Latest news with #HomesteadMiami
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NASCAR makes right move with championship rotation, but which tracks will host?
It's rare for NASCAR to make a major announcement that receives near-universal approval from the officially licensed masses. But this one — rotating the season-ending championship race among a handful of tracks — was basically met with just one mild critique: Why weren't we doing this all along during the playoff era? Advertisement Can't fix that, but can find ways to take full advantage of a rotation that will begin next year with Homestead-Miami. And before moving on to the obvious looming question of how that rotation might look, let's tamp down any negative vibes regarding which tracks won't be part of the plan. The speedway in Homestead brings everything NASCAR wants in a season finale, including the big Miami market and scenes like this. THRU THE GEARS Joey Logano wins at Texas; Denny Hamlin tries to elect new pope First: Daytona. It's quieted down in recent years, but there have always been fans who wish NASCAR would bookend the season with two Daytona visits. Once NASCAR moved Daytona's summertime race from July to late August to end the 26-race regular season, such talk mostly died because the new setup seems like a great fit. Advertisement Maybe most importantly, as you likely noticed, quite a bit of hype surrounds the Daytona 500. It's a year-long cycle of promotion, ticket sales, sponsor sales, etc., that begins a serious ramping-up from season's end into February. A championship race would be much of the same. You don't put two major events at a venue within a few months of each other. And finally, Daytona is what we once called a 'plate-racing' track, and still is though with different technology than restrictor plates. Now we can call such things 'pack-racing,' or 'drafting tracks,' as the industry labels them. That type of racing is great for underdogs who relish the rare opportunity to contend, but not exactly great for determining a deserving champion. Advertisement Next on the no-fly list: Talladega and Atlanta, for the above reason. Geographically, both would offer good chances of decent November weather (and maybe decent chances of good weather!) but they're off the grid. Charlotte? It's a big and growing market and the weather should work, but they'd have to ditch the Roval because NASCAR indicates it's not ready to consider a road course for championship possibilities. Bristol and Darlington? Fun to consider both venues with a championship at stake, but the markets don't scream Big Event. Indianapolis? Enticing, but the weather is too dicey. Same with St. Louis and Richmond, at least for my thinning blood. The NASCAR championship rotation might look like this So how will that rotation look? Unless a new track sprouts in Southern California, where nothing sprouts without running an entrenched gauntlet of roadblocks, it will likely include all, or at least four, of the following. Advertisement Homestead-Miami. Phoenix. Las Vegas. Nashville. Fort Worth. Big markets all around and solid speedways, all between a mile and mile-and-a-half. Those five also offer a mix of tracks owned by the two biggest players: Daytona Beach-based NASCAR (Homestead and Phoenix) and Charlotte-based Speedway Motorsports (the other three). If the rotation will be four and not five, the best guess is one of the three Speedway Motorsports tracks will be excluded. And since they damn sure won't exclude Vegas, that would mean either Nashville or Fort Worth is bumped. But what about ... Riding shotgun with this discussion is how future Cup Series champs will be crowned at whatever rotation of locales is chosen. Advertisement Off and on this season, a new playoff committee is kicking around ideas for revamping a playoff system that's been revamped and practically overhauled since it came to life in 2004. Particularly, many are wanting something other than a winner-take-all in the final among four surviving contenders. No offense, but that's how Joey Logano became champ last year — kinda-sorta snuck into the final foursome and soared at Phoenix. A system that requires more than one great run at the very end is a better way to determine a worthy champ. But they won't go back to anything that brings the potential of a hot racer practically clinching the championship before the season's final green flag waves. That would basically defeat the purpose of all that discussion up above. Advertisement — Email Ken Willis at (This story was updated to add a video.) This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR news: Which tracks will host championship race after Homestead?
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
NASCAR to start rotating championship weekend in '26
NASCAR will switch gears and begin rotating the site of its championship weekend starting in 2026. Only two tracks in the past 23 years have hosted the season-ending tripleheader of title races: Homestead-Miami (2002-19) and Phoenix Raceway (2020-current). The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. As with the Super Bowl or Final Four, bringing the finales of the Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Truck Series to different locations will boost exposure in more markets. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Unlike those events, played on uniform fields and courts, NASCAR's rotation model potentially could transform the competition due to the varying lengths, surfaces and conditions of the circuit's tracks. "Having the playoffs be more unpredictable every year, the championship venue to be at a different location, I think gives you the ability to see different teams and drivers kind of rise to the occasion to be able to be crowned a champion," said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovation officer. Kennedy said 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami will host in November 2026, and that 1-mile Phoenix will also remain in the rotation, but other tracks will be announced later based on several factors. Advertisement · Scroll to continue "I would say it's four or five things," Kennedy said. "It's marketing and promotion, for sure, and it's location. We want to be in a warm-weather market. Ideally, being in November, that first week of November, it kind of limits you to the amount of races that you can run. ... I would say the quality of the facility. In Phoenix, we put over $100 million into the redevelopment of that track, and it was a big catalyst for bringing this championship to the West Coast. We're going to be putting a good amount of capital into Homestead as well ahead of the race. "The racing product, I think, is another big part of this. And then overall, it's just the entire industry's feedback on this. So we collaborate with our broadcast partners, our teams. We hear from our drivers what they think, a lot of our corporate partners, and then ultimately the fans, and the fans have a large voice in this, and we get their perspective on it every single year." Homestead-Miami track president Guillermo Santa Cruz called it an honor to be the first locale in the new rotation. "There's nothing like having that ability to be the first one up and to have that blank sheet of paper in front of you and say, 'OK, what are we going to do?' Then you start," he said. "As a creative person, I love that. I love that ability to do that. That's my favorite thing in the world." NASCAR's championship weekend this year will be in Phoenix from Oct. 31-Nov. 2. --Field Level Media Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Share X Facebook Linkedin Email Link Purchase Licensing Rights
