Daytona International Speedway will not be among the tracks considered for NASCAR’s Championship Weekend, a senior executive said Tuesday.

So, no, the season won’t start and end at Daytona for those who suggest it.

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But what tracks could be considered for the season finale?

NASCAR announced Tuesday that Homestead-Miami Speedway, a 1.5-mile track, will host the season finale for Cup, Xfinity and the Craftsman Truck Series on Nov. 6-8, 2026. Homestead hosted Championship Weekend from 2002-19.

NASCAR Championship Weekend moving to Homestead in 2026

NASCAR will begin rotating sites for the championship race in 2026.

Phoenix, which has hosted the title races since 2020, will be among the tracks that will rotate to host the season finale.

Ben Kennedy, NASCAR executive vice president, chief venue & racing Innovation officer, said not to expect Daytona International Speedway to be among the tracks in the rotation for the Championship Weekend. He said the focus is on short tracks and intermediate tracks where NASCAR will crown its champions.

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“Never say never, but I think we’ve unanimously agreed that (the title race) needs to look and feel like what we would expect traditional NASCAR racing to look and feel like,” Kennedy said. “So short tracks, intermediate tracks, mile tracks are all on the board. Superspeedways, I think, we all feel right now we wouldn’t consider that as a championship venue, not that Daytona isn’t a championship-caliber venue.

“… We want to make sure that when we go to Homestead-Miami or Phoenix or wherever it might be in the future, that there is a lot of strategy and that a lot of our championship drivers are also contending for the victory at the end of that race.”

Homestead holds a special place in NASCAR with its many memorable moments

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From Jimmie Johnson’s record-tying seventh Cup title to Chase Elliott becoming the youngest Xfinity champion, Homestead has witnessed much through the years.

Kennedy also noted that road courses fall into a similar category as superspeedways in not being a candidate to host a championship event.

That would eliminate the following tracks from consideration: Daytona, Talladega (superspeedway), Atlanta (Superspeedway-style racing), Circuit of the Americas (road course), Sonoma (road course), Watkins Glen (road course), Charlotte Roval (road course) and Mexico City (road course). This is the third and final year of the current contract for the Chicago Street Race and no extension has been announced.

NASCAR will look at other factors in selecting its host for the championship weekend.

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“As you think about a championship race, ideally a warm weather kind of climate location,” Kennedy said. “You can’t race everywhere in the world, especially in early November, so there’s a handful of venues and properties that we tend to gravitate towards.”

Other tracks likely eliminated because of weather or some other factor would be Michigan, New Hampshire, Pocono, Dover, Indianapolis, Iowa, Richmond and World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis.

Darlington likely would not be considered because the Southern 500 is traditionally held on Labor Day weekend. NASCAR knows the wrath of fans with taking that race off that weekend and won’t repeat that.

Nashville Superspeedway, a 1.33-mile concrete track, could tap into the city’s excitement but the track is about 30 miles from the city and also could use additional facilities.

Winners, losers from NASCAR Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway won by Joey Logano

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A look at the winners and losers from Sunday’s Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Martinsville would be intriguing but weather could be an issue and the limited number of suites at the historic track, along with not being in a major city, would be factors.

Bristol has the facility to host a championship race but the weather in early November could be a question.

If the NASCAR season could end in mid-October, then that could give stronger consideration to Bristol — and others. But how to end the season early will be difficult in coming years, especially if the NFL adds an 18th regular-season game and moves the Super Bowl back a week into when the Daytona 500 typically is. That would affect the rest of the series schedule. NASCAR already tried mid-week races and TV viewership was not strong enough to continue that.

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Among tracks, along with Phoenix and Homestead, that could be considered to host the season finale would be:

— Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile track that has hosted a playoff race since 2018 when it started having two Cup dates.

— Texas Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile track that hosted playoff races from 2005-23.

— Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile track that has hosted playoff races since 2004 but weather could keep it from hosting the title race unless the end of the season is moved up.

— Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile track that hosted playoff races on the oval from 2004-17 before the playoff race was moved to the track’s Roval. Any finale there would be on the oval.

Kil-Kare Raceway will soon have a new owner.

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The historic raceway was sold to the International Hot Rod Association.

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Kil-Kare was first built by the Marshall Brothers and first opened up as a 1/5-mile dirt track in 1951.

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The quarter-mile dragway opened in 1959, which made Kil-Kare a premier facility for both stock car and drag racing.

