing (Sonoma), Watkins Glen and one street course. I think you would be hard pressed to find many that wouldn\u2019t agree with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know where this car puts on good races -\u2013 the mile-and-a-half stuff is great \u2013- there is plenty of those tracks that we can go back to that are sitting there and primed to race, so I would love to go back to some of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

NASCAR leaves open the option of the event returning in 2027.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said NASCAR is \u201ckeeping a pulse\u201d on the topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of feedback, certainly from our partners, from our fans, from the industry, teams and drivers on it,\u201d he said in response to a question from NBC Sports. \u201cI would say it\u2019s bit of a mixed bag. You have some fans that absolutely love the road course racing and would like to see more of it, and then you have others that, conversely, would like to see less of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it\u2019s really just finding a good blend. We feel like we\u2019re at a good number or around a good number right where you can still have the diversity of being able to go to a number of road courses, some historic ones that we go to, a street course or two, and then still keeping a majority of our events \u2014 and especially the ones during the playoffs \u2014 as to what fans would typically expect of traditional NASCAR racing and that\u2019s oval racing. We\u2019re proud of the product we put on from that perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that said, we\u2019re constantly thinking about it. We\u2019re evaluating it, something we\u2019re considering for the \u201926 schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR\u2019s announcement Wednesday that it will race on a military base in 2026 filled one spot on next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-31833","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\/31833","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=31833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}