NASCAR fans rejoice!
The end of the NASCAR racing season is returning to Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2026…at least for next year before playing musical tracks to end the season.
On May 6, NASCAR made the announcement that next season the triple header championship races would be moving from the one mile track at Phoenix Raceway back to the 1.5 mile track of Homestead-Miami Speedway in southern Florida November 6-8.
The remainder of the 2026 racing season will be announced later in the summer; but for now we know where it begins – Daytona – and where it will end – Miami.
After that, NASCAR will rotate among a few tracks.
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Venue and Racing Innovation Officer Ben Kennedy spoke on the move saying, “this has been a while coming. It’s been since 2019 since we’ve had the championship race at Homestead. We moved it out to Phoenix for the past several years, which has been great for us. It’s been an amazing market. We’ve seen some great racing there, and we’ve crowned some of our biggest champions, but we’re excited to go to Homestead-Miami Speedway. I can tell you from a few people that I’ve talked to so far across the industry, through our partners, they’re over the moon about it. And from our fans, it’s the number one asked-about championship venue as well. So we’re excited to finally get the news out there.”
NASCAR ended the season at Homestead-Miami from 200 to 2019; Tony Stewart became the first driver to win a championship at HMS – his first of three championship wins at the south Florida track.
Homestead-Miami was also the sight for all seven of Jimmie Johnson’s championships. Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski also won championships at HMS.
Speaking on Homestead-Miami, Kennedy said, “I think it’s really a racer’s race track. … I think the beauty of it is its age now. The asphalt continues to wear every single year it bakes in the sun. There’s a ton of sand, and it’s really turned it into this multi-groove race track. You see drivers will start in the bottom, they migrate to the middle, some of them will go to the top, so I think it’s going to put on some really exciting finishes for our championship and I think it’s going to be fun to see the drivers’ reaction from it, too.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway president Guillermo Santa Cruz said, “the kind of racing that this track puts on, we talk about it all the time. Here in Homestead, the track is the star, and that’s something that we lean into in our messaging, but also it comes from the drivers. They’re the ones who tell us that, and they’re the ones who really go on about how much they enjoy the racing here. In my 10 months here, as I’ve traveled around the country, I’ve met drivers, people in the industry, crew chiefs, spotters, things like that, and I hear it regularly — love Homestead, love the track, and it’s because of the kind of racing that we put on, and that makes a big difference.”
He added, “you know, certainly there are many factors in determining where the championship goes — location, weather, all that goes into that. But certainly, the kind of racing that we put on, the kind of racing that takes place here is unique, and it’s top-level.”
Phoenix Raceway will continue to host two races including the Round of eight cut off race to determine the championship four.
Phoenix will be among the tracks that will host the championship race in the future.
Kennedy noted, “every time I’ve gone to Phoenix over the past few years that we’ve had our championship race there, Julie and then Latasha have built such strong relationships with the city and a lot of local community leaders to have this race transcend the Phoenix market in a different way. If you go into that market, whether it’s the local activations, the promotion that you see in and around the Phoenix area and out toward the track, it’s really unparalleled to what we’ve seen in the past. So it’s been great, and for that, we wanted to continue to have them in the playoffs, later on in the playoffs and in that Round of eight.”
Homestead-Miami is scheduled for some renovations and upgrades before the championship race returns to south Florida.