Recent improvements to the drag strip include an all-concrete racing surface with concrete walls, an Accutime timing system, bigger staging lanes, restroom facilities, and concession stands featuring the popular brick oven pizza.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

Christy LaCurelle, president and CEO of the Motorcycle Industry Council, sat down with Powersports Business and chatted about her new role with MIC and the roots of her career in the powersports industry. Next, we discussed MIC’s Powersports Capitol Hill Fly-In program, which helps organize meetings with Congress members to address critical issues impacting MIC members’ businesses and the overall industry. And finally, LaCurelle touches on MIC’s role in getting lawmakers to reintroduce legislation to fully fund the Recreational Trails Program.

PSB: You’ve been on board now as president and CEO of MIC for a little over six months now, how are things going?

Christy LaCurelle: Overall, what I’ve been most impressed with is what a great team was already there at the association. I have the best team to work with. Our members have been great. There’s been a lot of different opportunities to connect with them, and they’ve been great and helpful, and everybody loves this industry, and they want to see it succeed. That’s so clear by the passionate statements that I get from everybody asking, ‘how can we help.’ Everybody just wants to see powersports stay successful.

PSB: What’s your background in the powersports industry, you were at KTM originally, right? What was your involvement there?

LaCurelle: I worked in marketing, motorsports marketing specifically – so a lot to do with racing, which then trickles over into the sales departments and R&D efforts. It was great to be there because you kind of get to touch base with a bunch of different departments. But my first job in powersport was at a cycle salvage yard. The owner of a new parts store owned a salvage yard too, so I split my time between [the two]. He wanted me to do the salvage yard stuff so that I would learn about the different parts and bikes. It was a big learning experience for sure. I was just a young kid that loved motorcycles. I didn’t know a whole lot about selling parts.

PSB: So, tell us about the fly-in you just did. Who did you meet with? Was it a good turnout from the industry side?

LaCurelle: For just over 10 years now, MIC has been doing a fly-in every year where we invite our member companies to come out to Washington, D.C. with us and we organize meetings with different members of Congress — on the House side and the Senate side — and talk about important issues that are impacting our industry.

This particular year, we had 28 member companies join us, which was about 40 people that came out. We scheduled 95 meetings with members of the House and the Senate all in one day. It was a lot that crossed over 27 states. And this year we saw a bunch of head nods, a bunch of agreement with our issues. There wasn’t anybody that we talked to that was against any of the points that we had that are impacting our industry, and that’s a good place to be in. We had a lot of positive feedback and, of course, the No. 1 issue was tariffs.

PSB: Right, tariffs have been a hot topic here lately. I know you were in D.C. just at the height of the tariff discussion, so what was the reaction of the people that were there?

LaCurelle: Well, we joked that it couldn’t have been more perfect timing. When we scheduled this a few months ago, we didn’t know that the tariff announcement would happen the week prior to us being [in D.C.], but it ended up being perfect timing because we were one of the first groups to come through and be able to talk to them about the most recent [tariff] announcements. They were very open to hearing about our industry and understood that trickle-down effect that happens to every layer of our industry and then, ultimately, to the consumer.

A lot of the members we have, they’re not at all opposed to having more manufacturing here in the U.S. But I mean right now it is very fast and chaotic and without a lot of explanation. What we’re asking for is can there be a pause — and luckily there is right now — so that everyone can properly prepare for how this might impact the industry. Because right now, the way it’s going is very detrimental to our industry and we must stand up and fight for this, and the best way is really [through] these grassroots efforts.

PSB: You’re also promoting the industry by getting more people out riding by protecting and maintaining land access, can you touch on some of those things?

LaCurelle: We just sent out a press release about RTP, which is the recreational trails program. This is probably the single best program that has ever come for the OHV community. There is this gas tax that you pay — about 18 cents — on every gallon of gas that goes into this Federal Highway Fund, and it really goes back to the paved roads and things we drive cars on. But, in 1991 there was a group of people that said ‘hey, everybody that’s filling up their off-road motorcycles, ATVs and side-by-sides, they’re putting in tax too. Couldn’t that go to trail maintenance?’ And so, [legislators] agreed that it should. Since then, there’s been a portion of money that goes every year into this RTP fund, and it’s split 30% for motorized trails, 30% for non-motorized trails, and 40% for mixed-use.

It’s been a great program, but it’s currently funded at $84 million a year. A study showed that we pay $281 million into the fund from the off-road products we’re using and filling up with gas. We just had a group of senators, about seven of them, currently co-sponsoring a bill that is asking to increase the amount of money up to what we’re actually putting in.

The 2024 season was one Harrison Burton would like to forget about quickly.

The 24-year-old NASCAR driver finished 16th in the Cup standings, leading to his departure from Wood Brothers Racing. He did have a win at Daytona International in the Coke Zero 400, but as he put it, “by that point, it’s too late.”

That win was just one of his two top-10 finishes last season, but with a fresh start in the Xfinity Series, Burton has found it again.

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Harrison Burton, center right, celebrates with the championship trophy after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

This season, now as a member of AM Racing, he already has six top-10s, including each of his last three races.

“That was the best landing spot for me to be a better racecar driver, go to a team that really was rebuilding from square one,” Burton told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “They saw a vision to rebuild around me and had to put the ball in my court and said, ‘hey, if you want to drive for us, we’ll kind of help put a team together that you are a part of.’ So that was really fun for me to kind of build this thing up and take a team like AM Racing that had all the want and will in the world to go contend and lead and run well.

“Right now, we’re sitting inside the playoffs, we’re starting to get some momentum going, and I think it’ll just get better and better and better. So it was a great opportunity to kind of go back, rebuild up my stock a little bit.”

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Fans now have an opportunity to get a closer look at Burton, as he’s featured in Netflix’s “Full Speed,” which, like “Drive to Survive” and “Full Swing,” gives a full behind-the-scenes look at the ins and outs of NASCAR and its athletes.

“Just the concept and idea behind ‘Full Speed’ is something that when I heard the first season was coming out, it was super cool and I think good for our sport and good to get more knowledge about what we do out there and the people that are in our sport out there and all that was awesome,” Burton said. 

“The thing that’s so hard to explain to people is if I pick up a football or basketball, I know I’m not an NFL or NBA guy – it’s apparent pretty quick. There’s no racecar for you to go drive to see what we do. And so, the best way to kind of explain it and do all that is get the media out there and get an inside look at what it’s really like, and I think that is super cool and what’s a good opportunity about this documentary in general.”

Now, Burton wants fans to see him inside the winner’s circle again. Of course, that is not easy in NASCAR, with fields of dozens of drivers, and only one of them truly happy every Sunday.

NASCAR Cup Series driver Harrison Burton, #21, during the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway. (Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images)

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“It’s hard. It’s such a hard mental battle, right? It’s like golf in that way where, you know, you’ve got all these other people, and you’re not 50-50 odds to win the game. You’re one in 40, maybe even longer depending on the day. It’s tough,” Burton said. “It’s always hard to evaluate [success], but the biggest thing for me is progress. 

“Did I get better? Did I do a better job here? Am I a better racecar driver going into next year? Everyone wants to win, but it’s about, what are you going to do to win? What are the sacrifices you’re going to make or the work you’re going to put in to win? There’s no blueprint to success other than that. That’s the biggest thing. and what is, you know, the sacrifices you’re gonna make or the work you’re gonna put in to win? That’s the biggest thing.”

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Morgan & Morgan, America’s largest injury law firm, has renewed a multi-year, multi-race partnership with Richard Childress Racing. Morgan & Morgan first partnered with RCR in 2023 to become the first race team trial injury law firm sponsorship within the NASCAR Cup Series. The partnership has grown based on shared interests in cause marketing and an innovative approach to business.

Morgan & Morgan’s first race with RCR in 2025 will be with two-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Kyle Busch, who will race the No. 8 Morgan & Morgan Chevrolet at the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on August 31, 2025. The race will air live on USA Network beginning at 6 p.m. EST.

“Richard Childress Racing has been an incredible partner to us for the past two years, and we’re thrilled to be able to extend our partnership,” said Dan Morgan, Managing Partner of Morgan & Morgan. “RCR and their drivers share the same values and passion that we do as a firm in giving back to the community, and we’re excited to continue to work together. We know that Kyle has some of the best fans in NASCAR, and we’re excited to see him continuing to represent Morgan & Morgan on the track beginning with Darlington Raceway in August.”

“We pride ourselves on innovative partnerships and look forward to continuing our relationship with Morgan & Morgan,” said Richard Childress, chairman and CEO of Richard Childress Racing. “The firm’s family focus and commitment to the communities they serve aligns well with the way we operate our team. We value their support and look forward to building additional success together.”

For more information and to learn more about all that is going on at RCR, visit rcrracing.com.

RCR PR